5 BI staffers who put AI agents to work share what worked and what went wrong

I downloaded Instinct two weeks ago and chose a very simple task to start with: Remind me to call my mother (she worries).

My whoa moment: Instinct jumped to my aid when I told it I needed a new torque wrench for my bike. After a simple prompt, Instinct came back with four options: a cheap one, a mid-priced option, and two higher-end versions — all with links and a pro/con list.

In the two weeks I’ve been using it, Instinct has created an itinerary for a weekend trip I’m taking next year, booked tickets for my daily commute into London, and secured me a refund on an $80 subscription I forgot to cancel after the free trial.

My yikes moment: This past weekend, I took a trip to Oxford, one of Britain’s most notoriously complex places to drive. Oxford is famed as a warren of one-way streets, traffic cameras, and tolls.

I asked my Instinct agent to pay the city’s congestion charge after I drove in. Instinct obliged, cross-checking my car’s model against the different emissions tiers for the charging zone, and sending me a confirmation that it had paid for two days at £4 per day.

As I touted how easy it all was to my AI-skeptical partner, she pointed out that the cost was £5, not £4. So I checked, and it turned out Instinct got it wrong — it had paid a similar but separate charge for a smaller area of the city. The charge was nonrefundable, so I was forced to swallow both my own pride and an £8 tax for trusting the robots. Lesson learned, even if Instinct tried to find a silver lining.