Hi team,
In case you missed it, the normies are getting AI agents. Maybe not your mom or my mom just yet, but this is getting considerably closer to people whose weekend plans don’t involve the words GitHub commit.
Between Instinct, Grok Bot, and Meta launching Muse, more people will have software that can actually handle something for them while they go live their lives.
If you think “using ai” is asking ChatGPT to rewrite an email, the world is moving fast. These agents can work across connected accounts and browsers, keep going after you step away, and, depending on the product, communicate through text or WhatsApp. Muse and Instinct can even make purchases through Stripe’s Link.
I’ve been using instinct for a few weeks, but in the last week or so, I have had a few experiences that made me wonder how drastically CX will change in the short term.
“Have your agent talk to my agent” is becoming a fairly reasonable household plan.
Let’s dive in.
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My dryer has representation now
Our dryer broke, and we had a warranty through Asurion. I gave Instinct the task of getting the claim handled, along with a photo of the appliance sticker.
It found last year’s receipt in my email, went to the warranty website, and encountered the requirement to file claims over the phone.
I have children and a job, so discovering that an appliance requires a scheduled conversation is generally where my enthusiasm for owning a warranty starts to deteriorate.
Instinct went into live chat and worked through it until the claim was accepted, the repair scheduled, and written confirmation arrived that there would be no service fee.
It even attached a screenshot of chat.
As a customer, I was delighted. As someone in CX, I started thinking about all the requests people never bother making.
Brands forecast support demand using behavior that already includes people giving up.
The small charge you never disputed, and the return you abandoned after discovering you needed a printer never became tickets. Those problems existed; your willingness to spend an afternoon on them did not.
Naturally, I started looking for other things I could hand over.
Save 15% or More on Your Car Insurance
I gave Instinct access to my Geico account, and it pulled my coverage, shopped around for the same coverage, and sent me a ready-to-pay quote at Allstate for same coverage that was priced 24% lower. That will save me $1,005 per year.
I understand that shopping around for insurance has always been possible. I also understand that I have spent years being technically capable of doing it while finding almost anything else to do instead.
There’s a meaningful amount of money sitting inside tasks people keep postponing. Once someone else can do the comparison shopping, more of those tasks become worth pursuing.
Agent, Pls Plan Date with My Wife’s Agent
I know, this is bleak… but Instinct also announced a Trusted Person network, where your agent can coordinate with the agents of people you’ve connected with. One possible use is having my agent talk to my partner’s agent to arrange a date night.
Having two virtual assistants negotiate when we can eat dinner together feels like peak Silicon Valley, although I would like to hear their position on finding a babysitter before dismissing the concept.
That feature is restricted to a trusted network. It doesn’t mean my agent can already contact every brand’s agent. But the coordination itself is becoming a product feature, which makes “have your agent talk to my agent” considerably less of a bit.
Check This Flight Every Morning
I was looking at flights to TLV for a wedding in November, and the round trip was $2,000. I asked Instinct to check daily and book if the exact same itinerary dropped below $1,400.
A week later, I received a United confirmation for $1,350.
Now my bot is checking my hotel reservation’s price every night, with instructions to cancel and rebook if a lower rate appears before my free-cancellation window closes.
I used to have time for this kind of thing. These days, remembering that I booked the hotel feels like a reasonable contribution.
From the hotel’s side, though, one reservation could now produce several changes without the guest spending their evenings refreshing a booking page.
Jevons Had a Point
In 1865, economist William Stanley Jevons argued that more efficient steam engines could increase Britain’s coal consumption. Getting more work from each ton made steam power cheaper and useful in more places, expanding demand enough to overwhelm the savings per engine. His original explanation is considerably older than anyone’s AI strategy.
AI creates the same possibility: as individual tasks become cheaper and easier, we find more things worth asking it to do. Checking a flight once becomes checking it every morning. Shopping for insurance graduates from something I should probably do to something that actually happens.
My bet is that support will experience its own version of this.
Think about the small charge you never disputed or the return you abandoned after discovering you needed a printer. Those problems existed, even though your willingness to pursue them expired somewhere between the instructions and dinner.
Brands forecast support demand using behavior that already includes people giving up.
An agent lowers the effort required to pursue those requests. Meanwhile, the brand is (hopefully) using at least some AI to make each interaction cheaper. Your cost per contact could fall while the number of contacts makes the original forecast look rather optimistic.
That doesn’t mean every queue explodes. A hotel rebooking may never generate a support ticket, and a properly resolved claim could eliminate several follow-ups.
It does mean I’d be deeply suspicious of a savings forecast that automates the brand’s side while leaving customer behavior conveniently frozen.
They’ll Still Need Permission to Do Something
My warranty experience involved Instinct working through the support chat. A future version could involve my agent contacting your agent with the receipt, order history, and relevant policy already available.
If your system can check eligibility and complete the appropriate action, that could be a great experience.
If it can only explain the policy and request patience, your team could end up overseeing two pieces of software exchanging increasingly polished messages about a refund neither has permission to issue. A tremendous moment for everyone selling tokens.
Someone still has to decide what can be approved and when a human needs to get involved. A vague response that previously ended the conversation because the customer got busy may now receive a follow-up.
What I Would Do Today
If I were running CX today, I’d test a few controlled requests against our own support experience using a personal agent. I’d want to see whether an eligible request reaches a resolution, whether an ineligible request gets an accurate explanation, and where either one gets stuck waiting for permission.
Then I’d watch completed resolutions and repeat contacts alongside cost per conversation. Handling messages cheaply won’t tell me whether the underlying work is getting finished.
I’m genuinely excited about handing over more of this admin. As a customer, I’ve already found several reasons to keep going.
If I were on the other side of those conversations, I’d leave some room in the forecast for everyone else discovering the same thing.
Have you handed an agent a customer service problem yet? I’d love to hear what happened, particularly if it got further than you expected.
That’s it for this week!
Any topics you’d like to see me cover in the future?
Just shoot me a DM or an email!
Cheers,
Eli 💛
