Instinct, an AI assistant valued at $2.5 billion, has launched a new feature that can create and manage email addresses on users’ behalf. According to founder Noah Shinn, these addresses will allow Instinct to open accounts, communicate with businesses and handle tasks requiring follow-up without filling users’ inboxes. Users will be able to get their addresses through mail.instinct.com; some addresses have been reserved for initial users.
Users will be able to forward the information needed to complete a task to Instinct’s address. For example, when an order confirmation is forwarded for a product return, the assistant can contact the support team, submit a return or exchange request and send the return label to be printed to the user. Instinct can also be added to group email exchanges to keep track of shared information, or summarize lengthy conversations and identify decisions that need to be made and task deadlines. It will follow up when user input is required and handle tasks independently in other cases.
The company says this system could reduce the need for users to share their login credentials or intervene in transactions. However, it is also said that it could make it unclear to businesses who they are dealing with.
The new feature is part of Instinct’s recent updates. Last week, the company partnered with 1Password to support logging into existing accounts. The location-sharing feature enables users to find nearby businesses and restaurants, create routes and ask questions about their location history. Through its partnership with Stripe in August, Instinct also improved the payment experience for travel, course and appointment bookings, as well as shopping.
Why it matters
This feature expands the role of the AI assistant beyond responding to user instructions, turning it into an intermediary that directly contacts external services. It could reduce users’ need to share their login credentials and constantly monitor correspondence, particularly in processes involving multiple steps, such as refunds, reservations, appointments and account-related transactions. This change concerns not only users with crowded inboxes but also businesses that need to understand who is handling support requests; it may become harder to distinguish whether the other party is a person or an assistant. Alongside Instinct’s updates in location, payments and account access, the key question that remains is at what point user intervention will be required in automatically executed transactions and how businesses will respond to this communication.
Background
Viral is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 2 news articles mentioning the name in the last 90 days; the latest is dated September 12, 2026.