Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Noah Shinn - Building Instinct: The Personal Agent - [Invest Like the Best, EP.493]

1736 snips
Sep 28, 2026
Guest
Noah Shinn
Noah Shinn, founder of Instinct, is building a personal AI agent that can text, call, email, and act online. He explores surprising uses, from wardrobe planning and financial cleanup to travel and reservations. They discuss agent-to-agent coordination, earning trust with sensitive data, ad-free incentives, security, compute costs, and a future where software collapses into one simple interface.
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INSIGHT

Agents Can Replace First Come Reservations

  • Agents can change commerce by continuously searching and matching user priorities instead of making users compete through first-come interfaces.
  • Restaurants could prioritize birthdays and anniversaries while users receive better access to meaningful occasions.
ANECDOTE

One Sentence Can Book An Entire Trip

  • Instinct users already generate more than $1 billion in annual transaction volume, with travel accounting for half.
  • A single request such as “I need to be in New York tonight” can trigger flights, hotels, rides, preferences, payment, and calendar coordination.
INSIGHT

Agent Trust Compounds Through Small Permissions

  • Trust develops gradually as users observe an agent handling increasingly sensitive tasks.
  • After three weeks, 40% of users had shared a credit card, and sharing one sensitive item correlated with 80% retention.
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