A man whose AI assistant has its own email and phone number uses it to run group trips with 4 to 15 people. It splits bills, gathers everyone's Venmo details, and runs signups for activities like horseback riding, so the organising work comes off his plate.
A presenter showed his AI 'Finch' planning a full Santorini trip for Oct 12–19 for him and his wife while his phone was face-down — returning flights, hotel, and rental car at a best-value total of $6,695, with AI asking for approval before booking.
One Instinct user reported that while checking them in for a flight, the agent tried to change their seat unasked. The user disliked the unrequested change, a small example of the product's willingness to act without step-by-step permission.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Type-B traveler Chelsea used her AI 'Sir Wiggles' (penguin avatar) to scan hundreds of saved Instagram posts, extract everything saved from Sardinia, and generate an itinerary — converting scattered saved content into a trip plan for the Sardinia leg of a month-long Italy trip.
A man used AI to plan a weekend trip to Vegas with elderly family, shortlisting dining and events around dietary restrictions. The AI also built a web app dashboard for the trip and handled the payment splitting: he told it what each person spent for the group, it kept running totals split three ways, and when a Venmo email arrived saying someone had sent money, it updated the balance sheet by itself.
A first-person account of testing the AI to fully plan and book a spontaneous trip without doing research: an open-ended goal (good food, beautiful stay, minimal effort). The AI compared destinations, flights, and hotels, noticed the author's saved Instagram folder for Mexico City, suggested ways to use points and travel benefits, and organized everything into a bookable plan — presented as Part 1 of a series.
Jared Lee was flying to New Bern, North Carolina, where his father may be dying, when delays at lunch told him he would miss his connection. His rental car was booked for New Bern airport. From the taco restaurant, he asked the AI to change the rental to a Charlotte pickup for the 4.5-hour drive. A couple of text messages later it was done: new rental, new confirmation. He estimates it saved him at least an hour of hold time, spent instead present with his wife.
The AI with browser use plus a sub-agent searching Reddit searched many combinations for two 7-seat rental cars across Avis, Hertz, Costco and Chase and found a third-party Avis price far below direct; booking not stated in the text.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
After SAS cancelled and moved a flight, the user rebooked at extra cost and lost prepaid food. The reimbursement claim sat undone for months until the AI searched the SAS emails and found confirmation that the food fees had already been refunded the same day — no claim needed.
Creator Jen Lehner says in an Oct 19 Facebook reel that Instinct proactively texted her that she had accidentally booked duplicate Southwest Airlines tickets for herself and her daughter out of St. Louis on both Friday and Saturday. She confirmed the booking, it was canceled in time, and she received a full refund saving approximately $1,200.
Threads creator hashtaglima had the AI watch a booked hotel reservation; when the rate dropped, the AI rebooked the exact same hotel, room, and dates at the lower price, saving $179 — and the creator verified the saving with the hotel itself.
The AI found the user a car ferry from Croatia to Italy, avoiding $2,200 in rental drop-off fees, booked and paid for it, pulled the plate and car model from the rental agreement, and confirmed he was insured for the voyage.
Ahead of a Nov 14 Disney cruise, he credits the AI with tracking the staggered booking milestones — excursions opening in August, online check-in, and a late-night Royal Gathering character meetup — so none of the windows are missed.
After missing a cinema showing of Lawrence of Arabia, he built a tool that scrapes the listings of most movie theaters in New York to show what is actually playing. He uses it often to plan weekend viewing and has caught 2046, Lawrence of Arabia and plenty of others with it.
His scheduled search looks 8 days to 12 weeks out for same day return flights from Stansted under £30, and checks Eurostar promo fares too. The point is the tobacco run: 200 cigarettes cost him about £150 at home and about £50 abroad, and he gets a day in a city he would not normally visit out of it.
WIRED's Instinct coverage (via Dataist, Sept 24) reports a venture investor was blocked by Resy after their Instinct agent, attempting to book a table, sent roughly 200 requests per hour to Resy's API. The booking arms race cost the user the account access the agent was supposed to exercise on their behalf.
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Jorden Tually (verified, 520K followers), answering a comment about visiting every country, explained he's been to 104 of 197 countries over 12 years and asked the AI for a realistic timeline. The AI interface analyzed his Instagram to determine his travel style, then generated a detailed month-by-month seasonal timeline starting in 2027 and projecting completion in December 2036, with an interactive world map showing visited countries in green and remaining in orange.
Jruss707 tested the AI on a Nov 13–18 Yosemite/Sage Lodge trip: the agent browsed the Sage website and completed the hotel booking using a saved Link payment method, found a Southwest flight from Sacramento using reward points (after the author pointed to a preferred flight), and arranged an AWD/4WD rental car from Bozeman.