Poppy launches a proactive AI assistant for managing digital life

Smartphones have become increasingly overwhelming for many users due to the endless number of apps, constant notifications, emails, calendars, reminders, and messages competing for attention throughout the day. A new startup called Poppy is aiming to simplify that experience by bringing all of a user’s important information into a single AI-powered dashboard.

According to the company’s website, the idea behind the app is simple: “Poppy pays attention so you don’t have to.”

The app allows users to connect a variety of services and platforms, including email accounts, calendars, messages, reminders, and location data. Once connected, Poppy uses artificial intelligence to determine the most relevant information for the user at any given moment, based on their schedule, habits, and ongoing activities.

At a basic level, users can open the app or use widgets to quickly view upcoming meetings, tasks, reminders, and other important updates without needing to jump between multiple apps.

However, Poppy’s main focus is on its proactive AI suggestions.

For example, if the app notices a free 30-minute gap between appointments while the user is near a park, it may recommend taking a short walk or break before the next meeting. Similarly, if a user is planning lunch or brunch with someone who previously mentioned dietary preferences in messages or emails, Poppy can factor that information into restaurant recommendations.

Users can also interact with Poppy through messages and requests, treating it similarly to a digital personal assistant. The app can track flights, notify users of schedule changes, remind them to take medication, and surface important tasks and events before they are missed.

Sai Kambampati, a former software engineer at AI hardware startup Humane, founded Poppy. Kambampati said he has long been interested in the future of human-computer interaction and proactive computing systems.

“I’ve always been interested in challenging what computers can do, especially the idea of ambient computing and computers that can proactively sense what you need and anticipate your needs,” Kambampati said in an interview.

He added that recent advances in artificial intelligence have made these ideas much more practical than they were just a few years ago.

At launch, Poppy supports integration with a range of commonly used services and apps, including Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, iCloud Mail, Apple Health, Reminders, Contacts, iMessage, WhatsApp, Uber, Instacart, and more.

To access iMessage functionality, Poppy currently relies on a Mac companion app. That could potentially become an issue later, since Apple has historically restricted third-party access to iMessage services.

The company said user data stored in its systems is encrypted, and that it uses a zero-retention policy when interacting with cloud-based large language models for AI-generated suggestions.

Kambampati said the long-term goal is to move more AI processing directly onto users’ devices rather than relying on cloud servers.

“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 higher 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.

Poppy’s team is currently based in San Francisco and consists of four people. The startup has raised $1.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with additional backing from several angel investors, including DeepMind’s Logan Kilpatrick.