In a world that’s quickly filling up with AI-generated content material, a startup known as First Voyage desires to assist folks keep away from all of the AI slop blasted their method and as a substitute construct the habits they need. And it’s doing that by means of an AI companion app: Referred to as Momo Self Care, the app provides a digital pet known as Momo that you could care for, and in return, it’ll remind you to finish habit-building duties.
Customers can arrange reminders for what duties they need to full, and Momo will remind you of them. Just like the hit productiveness app Focus Pal, Momo additionally rewards you with cash for finishing duties that can be utilized to buy objects inside the app to additional customise the pet. Customers can even discuss to Momo about self-care, and the AI companion will suggest habits and duties based mostly on what you need to obtain.
“Momo helps customers turn out to be the perfect variations of themselves, and customers reward Momo with care, affection, and cute equipment,” co-founder and CEO Besart Çopa advised TechCrunch.
On Monday, First Voyage stated it had raised $2.5 million in a seed funding spherical from a16z speedrun, SignalFire, True International, and different traders.
Copa stated Momo customers have already created greater than 2 million duties on the platform, and the preferred habits relate to productiveness, spirituality and mindfulness.
However with the wave of AI apps and toys hitting the market, to not point out the burgeoning affect of AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude and Grok, there’s growing concern that these new, so-called “companions” can result in extra hurt than good.
Çopa, for one, believes that relationships between AI characters and people will solely enhance within the subsequent few years. Nevertheless, he famous that the growing variety of AI apps geared toward wellness and self-care is at the least higher than people who goal base urges.
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“We’re joyful so many founders [and] startups are working within the AI self-care wellness house as a substitute of constructing waifus,” he stated, including that the “personalization functionality of AI will take the influence of those relationships to a different degree.”
He famous that Momo has baked in security guardrails, resembling immediate filters to be sure that conversations between the AI and customers keep inside applicable boundaries.
The recent money from the fundraise will likely be used to assist launch Momo on the Android app retailer (it’s already accessible on iOS). The First Voyage workforce additionally hopes to make Momo extra clever in the way it interacts with folks.
“We hope Momo and the group round it turn out to be a defining shopper model that makes use of the perfect of AI, animation, and gamification to enhance as many lives as attainable,” Çopa stated.
