Instinct founder said more than 50% of transactions on the platform are travel-related

Travel booking via AI agents will soon be a material improvement for everyone.

Instinct, an invite-only AI platform, facilitates over 50% of its transactions for travel-related bookings, according to its founder, Noah Shinn. The company is reportedly experiencing 10% daily growth in both users and transaction volume. Shinn stated in a podcast that the platform is nearing $1 billion in annual transactions, though he did not specify the calculation method. Instinct aims to improve upon traditional travel booking by unifying various services and offering immediate booking options, allowing users to make urgent requests like booking travel to New York on short notice. The platform is also exploring revolutionizing restaurant reservations by matching users with special occasions to restaurants seeking interesting patrons, potentially prioritizing such bookings over frequent local diners.

The high proportion of travel transactions indicates a significant market demand for AI-powered travel assistance, validating the utility of such agents for complex, multi-step bookings. This focus on travel may also signal a strategic path for AI agents to gain user adoption by tackling a common, high-value consumer need before expanding into broader, more commoditized tasks. The rapid growth suggests that users are readily adopting these new interfaces for planning and executing travel, potentially disrupting established online travel agencies and corporate booking tools.

Instinct's ambition to redefine restaurant reservations highlights a broader trend of AI agents moving beyond simple task completion to orchestrating complex social and commercial interactions. By aiming to optimize for user occasion and restaurant preference, Instinct is positioning its agents as sophisticated matchmakers in the hospitality sector. This approach, however, raises questions about AI's role in subjective decision-making and potential biases, as well as the ethics of agents fabricating special occasions to secure bookings.