Instinct vs Poke: Which Texting AI Agent to Pick
Pick Poke if you want a texting assistant you can sign up for today, at a published price, that works through your connected apps. Pick Instinct if you can get an invite and want the agent that pushes hardest on real-world errands, using its own phone and computer to finish them.
Both live in your messages, text you first and read your email and calendar. They differ on access, price, how each gets a task done, and who owns it. If the messages you need handled come from clients, Carly is the third option, covered near the end.
Instinct vs Poke side by side
| Instinct | Poke | |
|---|---|---|
| Maker | Spear Street Technology, San Francisco (founder Noah Shinn) | The Interaction Company of California, part of Cognition since July 23, 2026 |
| Access | Invite-only early access since August 2026 | Open signup, available worldwide |
| How you reach it | Text or call it | Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram, RCS |
| How it does the work | Its own phone number and cloud computer, clicking through sites | Connected apps (Gmail, Outlook, Notion, GitHub, Linear), recipes and custom MCP integrations |
| Phone calls and errands | Instinct Concierge, in early access since September 16 | Poke Human, a real person, included with Ultra |
| Shopping | Shopify merchant search and Shop Pay checkout (announced September 28) | Shopping recipes; Poke Human places orders on Ultra |
| Price | No published price | Free; Pro $19/month; Ultra $199/month (monthly billing) plus pay-as-you-go |
| Training on your data | On by default, opt-out in settings | Used for training unless you pick Maximum Privacy |
| Funding or owner | $1B Series C at a $10B valuation, September 28, 2026 | Owned by Cognition, maker of Devin |
Where Instinct wins
- It finishes errands that have no app. Instinct works from its own phone number and computer, so it can log into a site, fill in the form and buy the thing. Early users report it negotiating bills, booking doctors and chasing ticket cancellations. Our guide to what Instinct is collects what people actually got done.
- It makes phone calls. Instinct Concierge books restaurants that don’t take online reservations, gets you on a dentist’s cancellation list and sorts out problems with your cable bill. It started rolling out to some users on September 16.
- Agents talk to agents. The new trusted-person network lets your Instinct coordinate plans and swap files with the Instincts of friends and coworkers, which helps with group trips and family logistics.
- Shopify checkout. Since September 28, Instinct can search Shopify’s merchant network and check out with Shop Pay using your saved payment and shipping details, rather than clicking through each store’s pages.
- Money for the long run. Instinct raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation from Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue. History in Instinct AI funding.
Where Poke wins
- You can use it today. Poke has had open signup with no waitlist since March 2026 and says it is available in every region. Instinct is still invite-only.
- You know what it costs. The free plan needs no credit card and never stops replying; past its allowance it keeps going in a lighter mode until usage resets. Pro is $19 a month and adds background automations and frontier models. Ultra is $199 a month, runs on monthly credits, and lets you top up with pay-as-you-go usage.
- More places to text it. Apple Messages, WhatsApp, Telegram and RCS, so Android users are covered too.
- It works through connections, not a browser. Poke reads and sends from Gmail and Outlook, plugs into Notion, GitHub and Linear, and lets developers add anything with an MCP server. Recipes turn a setup into a repeatable automation.
- A human for the hard stuff. On Ultra, Poke Human hands a task to a real person: reservations, phone calls, orders, rides. Expenses are charged at cost, and the operator sees only the details the task needs.
- A status page. Poke runs status.poke.com. When Instinct froze for many users on September 21 and 22, one told TheStreet there was “no status page, no email from the team.”
How each one gets a task done
Instinct acts like a person with a laptop. It opens websites on its own computer and uses them the way you would. That lets it do things no integration covers, and makes it trip over captchas, two-factor prompts and bot defenses. CNN reported that an investor’s Resy account was banned after Instinct pinged the site “hundreds of times every hour of the day” hunting for a table.
Poke acts like an app with permissions. It works through official connections to your email, calendar and the apps you link, so what it can reach is clearer and it is less likely to get your account flagged. When something truly needs hands in the world, Ultra sends a person instead of a bot.
For “book, buy, cancel, call,” Instinct reaches further. For “check my inbox, move this meeting, remind me Thursday,” Poke is steadier.
Privacy: both train on your data unless you say no
Instinct. The original terms, criticized in TechCrunch’s August 24 report, granted a perpetual, irrevocable licence over user materials, including for model training. The terms and privacy policy were rewritten on August 26 and that licence language is gone. Training is still on by default. You can opt out in settings, but the opt-out only applies going forward, and models already trained on your data stay trained. Data received directly from Google Workspace is excluded from training. Our longer account is in why people turned on Instinct.
Poke. Its privacy notice, updated September 11, 2026, says user data may be used to train its models, and that data from users who select Maximum Privacy is not. Since the Cognition deal, your connected email and calendar data sits with the acquirer, so that setting is worth checking. The deal itself is covered in Poke is joining Cognition.
Who owns them, and what that means
Cognition, the company behind the coding agent Devin, bought Poke’s maker in July and says Poke “works exactly as before,” with Cognition’s models coming underneath over time. The old onboarding, where new users haggled over their price with an AI “bouncer,” ended when Poke opened to everyone in March.
Instinct is independent and flush with cash, but has not said how it will make money, and its terms allow fees later. So part of the choice is a published price and a large parent versus a younger company with more ambition and no price yet.
If the texts are about work
Instinct and Poke are personal agents: one person, one thread, your own errands. Neither is built to be the assistant your clients deal with.
Carly works over text and email, and it is built for work. You set up agents by describing what you want in plain English, and each agent gets its own email address, so you can CC one on a client thread and let it take the back-and-forth from there.
- Scheduling with other people. Carly finds times across your calendars, sends the invites and handles reschedules.
- Work email. It triages the inbox and drafts replies in Gmail and Outlook.
- Workflows that start themselves. When an email lands, a calendar event comes up or a form comes in, the workflow runs in the cloud with no chat open.
- Your business apps. Carly connects to thousands of apps, including HubSpot, QuickBooks, Slack and Google Sheets.
Say a client emails Emily at 7am to move Thursday’s call. Carly checks her calendar, offers new times, sends the updated invite and texts Emily that it’s done. Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Get started with Carly.
FAQ
Is Instinct better than Poke? For errands that need a website or a phone call, Instinct reaches further. For a texting assistant you can join today, at a known price, working through your email, calendar and apps, Poke is the safer pick.
How much do Instinct and Poke cost? Instinct has not published a price, and its terms allow fees later. Poke is free to start, with Pro at $19 a month and Ultra at $199 a month plus pay-as-you-go usage.
Can I use Instinct or Poke on Android? Poke works over RCS, WhatsApp and Telegram as well as Apple Messages. Instinct is reached by text or phone call and has no mobile app yet; access still runs through invites.
Does Poke still make you negotiate your price? No. The AI “bouncer” that set prices during onboarding went away when Poke opened to everyone in March 2026. The pricing page now lists fixed Free, Pro and Ultra plans.
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"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
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