I guess i've found my answer. Intrinsics are built-in to compilers. This means which functions are intrinsics is predefined so there is no language construct to hint the compiler that the function we wrote is an intrinsic.
For example; memcpy is an intrinsic funtion. If i were to write my version of it, say frkn_memcpy, i can't tell the compiler to make the same /Oi optimization it makes for memcpy. And if i name it memcpy instead of frkn_memcpy, it will cause a compiler error saying "intrinsic functions can't be defined" if i try to compile with intrinsic optimizations enabled.
Helpful reading
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/26td21ds.aspx