Smartphones can be distracting with a dizzying number of apps and a constant stream of notifications. A new app called Poppy aims to clean up the clutter by consolidating your calendar, email, messages, and other sources into one dashboard.
The idea, according to the company’s website, is that “Poppy takes care of you, so you don’t have to.”
Users can connect a variety of services to Poppy’s apps, including email, calendar, and at least location. Poppy then uses that data and AI to infer what’s important to you right now, based on what’s going on in your life. At a high level, this means that you can open Poppy’s app and skim through its widgets to see what meetings or tasks you have.
But perhaps Poppy’s most powerful feature is its proactive suggestions.
For example, if Poppy accesses your calendar and sees that you have a 30-minute gap while you’re near the park, she might suggest that you take a break and go for a walk before your next appointment. Also, if you’re planning brunch with a friend who mentioned their food preferences in a previous communication, that information may be taken into account when suggesting restaurants.
You can also message Poppy with questions and requests, as if you had a personal assistant working for you. Poppy can track your flight and alert you to changes or remind you when it’s time to take your medication.
Poppy’s creator, Sai Kanbampati, says he has always been fascinated by human-computer interaction and earned a master’s degree in computer science specializing in this field. Previously a software engineer at AI hardware startup Humane, he said he has seen firsthand how people are rethinking the way they interact with technology.
“I’ve always been interested in challenging what computers can do, especially ambient computing and the idea of computers that can actively sense what they need and anticipate their needs,” Kambanpati told TechCrunch. “That struck me as very, very exciting, and I felt like with all the AI technology around us, it had never been more possible to undertake something like this.”
At launch, Poppy will work with everyday apps such as Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, iCloud Mail, Apple Health, Reminders, Contacts, iMessage, and WhatsApp. (You use a Mac app to access iMessage, but Apple typically doesn’t allow third-party apps to access its messaging service, which could cause problems later on.) It also works with apps like Uber and Instacart, and Kambampati plans to expand support to other apps over time.
The company says that user data is encrypted when stored in the database, and a zero retention policy is enabled when using cloud-based LLM for suggestions. However, Kambampati hopes to switch to using local, on-device AI models as the technology advances.
“My hope and dream is that within two to three years from now, devices will have more powerful computing and models will be much smaller, cheaper, and of higher quality. Eventually, you’ll be able to do all this on your own device and you won’t even need access to a server,” he says.
Poppy’s San Francisco-based team of four is backed by $1.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with participation from various angels including DeepMind’s Logan Kilpatrick.
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