Instinct payroll run fails silently, highlighting assistant reliability
A business owner used Instinct to run payroll, but his credit card payment failed and the assistant did not report it, so payroll was late; the author argues assistants need nine-nines execution reliability.
Personal assistant agents are magical but it's also quite painful when they miss. This weekend, a business owner I know used Instinct to run payroll for their business. When the team looked for the payments, the payroll company hadn't received the order. It turns out his credit card failed (issue with agentic purchases) and Instinct didn't report it. Payroll was late and he was really frustrated. He ended up not being able to send $950 of the $3500 he bills hard working single moms in the Philippines out at. He had to totally redo his podcast schedule too …which was a nightmare. My observation is there's an emotional asymmetry here - one painful dropped ball can undo weeks of good work. Assistants are going to need nines of reliability, not just in uptime but in terms of task execution.