IO, the initial product from Eugenia Kuyda's startup Luka, was developed prior to the deep learning breakthroughs that eventually gave rise to today's large language models. "It still worked," Kuyda told TechCrunch during an exclusive interview. "It was pretty magical...but, of course, it's nowhere near what we have today."
Luka eventually evolved into Replika, the popular AI chatbot companion company. However, Kuyda stepped down as CEO of Replika last year to establish a new venture called Wabi.
The technology has finally aligned with Kuyda’s original vision for Luka, arriving just as new personal AI assistants such as Muse and Instinct promise to handle tasks ranging from inbox management to finding the best flight deals.
A launch video from 2015 shows Luka pivoting to @replika, demonstrating that Kuyda was building personal agents 11 years ago.
On Monday, Kuyda officially introduced Wabi to all users, a multiplayer personal AI assistant that operates as a messenger application. This platform allows users to maintain multiple agentic threads dedicated to distinct tasks and long-term goals. Within each thread, users can create and utilize custom applications, such as a weight-loss tracker within a health thread or an app displaying local children’s events within a family thread.
This launch represents a shift for Wabi, although Kuyda characterizes it as an evolution rather than a complete pivot. When TechCrunch previously covered the app's initial launch last year alongside its $20 million pre-seed round, it was described as a social platform for creating and sharing mini-apps with friends.
Over the past year, Kuyda noted that while users prefer personal software over "one size fits all" solutions in the App Store, they often lack the desire to spend time building these tools. With Wabi 2.0, the agent autonomously determines which apps to construct. Upon connecting the system to an email account, it automatically generates threads and apps to begin, allowing users to expand functionality by requesting custom apps or starting new threads.
"It’s doing what Instinct and Muse do, but it also has all these apps, which helps users do more stuff," Kuyda explained.
App-building is not Wabi's sole differentiator; Kuyda is also staking a bet on its multi-threaded, multiplayer design. Unlike Instinct and Muse, which consolidate everything into a single thread, Wabi prevents users from becoming overwhelmed by endless daily information. Kuyda argued that single-thread experiences inevitably degrade over time due to the sheer volume of context.
AI researchers have indicated that the longer an AI chatbot conversation continues, the higher the likelihood of hallucinations, context loss, or responses that trigger safety guardrails.
Furthermore, threads can be shared to function as group chats. "Today, all the agentic apps are just [conversations] between you and the agent," Kuyda observed. "I feel like it should be a lot more about bringing people together in a group chat together... I don't think anyone has yet cracked multi-player."
Kuyda demonstrated shared threads with her boyfriend and family. In the boyfriend thread, apps along the top help them connect, featuring a live music tracker, a daily relationship question, a restaurant suggestion list, shared calendar events, and a book club selection. Her family thread includes apps for tracking her daughter's schedule, finding kid-friendly events nearby, and a Japanese language quiz for her daughter.
Within any shared chat, users can share varying levels of personal information, from email and calendar data to bank account details. "So my partner can ask Wabi in the chat, 'Is Eugenia free next Thursday?' or 'Did she buy those tickets?'" Kuyda described. She emphasized that access is scoped to individual chats, and everyone in the group can see when personal information is requested.
Regarding privacy, Wabi is SOC 2 compliant, ensuring its data security controls have been independently audited. Kuyda confirmed that Wabi runs entirely in the cloud, with the majority of user data stored in the United States.
"My previous company Replika worked on AI that will make people feel...less lonely," Kuyda reflected. "To a degree, that is [in Wabi] as well. AI can bring people together, even when it comes to just helping you spend time better together in real life, whether it’s going out and seeing a concert together or finding the next book that you will read together."
Currently, Wabi is free to use, and the company has not finalized a business model yet. Kuyda mentioned that Wabi is currently in talks to raise additional funding.
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