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How to use Instinct AI: first requests, approvals and checks

This guide explains how to use Instinct AI after your account is open: what to text first, how to tell it where to stop and ask you, and how to check what it did. Instinct describes itself as a personal assistant you text or call, which uses a phone and a computer the way people do. There are no menus to learn, so most of the skill is in how you word a request. If you are not in yet, start with the Instinct AI app guide.

Checked against the official pages listed at the end, 2026-10-12. Instinct Tasks is an independent guide, not Instinct.

Start with a request whose result you can read

Your first request should produce something you can check, not something it does for you. A list, a table or a draft shows how Instinct reads your accounts before you let it act on them. Two good openers: ask it to find forgotten subscriptions on a statement and give you a keep, downgrade or cancel shortlist, or to turn a group chat into a spreadsheet without messaging the group.

Instinct's own examples on its homepage are errands: disputing a bill, sending birthday gifts, ordering groceries, booking doctor's appointments and planning a weekend away. All of them end with money spent or a message sent, which is why the next habit matters.

Put the approval point in the request

Instinct's terms say it may add safeguards or confirmation steps on some actions, but they do not promise those steps will catch every mistake. The terms also make Instinct your agent: agreements it accepts on your behalf bind you, and you are the buyer on anything it purchases. So do not rely on it to stop by itself. Say where it must stop.

A reliable pattern is to name the thing it is about to do and ask to see it first: the total before it pays, the draft and recipients before it sends, the new time before it changes a booking. Every task page in this guide includes a prompt written that way.

  • Spending: "Show me the option and the total before paying."
  • Messages: "Show me the draft and who it goes to before you send it, especially reply-all."
  • Changes: "Read the existing booking back to me first, then the new slot and any fee."
  • Agreements: "Check with me before agreeing to any offer, term or plan change."

What the Instinct AI personal assistant can reach

What it can do depends on what you connect. Its privacy policy describes Google Workspace access covering Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and Tasks, and says people may also give it payment details or logins for other accounts. Community reports collected here describe it reading WhatsApp chats, email inboxes and airline confirmations. Share the account a task needs, and keep sensitive ones out until you trust the results. For the general picture of the product, see What is Instinct AI?.

Check its work afterwards

Instinct's terms say its records of actions may not always be accurate and ask you to verify actions yourself. In practice that means confirming in the other service, not only in the chat thread: the booking in the airline or venue's own account, the sent message in your outbox, the refund on your statement. One public report in Process and reply to an email inbox describes a reply-all that upset recipients, which is the kind of slip worth catching early.

  • Ask for the confirmation number or link for anything booked.
  • Ask what it could not do or could not access, not only what it finished.
  • Check charges on the card statement within a few days.

Instinct AI assistant tasks to try next

Once a list-style task has gone well, move to one that ends in a single approved action. Each of these pages gives the public report it came from, a prompt with the approval step built in, and the limits.

Habits that keep it useful

  • One errand per message, with the details it needs in that message: dates, addresses, budget, account names.
  • Tell it what to leave alone, for example "do not message the group" or "use the official site only".
  • Turn off model training on your data at app.instinct.com/settings if you do not want it used, per Instinct's privacy policy.
  • Disconnecting an account does not delete what was collected; delete it at app.instinct.com/workspace.
  • Do not use it for financial, legal or medical decisions. Instinct's privacy policy says it is not a professional advisor.

Good first Instinct AI tasks

By category: Creative (1), Family (8), Food (9), Health (4), Home (22), Learning (1), Money (17), Privacy (5), Shopping (28), Travel (32), Work (19).

Questions about using Instinct AI

Does Instinct ask before it spends money?

Instinct's terms say it may require confirmation on some actions but do not guarantee it. Write the approval step into your request, such as "show me the total before paying".

What can Instinct AI do?

Instinct's homepage lists disputing bills, sending gifts, ordering groceries, booking doctor's appointments and planning trips. The task pages here add publicly reported errands, each with its source.

Can I undo something Instinct did?

Not always. Its terms warn that actions may not be reversible, so check bookings and messages in the other service and catch mistakes early.

Sources