Useful AI for an overlooked Gen Z user

Time to build something truly engaging for the younger, dissapointed AI users.

AI startups are busy flexing their foundation models. VCs are recruiting every last Stanford/Berkeley or ex-Google expert into replicated startups with no clear path to the actual usability of AI (look at the cost, generation accuracy rate and user success of Runway, Luma vs. how many AI NPC companies for gaming). Meanwhile, Gen Z users are on Reddit and TikTok, begging for AI to be more than just chatbots, voice bots, and random fountains of high-quality yet useless generated images and videos. It appears that many startup founders are veering off course, chasing collective power grabs reminiscent of the .com era mistakes. However, today’s “Zuckerbergs” are slowly emerging from within younger communities and their native needs, will accelerate to create unimaginable types of online features and activities.

What is not said to most users is: there are more open-source models and research that are never made into fun products than there are users on most AI apps.

Considering these facts, I decided to start a new company called DeterminAI with Parmida, Isabella, Henry, and others to create something I’ve personally dedicated my entire adult life to. It’s a multi-sensory generative AI experience (you can look up my past projects from the last 10-12 years) designed to help a younger me—if I had to relive my teenage years—feel valued, learn, play, and experiment without judgment, all in private.

What Motivated This Big Move

We have all been teenagers and experienced questions of identity, acceptance, and self-discovery. For years, I found ways to answer those questions through gaming, music, and art. I was in bands and created virtual worlds for my music, discovering ways to express myself without exposing myself to the judgment of the world.

Social media ruined that space for me. A few years after Facebook and Instagram became popular, our journeys of self-discovery transformed into a public court of blind and snap judgment. A new social currency was introduced: influence. A behavior of "show yourself every day to gain clout" emerged. However, this method didn't solve my questions about identity, purpose, and other emotions that every teenager and young adult faces. It made things worse.

Meanwhile, gaming grew rapidly because it addressed the problems of isolation and loneliness. Gaming connected young users to virtual characters and like-minded people online, without the need to be a "real" or "exposed" person. This sense of safety has continued to attract generation after generation of loyal gamers.

The Role of AI in Gen Z’s life

AI entered the larger consumer space very recently. AI chatbots have improved to a level that helps teenagers spend time evaluating their questions, expressing emotions, and learning without being judged. They also don't require the massive engagement that gaming does (skills, readiness, being an achiever, etc.).

Chatbots are the very early steps and a gateway to an interactive experience humans have never had access to before. This experience will resemble organized dreams, offering on-demand "everything." It will feel like friendship without strings attached, like a teacher who didn’t have a bad day, and like a platonic lover who encourages you to emphasize your good qualities, step outside into the real world, and find real love. It will stop you from doubting yourself.

All this will be provided through an abundance of instant stories, worlds, interactions, and feelings that would normally take a Netflix production company millions of dollars and years to create.

Stay tuned as we launch our platform very soon.