“One of the bigger insights that we had over time, especially after having built Replika, is that most people actually don't care that much about saving time. ... Look at the most popular apps, obviously, TikTok and Instagram. They're not there to save anyone's time.”
Equity · Startups & Venture · October 2026
Kuyda was explaining why her new company, Wabi, isn't built as a pure productivity agent. She argued AI should help people spend time better with people they love, and criticized the "my agent will talk to your agent" pitch as making people even more disconnected.
Transcript
…and understanding exactly what you're trying to get done, will build an app that you need. And you can always change it or prompt it or build another app, but you don't have to. And I think that's the main difference is that amount of productivity that we put into it with this evolution of the app.
…demo and one thing I thought was really cool, like you showed me your, you and your partner's chat. And then across the top of the chat, there was the different apps that related to, you know, your life and like what you two might want to talk about or whatever long-term goals you might be setting.
…the get-go. But I think one of the bigger insights that we had over time, especially after having built Replica, is that most people actually don't care that much about saving time. I mean, it's nice, but a lot of people really want to spend, you know, are looking to spend time, spend quality time, figure, you know, do things ideally without. Kind of spend the time you have well. And, you know, look at the most popular apps, obviously, TikTok and Instagram. They're not there to save anyone's time. And so to us, AI shouldn't just be about saving time. It should help people spend it better, doing more of what they love with people they love. We believe that AI agents should bring people together, not give people more reasons to spend time alone with AI. And what I saw that, you know, over and over again, like people are launching these AI products that are really focused on the…
Did you guys both come up with those apps yourself? Did you decide like, oh, these are the apps we want? Or is that something that the agent decided? Or is that something you guys were like, this would be fun?
Mostly, it's either us saying what we want to achieve, so more talking about the goal and not the app itself, or Wabi just looking into our shared accounts and saying, hey, like you seem like you guys are going on this trip. I made you a little widget to keep track of everything. Or it seems like…
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