The launch of Meta's artificial intelligence personal assistant Muse has brought new excitement to the space, along with pain for the many businesses it threatens. But while Meta is the AI agent to beat for now, it's hardly the only game in town.
On Monday, privately held Spear Street Technology announced that it had closed a funding round valuing its AI agent Instinct at $10 billion from big-name venture capital firms Sequoia, Benchmark, and Coatue.
For context, that puts it in the same ballpark as established tech firms like Docusign, Instacart, Match, and cybersecurity firm SentinelOne.
The valuation is notable not only for its lofty figure, but also because Instinct only launched this year. It also shows how excitement is building over the potential for AI agents to catch on and further disrupt industries ranging from booking sites to delivery and ride-sharing services.
Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence estimated the potential market from those three sectors alone at $1 trillion in transaction value. If AI agents were able to route anywhere from 5% to 10% of that, that would generate more than $5 billion in revenue.
The catch is that Instinct is still in "early access," meaning most people can't actually use it until access expands.
When I tried to sign up for Instinct over text-you don't access it through an app like Muse-I got a message saying, "I'm not fully live for you yet," while assuring me that I'm on the wait list. "The moment a spot opens, I'll text you," Instinct added. Another work around is to get invited by someone who is already on the service.
Founded by 23-year-old Noah Shinn, Instinct "aims to make people's lives easier by understanding and handling the deeply personal nuances of everyday life," according to its funding release.
While it can book flights, hotels, and appointments like Muse, it also offers a "white-glove service" that includes making phone calls to do things like book a reservation for a restaurant that doesn't accept online bookings and get on a dentist's wait list.
It also attempts to address the many privacy concerns about AI agents by creating "isolated sandboxes, short-lived local credentials, and identity-signed tool execution." It's still early days for seeing how this will all shake out in the long term, but for now the excitement over agents like Muse and Instinct is undeniable.