Noah Shinn confirmed that more than 50% of transactions on the Instinct platform are travel-related. The Instinct founder made this statement in a recent podcast, noting that almost every AI demo features travel booking as the primary use case.
Shinn told investor Patrick O’Shaughnessy the invite-only service is nearing $1bn in annual transactions. He did not explain the calculation behind that figure.
“People who are not on Instinct use travel agencies (or sites) to book hotels or flights. What’s the benefit of that interface? They properly unify different hotel chains, airlines, and services, and present them in a nice way for users, who have the option to check out immediately,” Shinn said.
“I think there is a better experience with Instinct or other interfaces where users can say ‘Hey, I need to be in New York tonight; it’s urgent’.”
The platform is growing at 10% every day, with transaction volume rising at a similar rate.
Shinn also discussed how agents could handle restaurant bookings differently. He noted that most restaurants use a first-come-first-serve system that ignores special occasions. An agent could check restaurant sites every five seconds to inform users of available slots. Shinn hinted the company wants to reinvent reservations and give users preferential treatment.
“If you take restaurant reservations from scratch, from the user’s end, they want the reservation for a significant life event that they might have. And on the restaurant end, they just want they want interesting people. They want special occasions. They want to cater to those rather than, maybe, the local [person] who keeps, you know, taking up a table once a night [sic], and there’s no sort of special event there,” Shinn said.
Some observers pointed out that agents could lie about anniversaries and special occasions just to book a table. They also noted that some restaurants prefer local patrons as they are regulars and bring more business to the outlet.
Instinct raised $1bn in Series C funding on Monday at a $10bn valuation from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue. The 14-member startup is competing with Meta’s Muse and Khosla-backed Wajo in the personal agent space.
What it means
The data suggests the tool is solving a specific problem rather than acting as a general assistant. Users value speed and certainty over generic suggestions. The funding indicates confidence in a model that handles urgent, high-stakes tasks like travel and dining.
