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Singapore — When Bruce Yang first conceived Agnes AI, it looked like many other AI startups: a productivity tool, a smarter way to search, research, and create content. But as the platform evolved and users engaged with it in unexpected ways, Yang realized he was building something far more ambitious.
“It used to be seen as a productivity tool, just like how people initially viewed ChatGPT,” Yang explained in a recent appearance on the Convo AI World Podcast. “Now we are blending it into the social sphere. We want people not only to interact with AI, but also to interact with each other with AI assistance.”
That shift — from AI as a solitary tool to AI as a social medium — may define the next era of consumer technology. And Yang believes Agnes is positioned to lead it.
The intersection nobody else is building
The AI industry is crowded with competitors pursuing similar approaches. Yang sees a different opportunity — building AI that seamlessly integrates productivity and social connection in a single platform.
“Most AI products today ask users to choose: productivity tools or social networks,” he said. “We’re building something where both are equally native.”
Agnes is designed to bridge both worlds simultaneously — combining advanced AI capabilities with genuine social and collaborative experiences. This requires a rare combination of skills: deep understanding of social network dynamics combined with strong AI engineering. The team draws researchers from top institutions and brings both AI expertise and product development experience.
Group chat as the core experience
The clearest expression of Agnes’s social vision is Group Chat (CoVibe) — a shared creative space where users invite friends and collaborate with AI assistance in real time.
Within a CoVibe group, any member can tag @Agnes to generate slides, create images and videos, apply filters, research topics, or answer questions. Everyone sees the results instantly.
“This is how you see a lot of social features in our agents,” Yang said. “After launching on mobile, we saw huge growth. Within about two months we reached 3 million registered users.”
But Group Chat’s real power lies in a feature Yang considers Agnes’s strongest competitive advantage: memory.
“Group Chat with Memory gives us a huge advantage,” Yang explained. “If the system remembers what you said, your preferences, your tone, your past conversations — you’ll stay. Even if another app is technically better, memory creates attachment.”
He offered a simple analogy: “It’s like having a friend. You may meet someone ‘better,’ but they don’t know you like your real friend does. That’s the idea behind it.”
Agnes’s research team is investing enormous effort into making the platform’s memory system best-in-class — a technical challenge that combines agentic reasoning, context management, and personalization at scale.
The first AI-native generation
Yang’s conviction about social AI stems partly from observing his own daughter — a nine-year-old in Singapore’s gifted program who has already finished all seven Harry Potter books.
“She reads extremely well,” Yang said. “But when she responds to me on social apps, she never types — she always uses voice messages.”
This behavior, Yang believes, represents how the first AI-native generation will interact with technology. They won’t learn typing the way previous generations did. They’ll speak naturally, expecting AI to understand them perfectly.
“A lot of young audience outside Singapore — in Southeast Asia and larger emerging markets — may not even have laptops. Just a phone or even a smartwatch. Voice becomes their natural interface.”
This insight shapes Agnes’s product roadmap. Voice-first interactions, real-time collaboration, and social features designed for users who have never known a world without AI assistance.
“If we win young AI-native users — the first generation growing up with AI — we have a very strong chance,” Yang said.
Beyond productivity: The AI news feed
Agnes’s social evolution extends beyond chat. The platform’s Explore feature offers a curated news feed — but unlike traditional aggregators, the content is AI-generated and personalized.
“You will see more social features, deeper group chat improvements, a news feed fully generated and curated by AI, personalized content digestion,” Yang revealed. “And some features I can’t reveal yet — including hardware integrated with our group chat.”
The vision is comprehensive: a platform where users don’t just consume AI outputs individually, but share, discuss, and build upon them together. Research becomes a group activity. Content creation becomes collaborative. Staying informed becomes social.
The pricing philosophy
Agnes’s social ambitions also explain its unusual pricing strategy. While competitors charge for premium features like image generation, search reports, and advanced analysis, Agnes offers most features for free or with generous credits.
“It’s not that we don’t want to focus on monetization — we do,” Yang clarified. “But we believe we’re not good enough yet to confidently charge users.”
His logic is counterintuitive but deliberate: “If you look at the end game — 5 to 10 years from now — the best AI product won’t be the one with the fanciest features, but the one with the biggest user base.”
Agnes’s North Star metric is Daily Active Users (DAU). “If DAU goes up, everything else will follow — including revenue. There are many ways to monetize traffic.”
The strategy mirrors early social network playbooks: build the network first, monetize later. It’s a bet that social dynamics — not feature superiority — will determine who wins the AI era.
The AI-native social platform
When asked about Agnes’s ultimate ambition, Yang articulates a vision that balances both worlds.
“We’re building an AI-native app that blends social and productivity,” Yang explained. “We want to be the platform where people not only create together, but also socialize, discover, and stay connected through AI-assisted interactions.”
Unlike platforms that add social features as secondary elements, Agnes is designed from the ground up as a hybrid — one where collaboration, creativity, and connection are equally native to the core experience.
It’s a statement that would sound ambitious from most founders. But with 3 million users in two months, 30% week-8 retention, and a clear vision for how AI can enhance both productivity and social connection, Yang has earned the right to think big.
The productivity wars are crowded. The social AI frontier is wide open. And Agnes is betting everything on being the platform that doesn’t choose between them — but masters both.
