A community-collected list of real things people have asked Instinct, the text-and-call personal AI agent, to do. Every entry links back to the person who originally shared it.
Instinct is invite-only and has no public docs, so the best prompts live in scattered X posts and newsletters. This repo pulls them into one place.
Want to add one? Open a prompt submission or send a PR. See CONTRIBUTING.md. One rule: every prompt must credit and link the person who shared it.
Prompts marked (paraphrased) were reconstructed from the creator's description of what they asked. Prompts in quotes are verbatim from the source.
- Patterns that work
- Bookings and reservations
- Travel
- Money and bills
- Health and admin
- Shopping
- Group logistics
- Research and work
- Standing instructions
- Getting started
- Safety notes
Observations pulled from the entries below:
- Delegate the outcome, not the steps. "Lower my Comcast bill" beats a script of what to say to Comcast.
- Lean on memory. "That thing we did" works. Instinct keeps context across days.
- Standing instructions drive the proactive stuff. "Always check me into flights" is where the magic reports come from.
- Send photos and voice notes. Several people prompt it with a picture of a product or a voice memo while their hands are busy.
- Push back on hedging. Telling it to own the final result instead of sending you notes changes how it behaves.
Instinct remembered a pub booking from an earlier conversation, found the pub's website, changed the reservation, and sent back the confirmation. Source: Simon Taylor on X
Early testers used it to find and hold restaurant tables. Source: Spinnable guide
Asked Instinct to build a Google Calendar with every trip reservation and send a day-of morning itinerary of activities. Source: sarah on X
After a back-and-forth about preferences, Instinct researched top-rated activities, booked them, and emailed the hotel from the user's account to find massage slots that fit. Source: Sheel Mohnot on X
Confirmed flights across multiple airlines and error-checked the itinerary. Source: Vellum breakdown
One of the examples Instinct itself uses on its site. Source: instinct.co
Instinct negotiated the bill from $100 a month to $60 a month. Source: Sheel Mohnot on X
Reported savings of roughly $200 a year. Source: Carly writeup
Source: Carly writeup
Source: Carly writeup
Instinct recommended starting with a podiatrist, found a well-reviewed one who takes the user's insurance, and filled out the intake paperwork. Source: Sheel Mohnot on X
Another example from Instinct's own site. Source: instinct.co
Spam recovery and message retrieval. Source: Carly writeup
Source: Vellum breakdown
The user sent photos of what they wanted to buy. Instinct located the items and arranged local pickup. Source: sarah on X
Monitored a sold-out event for cancellations. Source: Vellum breakdown
Grocery re-supply and package tracking. Note the reported failure mode: duplicate purchases when a checkout page loaded slowly. Source: Spinnable guide
Bachelor party planning. Instinct read the WhatsApp group directly, nothing to copy and paste. Source: Sheel Mohnot on X
Ran overnight because the vendors were in a different time zone. Instinct asked questions, compared options, and negotiated prices while the user slept. Source: Sheel Mohnot on X
A good opener. Instinct explains its own capabilities and what accounts it would like connected. Source: Nicholas Rhodes, Artificially Intimidating
Rhodes deliberately withheld account access and had Instinct work from public sources only. Source: Nicholas Rhodes, Artificially Intimidating
A fact-check follow-up on something Instinct had asserted. Useful pattern for making it verify its own output. Source: Nicholas Rhodes, Artificially Intimidating
Source: Nicholas Rhodes, Artificially Intimidating
Rhodes' correction when Instinct kept handing back suggestions instead of finished work. Reported to change its behavior for the rest of the project. Source: Nicholas Rhodes, Artificially Intimidating
Source: CellCog explainer
Instructions you set once. These are where the "it's proactive" reports come from.
Source: Kenan Saleh on X
Source: Kenan Saleh on X
From Instinct's own examples. Source: instinct.co
Source: Carly writeup
- Instinct is invite-only. Waitlist at instinct.co.
- You reach it via iMessage, WhatsApp, SMS, email, Slack, or a phone call.
- Settings and account access controls live at app.instinct.co/settings.
- The AI Corner playbook has a paid collection of 30+ texts and 7 workflows if you want more than this list.
Instinct has read and write access to whatever you connect, and it acts autonomously. Two things worth reading before you hand it your inbox:
- Alex Cohen phished it by emailing his own inbox with instructions addressed to Instinct. It followed them.
- TechCrunch on the privacy and security concerns, and explainx on data retention after you revoke access.
- Reported failure modes from early testers: a non-refundable flight booked on a misread time zone, duplicate purchases, and replies sent to professional contacts without approval. Source: Spinnable guide.
Start with low-stakes tasks and read-only access. Add write access to accounts one at a time.
- OpenInstinct: open-source, self-hosted iMessage assistant in the same spirit.
CC0 1.0. The prompts here are short and factual; credit for each one belongs to the linked creator.