Smashing Launches Out of Beta with Surprising New AI Feature

From the co-founder of Goodreads Otis Chandler, Smashing has launched a new app for online readers on Thursday. The app uses AI to recommend the best articles and blogs based on user interests. It also features Smashing AI Questions to help you explore content more deeply. Chandler shared that the app offers a variety of AI prompts at launch, though not all will fit every news story. Options include a lighthearted "make it funny" prompt, and tools to simplify stories, create timelines, or present unconventional ideas to help you explore new perspectives. Users can also ask their own questions. Chandler: “I’ve enjoyed asking it to write a podcast script, then plugging it into Notebook LM to listen in the car.” With the app, users can also create multiple interest feeds to keep up with topics that matter to them, such as politics, investing, parenting, health, and more, including specific interests like companies, sports teams, crypto, or climate change. The app uses AI to recommend content based on users' reading habits, interests, and trending topics in the community through upvotes and downvotes. With the AI Questions feature, Smashing is also launching AI-powered Story Overview pages that group articles, blog posts, and social media posts on the same topic. Since its summer announcement, over 2,000 people have joined the waitlist, with thousands testing the beta version.  Chandler showed that the AI algorithms have improved a lot. Thanks to user feedback, a larger community of curators, and advancements in LLM technology.Smashing is available on iOS, with a web version coming soon. With this new update, the startup has raised $3.4 million in seed funding from various investors.