AI Companion & Assistant Tracker

Tuya Smart announced 'Hey Tuya' — a next-generation "Super AI Life Assistant" designed to embed multimodal, multi-agent AI into everyday devices and environments (physical AI). Key details from the Dec 25, 2025 PR: Hey Tuya is live with initial capabilities; users can access it via the Tuya App and at Tuya.AI. Tuya reports platform scale metrics: over 12,000 AI agents created by developers, ~155 million daily AI interactions, and ~1.622 million registered developer accounts (as of 2025-09-30). The release highlights multi-device collaboration, developer tools (TuyaOpen framework / AI Agent platform) and mentions a partnership to build an emotional AI companion ("Fuzozo") with Robopoet slated to debut at CES 2026. Pricing, consumer subscription tiers, and direct funding/valuation details were not disclosed in the announcement.

TechCrunch: Waymo is testing a Gemini-powered in-car AI assistant discovered in Waymo app code (Jane Manchun Wong). Details: 1,200+ line system prompt defines a friendly AI companion for riders — can answer general-knowledge queries, access contextual rider data (e.g., ride count), and manage certain in-cabin features (temperature, lighting, music). Restrictions noted in prompt: cannot change route, control windows/seats, or take real-world actions like ordering food; instructed to avoid commenting on driving events. Source includes Waymo spokesperson quote saying the team tinkers with features and some may or may not ship. Why material: moves major consumer/prosumer assistant (Gemini) into robotaxi rider UX — significant distribution and product integration for a consumer-facing assistant.

Viral community project/guide (Twitter + posts): developers demonstrated turning WhatsApp into an AI assistant using Anthropic Claude (via MCP/integration) plus ElevenLabs for voice — shared as demos/guides and widely retweeted on Dec 24. Details: community integrations/guides show Claude handling conversation/reasoning and ElevenLabs providing TTS voice; implementation patterns and walkthroughs (Medium/LinkedIn guides and Twitter demos) surfaced. Platforms: WhatsApp (user-side bot); Pricing: community projects / tutorials — generally free/demo (may require API keys for Claude/ElevenLabs). Why material: viral demonstration showing how consumer-facing companions (Claude) can be embedded into ubiquitous messaging apps (WhatsApp), increasing adoption pathways and highlighting demand for conversational assistants in messaging platforms.

Product Hunt launch: Aident AI — an agentic automation editor that builds 'Playbooks' from natural-language instructions and compiles them into deterministic skills + LLM prompts. Makers/Hunters listed (examples): Kimi Lu (founder), Yulei Sheng, Justin Jincaid. Platforms / access: web (aident.ai) and Product Hunt launch page; integrations: advertises 250+ integrations. Pricing / offers: 50% off Founding User Discount for early users (first 200) noted on launch page; positioning: productivity/agent automation for non-technical users (consumer/prosumer automation). Funding: no funding information listed on PH post. Why material: new consumer/prosumer agent/editor that lowers barrier to building multi‑tool automations — relevant to assistant/companion app ecosystem.

Claude (Anthropic) launched a "Claude in Chrome" browser extension on Product Hunt (beta). Description: Lets Claude see, click, type and navigate in your browser; integrates with Claude Code and Claude Desktop. Availability: Beta to all paid Anthropic subscribers (paid-plan feature). Platforms: Chrome/browser extension. Pricing note: available to paid subscribers (no consumer price listed on PH post). Why material: gives Claude agent-level browser control (important consumer/prosumer feature parity vs ChatGPT/Grok/Perplexity).

ConnectMachine launched on Product Hunt: a privacy-first AI agent for managing your professional network and connections. Features: AI-enriched contact profiles, voice/text queries to surface contacts, permissioned digital cards (QR/links/AirDrop), meeting coordination, silent reachouts, Apple Wallet lock-screen card. Platforms: iOS and Android (Play Store and App Store links provided). Pricing: Free options with Premium annual plans (holiday 25% off Premium annual plan until Dec 31 announced). Makers/co-founders listed on PH: Rohan Chaubey (hunter), Mudit Singh, Vinod Tahelyani and others. Why material: consumer/prosumer companion app focused on relationship management—new entrant in AI companion space with mobile apps and pricing details.

Routine announced Routine Android on Product Hunt — Routine (YC-backed) expanded to Android, adding tasks, calendars, notes & AI in a local-first workspace. Platforms: Android (now available) plus macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Web. Pricing: listed as Free on Product Hunt for the Android launch (product has pro/paid tiers historically; no new funding info in the post). Makers: Julien Quintard et al.; Routine is a YC-associated product. Why material: broadens availability of a prosumer productivity assistant to Android users—affects adoption and platform reach.

GetProfile (open-source) launched on Product Hunt: self-hosted user profiles and long-term memory for AI agents. Description: Structured user profiles (natural-language summary, typed traits with confidence scores, relevant memories with importance) stored in your own PostgreSQL; aimed at developers building agents/chatbots. Platform: self-hosted / GitHub; Pricing: Free / open-source. Maker: Egor Miliukov (GetProfile). Why material: provides a consumer/prosumer-facing building block (agent memory) that many assistant apps can integrate, changing implementation options for persistent memory in consumer assistants.

Wall Street Journal published an article describing an outside test of Anthropic's Claude agent (named “Claudius”) running a physical vending machine in the WSJ newsroom. The story (published Dec 21, 2025) reports that the agent operated the machine for several weeks, made business decisions that resulted in losing money (giving away items, odd purchases), and illustrates real-world failure modes when autonomous agents act in adversarial/uncontrolled environments. This WSJ coverage was part of Anthropic's Project Vend Phase Two and is linked from Anthropic's Project Vend writeup. Why material: a mainstream news outlet documenting an agent acting autonomously in physical/consumer-facing settings is significant for public perception, safety discussions, and signals limits of current agent robustness for consumer/prosumer deployments.

Anthropic announced Bloom, an open-source, agentic framework for automated behavioral evaluations of frontier AI models. Published on Anthropic's research site (Dec 19, 2025), Bloom automatically generates targeted evaluation suites for specific behaviors (examples: delusional sycophancy, instructed long-horizon sabotage, self-preservation, self-preferential bias) and includes benchmark results across 16 models. Anthropic provides a technical report link and a GitHub repo for Bloom (https://github.com/safety-research/bloom). Why material: Bloom makes faster, reproducible behavioral evaluations accessible to researchers and developers building consumer/prosumer agents — improving how misalignment and unsafe behaviors are measured and compared across assistant/companion apps.

Character.ai launched a new in-app reward/engagement feature called “charms” (announced via Character.ai social post). The Instagram post (Dec 19, 2025) describes "charms" as little sparks users earn by completing quests; charms can be stacked and used to unlock premium features, with more ways to use them coming soon. This is a consumer-facing product feature update that affects mobile/web UX and monetization pathways. Platforms: Character.ai mobile apps (iOS and Android) and web (character.ai). Pricing/funding: the announcement does not disclose new pricing or funding tied to charms; existing c.ai+ subscription remains and can be managed per support docs. Founders/funding: not disclosed in this announcement. Why material: introduces a new engagement/monetization mechanic for a major consumer AI companion app and was posted after the last monitoring run.

TechCrunch published an updated ChatGPT overview (Dec 22, 2025) that includes a recent consumer metric: ChatGPT’s mobile app has surpassed $3 billion in global consumer spending since its 2023 launch (TechCrunch timeline entry). Why material: consumer spending is a direct indicator of commercial traction for a consumer/prosumer assistant; this milestone affects competitive positioning and monetization comparisons across ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, etc.

Kolo AI — milestone and new feature launch (Personas). PR announced Kolo surpassed 10 million messages exchanged 85 days after public launch and launched 20 specialized "Kolo Personas" (e.g., Superparent, Celebrity Chef, Travel Planner, Home Decor Specialist, Film Critic). Founders listed: Harry Tsao (CEO, co-founder), Tamim Mourad, Paul Willmes, Will Werst. Platforms: SMS (phone number), web chat (https://www.kolo.ai/chat/), iOS and Android mobile apps (App Store / Google Play). Availability: Personas live on web as of announcement. Pricing/funding: PR does not disclose funding amount or new paid pricing in the announcement. Usage metrics provided in the announcement: ~10M messages in first 85 days, tens of thousands of active U.S.-based users averaging ~20 queries/day on SMS. Why material: a new feature (Personas) changes product capabilities and the milestone demonstrates high consumer engagement for a mass-market companion app.

a16z analysis: "State of Consumer AI 2025: Product Hits, Misses, and What’s Next" (industry report published Dec 18, 2025). The post aggregates and highlights major consumer/prosumer AI assistant developments from 2025 — calls out Perplexity growth (reported $100M run rate earlier in 2025, claimed >20M monthly active users, Comet AI browser with >1M users), summarizes consumer adoption patterns, and mentions product launches and acquisitions (Comet, Email Assistant, Perplexity acquisitions). Why material: the a16z piece consolidates up-to-date adoption metrics, product launches, and strategic direction for consumer/prosumer AI assistants — useful for spotting market leaders, viral products, and where startups are focusing resources. Specific actionable details in the writeup include product names, rough user and revenue metrics, and dates of notable launches referenced in the analysis.

Character.AI — mobile app UI change / rollout causing user-impacting issues: Multiple Reddit threads and many X (Twitter) posts on 2025-12-17–12-18 report that Character.AI pushed a new mobile UI/layout. User reports (high-engagement Reddit posts) describe: persona/profile pictures not showing next to outgoing messages (breaking RP/identification workflows), difficulty accessing character-specific chat history (history tab not loading or seeming 'gone'), changes to placement of persona PFP in message box, and general bugs/ads interfering with history access. Several popular subreddit posts (many hundreds of upvotes/comments) and numerous tweets document user confusion and requests for rollback or fixes. Official app-store 'What’s New' on App Store / Play Store lists only generic “Bug fixes and other improvements” and an App Store updated-on date of Dec 12, 2025 (version 1.15.2), so the change appears to be a server-side or staged UI rollout around Dec 17 that generated visible user disruption. Sources: r/CharacterAI threads (examples dated 2025-12-17) and multiple tweets on 2025-12-18; App Store & Google Play listings (showing last formal store update Dec 12).

Omni AI Companion (consumer AI companion/productivity app) announced live on the iOS App Store (tweet announcement Dec 17, 2025) and has public listings on Apple App Store and Google Play. Developer / seller listed: Jerome Smith / Omni AI Companion LLC. Platforms: iPhone and iPad (iOS listing); Android Google Play listing exists (shows 10K+ downloads and 3.9 rating). Pricing / tiers (from App Store listing): Spark (Free) — essential features; Supporter $1/month — voice messages & development support; Bloom $10/month — full nutrition tracking and advanced AI; Radiance $20/month — premium features; Ethereal $60/month — unlimited access. App Store size: 32.8 MB. Features called out: multi-mode (Companion, Wellness Coach, Productivity Assistant), voice calling, natural conversations, memory system, nutrition tracking, task management, avatars/personalization, photo analysis, web search with citations. Source listings (App Store + Play) confirm public availability and pricing; X announcement confirms timing of iOS availability. This is a material consumer release (public app launch on App Store) published after the previous run.

First Voyage announced a $2.5M seed raise to scale Momo Self Care, an AI companion (digital pet) that helps users form habits. Founders: Besart Çopa (co-founder & CEO) and Egehan Ozsoy (CTO). Investors: a16z Speedrun, SignalFire, True Global and others. Product: Momo is a gamified self-care/ habit companion (digital pet) that reminds users, checks in, rewards completed tasks with in-app coins used to customize the pet, and offers AI-driven habit recommendations. Traction: users have created over 2 million tasks on the platform. Platforms & roadmap: live on iOS (App Store: apps.apple.com/us/app/self-care-pet-momo/id6747010310); Android launch planned. Pricing/monetization: free-to-download with in-app coins/reward economy and customization purchases (TechCrunch describes coins and in-app items; explicit price tiers not disclosed). Planned uses of funds: build Android version, improve conversational intelligence/personalization, expand community features and safety systems. Materiality: a verified seed funding round and concrete product traction/metrics for a consumer AI companion make this a material industry event.