Ever felt lonely and wished you had someone to chat with?
Former Tinder CEO, Renate Nyborg, has got you covered with her new startup, Meeno. This innovative venture, backed by a whopping $3.9 million seed round led by Sequoia, aims to combat loneliness with an AI-powered chatbot.
Meeno, set to launch its app in December, is not your typical AI chatbot. It's designed to be a "personal mentor", not a virtual girlfriend, boyfriend, therapist, or coach. The more you interact with Meeno, the better it gets at giving relationship advice. It even considers factors like age, ethnicity, and sexual orientation during setup to avoid biased conversations.
Nyborg's inspiration for Meeno came from her time at Tinder, where she noticed a prevalent sense of loneliness among young users, particularly Gen Z. Andrew Ng, the AI guru, suggested that large language models (LLMs) could be a tech-based solution to this problem.
Meeno is currently focused on launching on iOS first, due to the iPhone's popularity among teens and Apple's robust privacy tools. Early birds who sign up before January 31, 2024, get a year of Meeno premium for free.
AI chatbots are increasingly popular, with tech giants like Snap introducing them to young users. However, these chatbots can sometimes behave inappropriately, leading to user safety concerns. Meeno has assured users that it has a "complex proprietary conversation system" and additional guardrails around self-harm and suicide. Details on how it handles other sensitive topics, like hate speech, are yet to be disclosed.
In a world where loneliness is an increasing concern, Meeno's mission to provide a friendly, AI-powered chat companion is certainly a step in the right direction.
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