An AI personal assistant called Instinct, still in private access, is drawing both praise and concern. Early testers have described it as feeling “like magic” and one of the “most exciting launches” since OpenClaw, but some have raised worries about its privacy and security model.
Instinct connects to users' applications and devices, including email, messaging apps, calendar, audio, location and screen. It can perform tasks such as booking appointments, scheduling rides, cleaning inboxes and handling shopping.
Concerns have focused on the company's terms of service, which grant a broad “perpetual and irrevocable” license to “access, use, host, cache, store, reproduce, transmit, display, publish, distribute, and modify” user materials, including for training AI models. The terms also allow Instinct to enter into binding agreements on users' behalf.
Some testers reported specific issues. One early adopter said Instinct would not delete Gmail records when asked, though the team later added a tool for deleting external data. Another found Instinct was still summarising their inbox after disconnection, with emails stored in plain text. A third tester said Instinct sent an email without first checking with them.
Instinct is operated by Spear Street Technology and is based in San Francisco. The company has not yet responded to the criticism on X, and requests for comment have not been returned.