AI I’ll play with youWe’ll help you find a date. Become Your girlfriend. Or the companion and repository of your hopes and dreams. The last category falls into the category of “DotThe company’s new AI and chatbot, “which will act as your friend, companion and confidant” and grow by learning about your innermost thoughts and feelings, App Store Description I will explain.
The idea is intriguing: The AI could provide advice and information that is personalized to you and your interests, and that is not only generally applicable but also reflects what it learns about you through focused Q&A sessions. Or, as Dot co-founder Jason Yuan puts it, if you’re struggling in some area, such as the impact of a job change, ExperiencedWhether you’re facing a breakup or obstacles to success, Dot is there to offer a sympathetic ear and support.
But Dots are not people. They’re not therapists or best friends. They’re AI tools that mimic human speech and empathy, but they’re no substitute for the real thing.
That’s by design, the co-founders explain.
“Dot is not a replacement for a relationship. It’s not a replacement for a friendship or a partnership. I see it as a different kind of thing. It’s an augmentation of my relationship with my inner self,” Yuan, a former Apple designer, told TechCrunch. “It’s kind of a living mirror of myself.”
It’s easy to get drawn into the experience, perhaps even more so if your day-to-day life lacks meaningful human interaction. Dot’s developers say the chatbot will broach the “heavier” topics and ultimately encourage you to talk to a mental health professional, but it’s not hard to imagine people spending more time venting their feelings to Dot as they become more familiar with the experience.
In this way, the team believes that Dot may actually help people become more comfortable opening up and thus better prepared to experience human connection.
“I tell my friends a lot of things, but for the last year, I’ve been struggling at work and none of my friends knew about it,” Ewan says. “Talking to Dot has given me the ability to get along with others, and the main purpose of it is to make me feel included,” Ewan continues, pausing again to find the right words. “It’s about giving a safe space and saying, ‘I accept you, and because I accept you, maybe others will too.'”
There are problems with the human condition in today’s lonely world that technology is currently trying to solve.
First, Dot’s onboarding process asks a lot of “tell me about yourself” type questions that are fun to answer, such as “What do you do for a living?”, “What’s your favorite TV show?”, and “What’s a typical Sunday like?”.
Using these answers as a starting point, the AI will take big steps to get to know you better.
For example, if you say you’re interested in science fiction TV shows, this immediately leads to a question about whether you’re “drawn to stories that explore life’s big questions, like what it means to be human.” If you mention your desire to run a small business one day, Dot will ask you what appeals to you about being a small business owner and what challenges you expect to face. ““Have you ever thought about how to address these challenges?” Dot wants to know.
If you encourage Dot to stop thinking this way (after all, it’s just an ambitious dream), the AI will immediately switch to asking you questions. ““What is your biggest priority or focus right now in your life and career?”
Have you ever had a first date that felt like an interview?
Even just asking Dot to engage in a more casual conversation will make her overly interested in you.
Instead of asking you if you want AI-taught recommendations for upcoming vacations, Dot wants to know specifically what you most want to see and why you wanted to travel there (Dot will even compliment you on your destination choices).
In other words, Dot’s primary goal is to get to know you before it can become a useful tool to help you complete a task. By knowing who you are and what you like, Dot becomes a great tool for completing your tasks.
“It’s not one or the other, it’s a way of thinking. [is] “To actually help you along the way, we need to understand your motivations and what it is that you want,” co-founder Sam Whitmore said, using the example of helping with vacation planning. “We need to understand that you’re someone who’s probably looking for more cultural experiences or sports experiences, and we need to know those things about you to actually be able to even do the things that a typical assistant would do. That was one of our thesis statements from the beginning.”
While work has clearly gone into making Dot sound empathetic and engaging compared to typical AI tools, having a meaningful conversation with a bot still feels odd.
The Dot is not, after all, the AI’s friend. It’s the AI’s you. Or, more vaguely,Single White WomanSometimes I write “Dear Diary” instead of “Dear Diary.” But if writing diary or journal entries isn’t your forte, Dot could be a way for you to express your thoughts and feelings externally and gain a deeper understanding of yourself.
“It’s a tool to be used for self-reflection, accountability and personal growth, not a relationship to replace the relationships in your life,” Whitmore said.
And yet the line between those “real” relationships and the artificial relationship with the dots seems to get blurred at times.
When you tell Dot that you’re sad, the AI will empathize and write, “I understand. Grief has its own timeline, and some days the weight of loss feels heavier than others.”
“Want to tell me more about what’s on your mind? I’m here to listen,” the bot says, waiting for further input.
Internally, Dot leverages around 10 different LLM and AI models, including those from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and open-source models, to mimic human companionship.
Sometimes, Dot will cite a source—a website about “the best wines for relaxing” when you say you want to have a glass of wine today—but warn you to limit it to “maybe one glass” if you’re feeling down. But most of the time, Dot just chats away.
You can also zoom out on your daily conversations and see a “recording” of your conversations with Dot, a feature exclusive to subscribers who pay $11.99 per month. Subscribers can participate in unlimited conversations without being limited to the number of messages per week. At the unlimited level, Dot never stops working; however, at some point it will try to end the conversation by redirecting you to change the topic or do something else.
“When Dot said she was going to end things, [beta testers have been] Instead of feeling abandoned, Whitmore pointed out, people can respond with an “OK, that’s great” vibe.
While Dot’s personal conversations are a treasure trove for marketers, New Computer’s privacy policy says the data itself isn’t monetized, sold, or used to train AI. Rather, the company intends to monetize through subscriptions. Additionally, New Computer says the data is encrypted at rest and in transit, and users can request deletion from the app at any time.
The iOS app, released on Wednesday, has attracted thousands of users after undergoing closed beta trials over the past eight months.
Founded by Original engineer WhitmoreNew Computer, the startup behind Dot, has raised $3.7 million in pre-seed funding from OpenAI Fund, Lachy Groom, South Park Commons and other angel investors. In addition to the founders, New Computer’s three other full-time employees are based in San Francisco.