Hot AI startup Instinct has unveiled a new potential revenue stream: product recommendations. Unfortunately for the company, this development is already having a negative impact on some users.
Overnight, AI agents began pushing product suggestions to users as part of a new feature called Instinct Selection, an effort to curate personalized lists for users in areas like dining, travel, shopping, and more.
Founder Noah Shinn announced the feature’s debut late Tuesday, explaining that the idea is to partner with “local chefs, designers, architects, travel guides,” and more to bring a “human touch” to the product.
In other words, rather than relying solely on AI suggestions based on training data collected from around the web, the company is partnering with people to provide human-curated suggestions as well. (Instinct did not know who exactly the human partner was.)
“Next time you’re looking for a restaurant, Instinct lets you choose from a list hand-picked by chefs who know your area’s hidden gems,” Shinn wrote to X.
“If you want to find a new trail to explore, Instinct will suggest several routes that suit your tastes with recommendations from local guides. And if you want to add some color to your home, Instinct will find work from independent designers that fits your style, space and budget,” he continued. “Our goal is to provide world-class recommendations that are differentiated in quality from what can be found on the internet or produced by other chatbots,” he said.
However, the initial reaction to these seemingly one-sided product pushes was not entirely positive.
“I didn’t have to buy a carry-on, sunglasses, or a brimmed hat. That’s such a shame. At least make your own shopping list of the things you really need!!” Shruti Gandhi, general partner at Array VC, an AI-focused investment firm, wrote of X:
Another entrepreneur, Andrew Yang, admitted to X that he’s received product recommendations he didn’t ask for, which can be upsetting.
A third user, Chat Joglekar, founder of Business Buying Marketplace, wrote, “I had my first ‘wow’ moment with an AI assistant when Instinct started suggesting products to buy based on my emails and upcoming trips.”
The trick to making well-curated suggestions useful is to make sure they’re something the user actually wants, or at least a natural fit for the current conversation. This will make your assistant feel like they’re trying to be helpful, rather than trying to promote you.
When you receive product suggestions at random intervals, like Instinct, you want a great product that’s highly personalized. Otherwise, users will feel like they’re receiving spam.
It’s hard to imagine that this AI agent will be liked by users now that it’s competing with agents from big companies like Meta and now OpenAI, but these agents aren’t doing this.
Instinct did not say whether it currently makes money from these recommendations or plans to do so, but the feature appears to be suitable for some type of advertising, commercial, or affiliate activity.
TechCrunch has reached out to the company for further comment.
The product offering comes shortly after Instinct confirmed its latest funding in a $1 billion Series C round, valuing the company at $10 billion. The company has not yet disclosed how many people are actually using its product, a number that helps justify its valuation, but in a recent podcast, Singh said the agency processes transactions for users on a regular basis.
In the same podcast interview with investor Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Singh said the platform is approaching $1 billion in annual transactions through agents, more than 50% of which are travel-related.
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