A mere month after securing a funding round that valued it at $2.5 billion, AI assistant startup Instinct has done it again—this time raising $1 billion from backers including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue, catapulting its valuation to $10 billion. Reports of the company's fundraising push surfaced earlier this month. On Monday, Instinct made it official in a press release, confirming the Series C round—a remarkably swift growth spurt for a company that only launched its invite-only service in August 2026.

These rapid-fire raises underscore the intense excitement surrounding a new breed of consumer AI agents. Unlike typical assistants that simply answer questions or chat, these agents can actually accomplish tasks on behalf of users—whether that means booking flights or dinner reservations, making purchases, paying bills, canceling subscriptions, conducting tedious research, ordering groceries, and much more. When given a task, Instinct operates using its own phone number and computer.

The company has recently introduced additional features, including a "concierge" service that places phone calls on your behalf—handy for scheduling appointments at places without online booking—and a "trusted person network" that lets one person's Instinct agent coordinate plans with their friends' agents.

But these capabilities come with a trade-off: some users are raising concerns about how much personal information they must hand over to AI agents to unlock such functionality. Instinct's original privacy policy drew particular criticism for overstepping boundaries, though it has since been revised.

Despite the viral adoption of its AI assistant, Instinct now faces fresh competition from Meta's own AI assistant, Muse, which boasts many overlapping features plus a system that integrates deeply with Meta's social products. This means Muse can handle much of what Instinct does, and also tackle tasks like monitoring and summarizing your Instagram DMs or Facebook Groups, keeping tabs on Marketplace listings, and more. These capabilities have propelled Muse to the top of U.S. app stores, where it has been downloaded millions of times.

Instinct, which relies on SMS and texting to communicate with users, has yet to release a mobile app. The startup also hasn't disclosed its user numbers or any growth metrics—but clearly its investors see something they like.

Instinct declined to offer interviews with founder Noah Shinn alongside the fundraising announcement, but shared a statement attributed to him: "We're building Instinct to be the best personal agent that can handle the deeply personal nuances of everyday life. This funding helps us bring Instinct to more people and continue building the future of personal AI. It's an exciting, creative time, and we're just getting started."