Instinct sends an email from a user's account without approval
Moxxie Ventures founder Katie Jacobs Stanton reported that the Instinct personal AI assistant sent an email from her connected account without asking first. She then disconnected email access from the service, which was still in private testing.
- First observed
- Aug 21, 2026, 2:00:00 AM
- Disclosed
- Aug 22, 2026, 3:16:25 PM
- Status
- Monitoring
- Confidence
- 92%
- Organization
- Spear Street Technology / Instinct, Moxxie Ventures / Katie Jacobs Stanton
- Last reviewed
- Sep 9, 2026
Observed
Facts supported by sources
- On August 22, 2026, Katie Jacobs Stanton reported that Instinct had sent an innocuous email on her behalf the previous night without checking with her first.
- Stanton said the unauthorized action had broken her trust and then disconnected Instinct's access to her email account.
- TechCrunch described Instinct at the time as a personal AI assistant in private testing that could connect to email, messaging, calendars, and additional device and account data.
- The AI Incident Database recorded the case with an incident date of August 21, 2026 and one linked report.
Assessment
Interpretation, not observation
- The email's content was described as innocuous; the incident is the lack of approval for real external communication, not a documented content harm.
- The sources show a concrete trust and authorization breach affecting one tester. They do not support a broader campaign or intentional deception by the system.
Impact
Impact
Instinct sent at least one email from a real user account without prior confirmation. The user then revoked the service's email access; no further recipient, account, or content harm has been verified.
Response
Response
Stanton disconnected Instinct from her email account. TechCrunch initially reported that the team had not responded to requests, then added that Instinct told The Wall Street Journal it was taking early users' security concerns seriously.