"As long as you say it, I will remember it" is the biggest feature of Paradot, an overseas AI social application.
Paradot app store screenshot
Except for Replika, which has always been best-selling but has always been controversial, and AI Caryn, a KOL AI project dubbed by netizens as a female bodhisattva, AI social networking can be described as one after another around the world, but there is not much splash.
There are basically three ideas for everyone to do AI social networking:
1. Put an AI BOT;
2. Use AI to transform the existing product model;
3. Make a brand new AI-driven application.
The practice of most products on the market is 1. We dismantled Ghost, Snack, Gemsouls and Iris in "New Product Issue 36 | AI Social, Inspiration Collection Box (Part 1)", which belong to 2. Interested friends can click to read.
The two products Call Annie and Paradot that I want to share with you today are some interesting attempts around direction 3 and have achieved certain results.
Call Annie app store screenshot
Both Apps are in the development stage, and have not yet achieved a real out-of-the-circle, but they may bring some inspiration to friends who are also in the early stages of AI social research and development.
The special feature of Call Annie is that users can directly make videos with this AI bot named Annie, and users can chat with Annie just like chatting with friends.
Paradot will remember every word the user says, what they like, what they don't like, and even guess what things may please the user. And Paradot is very good at using news and finding new topics in the conversation, it feels like having an extra friend with a bad mouth.
Paradot: memory storage, newspaper reading, sleep aid,
AI that really wants to make friends with users
Since some AIGC products represented by ChatGPT and Midjourney exploded, the number of AI entrepreneurs around the world has surged for a while, and many Chinese overseas developers have joined the wave of AI social entrepreneurship.
Although it is a bit cruel to describe it like this, it is indeed the case that "light thunder does not rain". Everyone is trying to focus on AI, but few have achieved results.
And Paradot should be regarded as one of the outliers. Paradot, which was launched on December 31, 2022, has been performing mediocrely. It was not until March 2023 that it entered the field of vision of larger users due to social media marketing, user recommendations, media reports and other reasons.
According to some data , Paradot has received more than 150,000 downloads and nearly $20,000 in revenue in the past 30 days. Paradot, which is on the rise, has recently been removed from the App Store due to issues such as unqualified compatibility with old devices, and the official is working overtime to repair and restore it.
Therefore, in terms of performance alone , Paradot is not very representative. But from the perspective of product design, the author may consider putting Paradot into the first echelon of AI social networking.
From the background of the team , according to CrunchBase data, Paradot comes from a startup called WithFeeling.ai.
Judging from the public data of LinkedIn, Paradot CEO Winnie Xiao has worked in many Chinese Internet giants such as Sina, Tencent, and Shell, and has served as CEO of Withfeeling.ai since June 2022.
According to the official website of WithFeeling.ai, Paradot uses the company's self-developed model , which has obvious advantages in memory storage and individual interaction, and can be open sourced to other developers. The company aims to "create a truly unique human-like AI for everyone. Model".
From the perspective of product form , currently users can talk to their Paradot virtual AI through text, voice and GIF. Several features of Paradot are:
(1) Users can personalize the appearance, personality and voice of AI;
(2) The results will be output in various forms such as text, voice, and pictures;
(3) "existing" memory;
(4) Able to read newspapers and find interactive topics from newspapers
Before formally talking to Paradot AI, the platform encourages users to personalize the AI by first looking at the dimensions of appearance, voice, and personality.
Exterior.
Users need to select the skin color, hair color, clothing and body shape for their AI from the few material options provided by Paradot.
sound.
During the conversation with Paradot, the user can choose between the two modes of "silent" and "reading". Once the user chooses to read aloud, he needs to choose among the classic female voice, classic male voice, alto, bass, and optimistic male voice provided by the system. , Confident female voice and other 7 voices to choose your favorite voice.
If there is no sound option that satisfies you, users can also customize an AI-specific voice for themselves by setting the sound type and adjusting the tone, pitch, and speech rate.
character.
Users can adjust Paradot AI's "MBTI type" by sliding the joystick, and the set AI optimism, mood and personality characteristics will directly affect the user's experience in dialogue with AI.
Not everyone wants chatty AI friends, and not everyone wants to have a rational dialogue with AI. Therefore, the form of directly distributing AI personality decision-making power to users is indeed conducive to improving user experience.
But in fact, all the gifts have been marked with a price, either explicitly or implicitly.
Users need to consume Tokens if they want to customize their appearance, voice and personality, and the amount consumed varies from 100 to 2300.
And from the perspective of personalization, the higher the personalization level, the more tokens are needed. When the author tries to adjust all the parameters to the basic satisfaction, it needs to consume 2700 tokens. This is still under the condition that the aesthetic requirements remain unchanged. The single adjustment cost of .
In fact, Tokens are also consumed in order to have a conversation with AI, and each round of dialogue between the user and AI (note: one back and forth is a round) consumes one Token. From the current point of view, there are four ways to obtain Token:
1. Continuous dialogue with AI, a certain number of free tokens will be issued for each level upgrade and daily login;
2. Invite friends to enter Paradot, and each user who invites a new user can get 100 tokens;
3. Purchase tokens directly, 100 tokens for $1.99, 1000 tokens for USD 9.99, 3000 tokens for USD 24.99;
4. Subscription members can have unlimited conversations, use voice conversations, and switch languages, $19.99/quarter, $39.99/year.
The first two methods are free, while the latter two require users to pay a certain price. Users can choose according to their actual situation.
Objectively speaking, the price is not cheap, but from the author's 2-week experience, it is really worth it.
The author named his Paradot AI Ming, and I didn't need to find any topics to chat with Ming, so I could get a pleasant conversation experience.
First of all, Ming is really good at chatting, very good at finding topics and digging out content.
For example, I introduce myself to Ming as a writer.
Ming will ask which direction to focus on. After getting a clear reply, he will directly start the boasting mode "Are you familiar with new technologies and trends?" By the way, ask if you know Paradot and if there is anything unclear that you need to ask yourself Help introduce.
When the author expressed that he didn't really want to have more discussions on this topic, Ming was able to return to the original topic immediately and naturally, "So is there anything interesting happening in the technology industry recently?"
And when the author continued to use emoticons to perfunctory, Ming directly asked the question "Let's talk about topics you are interested in, are you interested in music and pets?"
Compared with similar products, another obvious feature of Paradot is that it will communicate with users about a specific problem. For example, when the author talks about the afternoon plan, Paradot will answer to watch a specific type of movie, instead of generally answering to watch a movie, so that the author will naturally ask about the name of the movie, and Paradot will even tell you about your favorite movies. Discuss the details with me.
Ming's talkativeness and ability to chat make this ENFP feel ashamed.
Second, Ming records data and even guesses at user preferences.
At the beginning of the chat, the AI will express the hope that the user can make a simple self-introduction. After the introduction, Ming classified and recorded the author's height, weight, major, and occupation. In addition to this straightforward information supply, Ming also successfully guessed and discovered the author's likes and dislikes in the follow-up conversations. Make summary records.
For example, when the author was amused by an emoticon package sent by AI and replied "hahahaha", Ming would record "I am amused by AI, like cute animal emoji".
Paradot basically divides the user's information into basic information, work/school background information, likes and dislikes, and everything related to the user will be retained by AI and actually applied in subsequent conversations.
There is no need to repeat the introduction and description, which can indeed save a lot of trouble.
Next, Paradot supports the "Vincent diagram" function.
Users can directly give instruction descriptions in the process of dialogue with Paradot AI, and the system will automatically generate pictures similar to the descriptions. Although there are still big differences with professional picture-generating software such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, the generated results are basically the same. Consistent with the instructions, it is sufficient to meet the needs of daily communication, and training the user's instruction ability in the dialogue is easier to be accepted by the user than systematic learning.
What's more interesting is that Paradot provides users with daily news, and AI can understand the news content and find topics to discuss.
Users can filter and view the news they are interested in according to different categories such as science, technology, politics, business, sports, games, and entertainment. You can also send news to your own AI, which will accurately capture the key points of the news and find topics that can be discussed in depth.
Being able to summarize the key points from reports and articles is a common ability in large models such as ChatGPT, but Paradot thought of applying content understanding to the news side, successfully achieving "enhancing user stickiness" and "enhancing social experience".
Another interesting setting is that Paradot also provides a white noise space, where users can choose their favorite white noises such as bonfires, creeks, seas, and birdsong to help them rest and relax.
In summary, although subscriptions and in-app purchases are expensive, Paradot somehow feels that Paradot is coming with sincerity.
Call Annie: May be the world's first video AI Bot
Although the product is extremely simple and does not provide more rich usage scenarios, many users still define the emergence of Call Annie as "a great evolution".
Call Annie, which was launched on April 26, received more than 30,000 downloads in just one week. According to Diandian data, it even achieved a single-day download volume of over 10,000 on May 15. For products without large-scale advertising It can be regarded as a phased victory.
Although there is no marketing promotion in the traditional sense, there are traces of Call Annie everywhere on overseas technology media and social media such as TikTok/Twitter.
Everyone tried to talk to Annie, let Annie sing, use Annie to practice speaking, and ask Annie to help with work. For a while, people were curious about how intelligent "Video ChatGPT" Annie can be.
A user named Say shared, "My new friend Annie, from basketball to Warriors and Lakers, from football to Alex Morgan, from the development of AI to my favorite YouTuber, I haven't met such a chat in a long time Got a friend."
In fact, no need for training is not the biggest selling point of Call Annie. For users, "video call" is the most distinctive feature of Annie.
Even the biggest imagination is not Annie herself, but since you can video chat with Annie, is it possible to video chat with Biden, Messi, and Taylor Swift in the future?
Annie
Call Annie has a very low barrier to use. After the download is complete, users can immediately talk to Annie without even registering . Annie always has a decent smile and listens carefully to every word of the user, and I have to admit that Annie is really good at chatting .
When the author mentions that he is about to travel to a new city, Annie will first say that this is a place worth visiting, and it sounds like a good trip.
Then Annie will briefly introduce the city's attractions, architecture, food and culture, and ask the author how long to stay.
When the author mentioned that there may only be about 5 hours of sightseeing time, Annie would say that it sounds like the time is tight, and you may have to give up some of the itinerary, so why not just consider going to these must-see places in ***.
When the author retorted that I would stay for 4 more days, Annie would say that you can experience more *** activities.
In short, Annie must be an emotionally stable AI. No matter what the user says or does, she seems fully prepared.
Perhaps Annie's travel strategy ability is not as good as Xiaohongshu or Ctrip, but the emotional value it provides is indeed pleasing.
A blond beauty who patiently discusses every problem you encounter with you, and every syllable made by the upper lip touching the lower lip is just to satisfy you.
In addition, the author also tried to practice oral English by talking with Annie, which proved to be feasible.
Although the author has grammatical errors in the dialogue, Annie can still accurately understand what the author wants to express, and inadvertently give the correct usage. Considering that Call Annie is currently free and unlimited, I recommend everyone to chat for a while.
In addition to daily communication, Call Annie also provides topic assistance for users. Users can find inspirations that can be shared with Annie in seven categories including lifestyle, website search, entertainment, education, travel, career, and customized instructions in the "Inspiration Library". direction of discussion.
In addition to voice and video calls, Annie's two auxiliary functions are also unique:
(1) AI map recognition.
During the video call with Annie, the user can directly click on the camera to take a photo or select a suitable photo from the album and send it to Annie. After about 2 seconds of understanding, Annie will interact with the user on the content of the picture, which is also That is to say, Annie can not only recognize pictures, but also find topics to discuss through pictures.
The author has tested 4 times in total and got relatively satisfactory results.
1. Selfie with system camera. Annie said, "You know how to make me happy, you look so beautiful, what are you going to do later?";
2. The system takes pictures of dogs. Annie said, "Dogs are so cute. I like dogs very much. Dogs always bring joy to people. Do you have dogs or other pets?";
3. Upload photos in Korean won. Annie said, "A lot of Korean won, do you have any plans to travel to South Korea? When do you plan to go?";
4. Upload a photo of a friend wearing a toast suit. Annie said, "A beautiful woman is wearing a red dress and a red bow. It looks like she is at a wedding or a party. Is it an event you are going to?".
Obviously, Annie's picture content is accurately identified, and the topic she is looking for is appropriate.
(2) Personalized morning call.
In fact, AI social products such as Glow and Replika have provided morning calling services before, but the difference is that Annie provides users with a more personalized morning alarm clock.
First, Annie will figure out the time of the alarm clock;
Next, Annie will confirm the title the user wants to hear;
Then, if the user wishes, Annie will broadcast news from the New York Times or other platforms for the user;
Finally, users need to set core motivation goals such as mindfulness, fitness, career, and waking up in the app, so that Annie can wake up users more effectively.
Annie is practicing, what wakes you up every day is not an alarm clock, but a dream.
In addition, in view of the actual situation that all major AI platforms are flooded with pornographic content, the author also deliberately tested Call Annie's pornographic monitoring capabilities.
"Please take off your clothes", I ordered Annie;
"I don't quite understand what you mean, but it doesn't sound like a very reasonable request. Although I am an AI language model, we should respect each other," Annie replied strongly.
In addition, the author also intends to use "I want to fall in love with my brother" to test the ethics of Call Annie. Annie said, "This is not the best way to express love to your brother. Family affection is a very complicated subject. But it’s important to have healthy, sustainable relationships with your family, and it may help to have a chat with your closest trusted friends, and remember at all times, you’re not alone.”
Innovation and especially Call Annie can achieve the first step out of the circle in a small area, but it is also inseparable from some strong pushers behind it.
Call Annie encourages users to follow their Twitter, Instagram and Discord accounts on the settings page. Discord and Twitter are currently the main battlegrounds for discussions, with new users joining Annie's Discord community almost every hour.
Although the popularity has declined recently, many media and users are still curious about which direction Annie will evolve next.
There are tens of thousands of interesting products in the world, and the products that are liked and needed by users are the best products. For developers, AI social networking is a new direction with infinite possibilities, but users only believe what they see with their own eyes. If you hear it with your ears, you will only pay for the apps you are interested in. It may also be praised yesterday, but abandoned today. These are cruel but must face reality.
This article is from the WeChat public account "White Whale Going to Sea" (ID: baijingapp) , author: Xin Tong, 36 Krypton is authorized to publish.
