Wabi launches Eugenia Kuyda’s multiplayer AI assistant

Eugenia Kuyda has launched Wabi, a free personal AI assistant that lets users organize work in separate threads and share them with other people. The launch comes 12 years after she presented an earlier conversational assistant, IO, at TechCrunch Disrupt.

IO was built by Luka, the startup that later became Replika. Kuyda said the chatbot worked, but was far less capable than today’s AI. She left her role as Replika’s CEO last year and founded Wabi.

Wabi works as a messenger app with multiple threads for different tasks and long-term goals. Users can create custom apps within a thread, while the assistant can also build apps automatically after users connect email. Examples include a health tracker or a tool for finding nearby children’s events.

Threads can be shared as group chats, and access to personal information is scoped to each chat. Wabi is SOC 2 compliant, Kuyda said. The service runs in the cloud, and most user data is stored in the U.S.

Kuyda described Wabi as an evolution of the startup’s earlier social platform. It raised a $20 million pre-seed round last year. Wabi is free for now, and the company has not settled on a business model. Kuyda said it is in talks to raise more funding.