A major part of the product centers on proactive recommendations rather than simple chat-based assistance. If the system notices a break between meetings while a user is near a park, for example, it may suggest taking a walk before the next appointment. If a friend previously mentioned dietary preferences in a message thread, Poppy can use that context when recommending restaurants for a planned brunch.
Users can also interact with the app through direct messages, asking it to handle tasks similarly to a personal assistant. Poppy can monitor flights, notify users about schedule changes, and send reminders for recurring activities such as medication schedules.
The company was founded by Sai Kambampati, a former software engineer at Humane who studied human-computer interaction during his Master’s program in Computer Science. Kambampati said his interest in “ambient computing” and systems that anticipate user needs helped shape the product.
“I’ve always been interested in challenging what computers are able to do, especially the idea of ambient computing and computers that can proactively sense what you need and anticipate your needs,” Kambampati told TechCrunch. “That’s something that I found very, very exciting. And I felt like with all the AI technology that we’re seeing around us, it has never been more possible to embark on something like this.”
Poppy currently relies in part on cloud-based large language models, though the company says stored user data is encrypted and that it uses a zero-retention policy when interacting with external AI systems. Kambampati said he hopes future versions of the product can eventually run primarily on-device as hardware improves and smaller AI models become more capable.
“My hope, my dream is — within two to three years from now, when our devices have much more powerful compute, and the models get much smaller, cheaper and more high quality — eventually we can have all of this running on our own devices, and there won’t even be a need to hit the servers,” he said.
The San Francisco-based startup has raised $1.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Kindred Ventures. Angel investors participating in the round include DeepMind’s Logan Kilpatrick.
This analysis is based on reporting from TechCrunch.
Images courtesy of Poppy/Second Nature Computing.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
