Martha Stewart is entering the AI software era in the most Martha Stewart way possible. She joins the co-founder team of Hint, an app that leverages AI technology to manage tasks related to home maintenance and management. Launching today, the Tips app allows homeowners to tackle maintenance schedules/tasks, energy management challenges, learn about soil and air quality, review insurance claims, and more.
It also serves as a repository for various contracts, files, and invoices related to the home and its maintenance, which can be queried through the built-in AI assistant.
Kyle Rush, co-founder and chief technology officer of New York-based Hint, said the home and hospitality empire’s founder lives nearby and is “deeply involved” in the startup, but is not a financial investor.
“She’s a real co-founder with a significant stake in the stock and actually works for the company and the app. She’s not a celebrity. I see her about twice a week,” he says. “We sit down and look at the app, and she sees what the app says. If I’m wrong about the soil, I say it, and if I’m wrong about something about the house… she mentions it, comments on my design, my branding, my language. And she’s, I would say, very involved.”
The startup started in 2024 as a tool to help people navigate decarbonization incentives related to housing, but realized there was further potential in expanding its use cases.
“We quickly realized that maybe this couldn’t be AI for the home. People don’t really have apps to manage their homes…so we just pivoted,” Rush says.
The app joins other companies in the AI ecosystem working to extend AI beyond chatbots and apply technology to solve real-world problems, while adding Martha Stewart’s personal expertise to refine the experience.
To start using Hint, users enter their home address and the app creates a profile of their home from public data such as property records, weather and soil information, and utility bills. Users can upload documents such as inspection reports, home warranties, mortgage documents, contracts, insurance policies, and invoices.
From this data, you can learn about the soil beneath your foundation and how it may affect lawn drainage and foundation risk movement. You can also learn about the air quality around your home and how climate and drought information can affect your chances of flooding, home insurance rates, energy usage, and more.
Homeowners can then upload photos of their home’s major appliances, allowing the app to guide them through “how-to” questions and other maintenance tasks.
This can be surprisingly revealing, as many people don’t know about the small tasks involved in maintaining their appliances.
For example, you may know to change your refrigerator’s water filter, but did you know that some models require you to vacuum the coils from time to time to prevent a fire hazard? Do you know when to flush your water heater or check the salinity level in your home’s well?
Hint’s personalized home maintenance schedule sends push notifications in advance about what needs your attention and when, meaning you don’t have to remember these things. This schedule evolves with the home, leveraging our understanding of the home itself, its systems, and the macro environment.
This is where Martha Stewart’s decades of home management experience comes into play, having guided app development in critical areas. Additionally, homeowners can use tips to add one-time tasks to their maintenance plans. For example, a reminder to replace a broken window screen, re-caulk your baseboards, or anything else that comes to mind.
Tips also display an overall “home score,” which gives you an at-a-glance number that tells you how well you’ve managed your home so far.
Meanwhile, Hint’s in-app AI chatbot lets you ask questions about your home and documents. That means you can ask simple questions like when was the last time you had your air conditioner serviced, or complex questions like how much do you pay for electricity per kilowatt-hour or whether a HELOC is a good idea to leverage your home equity?
The app also guides you through questions related to homeowner’s insurance, such as whether your deductible is too high, whether you lack coverage, and whether it makes sense to file a claim for repairs.
Prior to founding Hint, Rush led engineering during the growth phase of mattress startup Casper and served as CTO at online retailer Maisonette. Prior to that, he built technology for both President Obama’s and Hillary’s presidential campaigns. Co-founder and CEO Yih-Han Ma, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, previously served as SVP and GM at Red Ventures, a digital media and technology company.
Rush said the idea for Tips came about when he became interested in applied AI technology and how it could be leveraged in a more practical way by the average homeowner. Under the hood, Hint uses commercial libraries (mainly those from OpenAI) and Gemini for image processing.
The plan is to keep Hint’s AI intelligence free and then add a premium subscription that can introduce power user features such as managing additional properties. The app currently generates affiliate revenue from a network of service provider partners, which Rush says is firewalled from AI to ensure recommendations are unbiased.
Hint (the company name is a combination of the “H” in “home” and “Intelligence”) is backed by $10 million in funding from investors including Montauk Capital, Brian Kelly (The Points Guy), Slow Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Energy Impact Partners, Amplo VC, and Hannah Grey.
The iOS app is currently available for free without subscriptions or ads. “We want this product to be in the hands of every homeowner in this country,” Rush says.
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