Instinct, a Silicon Valley AI agent, can be contacted through WhatsApp or SMS and can read email and calendars, browse on its own and store passwords. An SRF journalist entrusted it with daily tasks for five days. Meta and OpenAI have also recently introduced agent-style services.
The agent handled several purchases, including children's tennis shoes bought at an online auction for five Swiss francs, water-softener salt and a case for the journalist's daughter. Because it could read email, it could see earlier purchases. The user could require confirmation before a final order.
Not every task worked. The agent failed to return an audiobook online and offered to contact customer service during business hours; the account does not say the issue was resolved. It moved a cloud subscription to a cheaper plan, unsubscribed from 70 newsletters, sent a reminder about a child's early kindergarten start, tracked a daughter's swimming-club schedule and compiled unpaid bills with QR codes once a week.
The journalist used it as a memory aid, allowing it to pick up appointments and information from incoming emails without a manually maintained list. It could not yet make phone calls. It had no access to the user's work email, smartphone or computer files, and did not know the credit-card number.
SRF digital editor Guido Berger said greater autonomy is central to the promise of AI agents, but advised against letting a broad audience give one access to its inbox. Email is a recovery point for many online accounts; access can help an attacker take over accounts and reset passwords. Agents also process a wide range of inputs, including messages, websites and PDFs, which can contain malicious instructions.
Berger warned that erroneous card charges or deleted emails are real possibilities and said it remains unclear whether a purchase made by an agent forms a valid contract. The journalist found the convenience tempting, but said the prospect of an assistant continually reading email and communicating or buying in the user's name was unsettling.