Instinct personal agent
Ranked 9 of 26 AI agents by recommenders
People recommend Instinct for getting things done, like booking restaurants, but critics say it struggles with basic browser tasks and needs broad access.
People recommend Instinct for getting things done, like booking restaurants, but critics say it struggles with basic browser tasks and needs broad access.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 17
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 63%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 17 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Does many tasks for you
“it's better Instinct, a personal agent that can do all sorts of shit for you”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Sentience, create your digital self” “I'm very happy with it so far. It has booked some restaurants for me”
Comment from 9 Sep 2026 in “Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent” “quickly found some pretty compelling use-cases for it”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “Muse – Meta’s personal AI agent” Frictionless setup, quick to start
“Muse / Instinct were the first to do frictionless setup at scale”
Comment from 24 Sep 2026 in “Meta VR Glasses” “Now it took me 10 minutes on a Sunday”
Comment from 24 Aug 2026 in “Characterizing Agentic Flooding of Government Services” Proactively reaches out and engages
“got my parents to use instinct recently and now they talk to an agent than they talk to me”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 in “How to do ambitious things with AI (parent friendly)” “It proactively reached out to me to suggest I check on it.”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “Claude Duet”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unreliable at basic tasks
“basically completely useless. Fails at the most basic browser navigation type tasks.”
Comment from 29 Oct 2026 in “Claude Duet is the first personal-assistant-type harness that feels useful” “promises to do things for you, but doesn't understand what I want to do or why”
Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “Sentience, create your digital self” Broad permissions feel risky
“gave their Muse/Instinct/Poke/Grokbot access to everything they own deserves whatever happens to them”
Comment from 22 Oct 2026 in “Muse exposes users' personal and business secrets when they share conversations” “all the permissions I had to give it were scary”
Comment from 8 Sep 2026 in “The VMs Powering Mobile Agents (Instinct, Claude Code)” Opaque about security and behavior
“won't (or can't) describe the security model of something that has all your credentials”
Comment from 29 Sep 2026 in “Dots: Always-on agents” “Instinct and Grok bot are both prompted to hide details from you”
Comment from 6 Oct 2026 in “Meta’s Muse is an adorable privacy and security dumpster fire”
Other AI agents people recommend
The four most recommended other AI agents, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenClaw | 776 | 975 | 44% | 10 | 1 mo49 owners | — |
| Muse by Meta | 147 | 232 | 39% | 6 | 1 mo4 owners | — |
| Hermes Agent by Nous Research | 84 | 28 | 75% | 9 | 1 mo8 owners | Approved |
| Clawdbot | 69 | 99 | 41% | 3 | 1 mo7 owners | — |
| Instinct personal agentThis page | 17 | 10 | 63% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
23 of the 27 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“basically completely useless. Fails at the most basic browser navigation type tasks.”
“I have to often tell it "just do it"”
“got my parents to use instinct recently and now they talk to an agent than they talk to me”
“gave their Muse/Instinct/Poke/Grokbot access to everything they own deserves whatever happens to them”
“It proactively reached out to me to suggest I check on it.”
“I think we'll look back at OpenClaw/Hermes/Muse/Instinct in the same way.”
“why would that company (Instinct) be worth billions and how does that not resemble another Clubhouse moment for them?”
“Instinct and Grok bot are both prompted to hide details from you”
“with the enormous downside of vendor lock-in and low/none customizability”
“won't (or can't) describe the security model of something that has all your credentials”
“Instinct is the best of the 3 right now”
“Muse / Instinct were the first to do frictionless setup at scale”
“this actually sounds kinda cool”
“it's better Instinct, a personal agent that can do all sorts of shit for you”
“promises to do things for you, but doesn't understand what I want to do or why”
“Instinct contacted Oracle support for me and got movement on a ticket that had been stuck.”
“I'm very happy with it so far. It has booked some restaurants for me”
“It's clearly a fast follow to the current FOTM hype startup Instinct”
“quickly found some pretty compelling use-cases for it”
“all the permissions I had to give it were scary”
“its just three markdowns in a trenchcoat”
“for most restaurants, a general assistant is plenty”
“Now it took me 10 minutes on a Sunday”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.