Poppy starts with an active AI assistant to help organize your digital life

Smartphones can be distracting with their many confusing apps and constant stream of notifications. A new app called Poppy aims to organize the chaos by consolidating your calendar, email, messages and other sources into one dashboard.

The idea, according to the company’s website, is that “Poppy pays attention so you don’t have to.”

Users can connect various resources to the Poppy app, such as their email, calendar, and, at least, their location. Poppy then uses that data and AI to predict what’s important to you right now based on what’s going on in your life. At a high level, this means you can open the Poppy app or view its widgets to see the meetings or tasks you have on your plate.

But Poppy’s most powerful feature may be its practical suggestions.

For example, if Poppy has access to your calendar and sees that you have a 30-minute gap while you are near the park, it may suggest that you take a break and go for a walk before your next appointment. And if you’re planning brunch with a friend who’s talked about their food preferences in previous interactions, it might include that information when suggesting restaurants.

You can also send Poppy questions or requests, almost as if you had a personal assistant working for you. Poppy can track your flights and alert you to changes, or nudge you when it’s time to take your medication.

The producer of Poppy, Sai Kambampati, says that he has always been interested in human-computer interaction, as he obtained a Master’s degree in Computer Science doing special work in this area. Previously a software engineer at AI hardware startup Humane, he said he has seen firsthand how people are trying to rethink how we engage with technology.

“I’ve always been interested in challenging what computers are capable of, especially the concept of ambient computing and computers that can sense what you need and anticipate your needs,” Kambampati told TechCrunch. “That’s something I found very, very exciting. And I felt like with all the AI ​​technology we see around us, it’s never been possible for us to start something like this.”

At launch, Poppy works with everyday apps like Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, iCloud Mail, Apple Health, Reminders, Contacts, iMessage, WhatsApp, and more. (It uses the Mac app to access iMessage, which could later be a problem since Apple generally doesn’t allow third-party apps to access its messaging service.) It also works with apps like Uber and Instacart, and Kambampati plans to extend support to others in the future.

The company claims that user data is encrypted when stored on its database, and has a zero retention policy enabled when using cloud-based LLMs for its offerings. Over time, however, Kambampati would like to make the transition to using local, on-device AI models as the technology improves.

“I hope, my dream – within two to three years from now, when our devices have a very powerful computer, and the models become very small, cheap and of high quality – we can finally have all this functionality on our devices, and there will be no need to hit the servers,” he said.

Poppy’s San Francisco team of four is backed by $1.25 million in pre-seed funding led by Kindred Ventures, with various angels also participating, including DeepMind’s Logan Kilpatrick.