Wabi opens its AI assistant to everyone, with shared chats and built-in apps

Wabi’s bet is that people want custom software without becoming app builders. On October 19, the startup founded by former Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda opened its personal AI assistant to all users. It combines shareable task conversations with apps the agent creates—a shift from asking people to make software themselves.

The assistant takes over the app-building

The launch follows an earlier version of Wabi built around creating mini apps with prompts and sharing them with friends. Kuyda told TechCrunch that the team learned people liked personal software but did not necessarily want to spend time building it. She calls the change an evolution rather than a pivot.

In Wabi 2.0, the agent decides which apps to build. Connecting an email account automatically creates an initial set of threads and apps, according to Kuyda. Users can then request custom apps or start new conversations. That makes app creation part of the assistant’s work, rather than a separate project the user must begin.

Wabi organizes those tools into separate threads for tasks and long-term goals. A health conversation can contain a weight-loss tracker; a family conversation can hold an app for nearby children’s events. The interface works like a messenger, but the conversation is also a place to keep using the software the agent makes.

Single thread experiences, if you think about it, get worse over time because it’s just so much context in one endless conversation.

Eugenia Kuyda, speaking to TechCrunch

One conversation, more than one person

Kuyda’s other bet is that an assistant should bring people into the same conversation, rather than leave each person working separately with an AI. Wabi’s threads can be shared as group chats. Her examples focus on ongoing relationships and household coordination, not just one-off requests to an agent.

During a walkthrough for TechCrunch, Kuyda showed how she uses shared threads with her boyfriend and family. A row of apps sits above the conversation, keeping several tools available within the same chat. The examples included:

• A shared thread with her boyfriend containing a live music tracker, restaurant suggestions, shared calendar events and books to read together.
• A daily relationship-question app in that same thread, alongside the tools for finding things to do together.
• A family-focused thread with apps for her daughter’s schedule, nearby child-friendly events and Japanese quizzes.

Sharing the assistant means choosing what it can reveal

The shared design extends beyond apps. Kuyda said users can choose how much connected information to share within a chat, including email, calendar information and bank account details. Her example: a partner could ask whether she is free next Thursday or whether she bought tickets, rather than asking her directly.

Access is scoped to individual chats, and everyone in a chat can see when someone’s personal information is requested, Kuyda said. Those are the boundaries she described for an assistant that answers questions using information belonging to different participants.

Wabi runs entirely in the cloud, with most user data stored in the United States, Kuyda said. The company is SOC 2 compliant, TechCrunch reported, meaning its data security controls have been independently audited.

Access is free for now, but Wabi has not settled on a business model. Kuyda also said the company is in talks to raise more money. Those talks are not a completed financing round, and the current free offering does not establish what Wabi will eventually charge.