The person and the personality behind AI companion MoeMate: Getting personal with founder Ahad Shams

As people want more sophisticated AI companions, Moemate is emerging as a beacon of innovation.

We’ve entered an era where AI companions are more personalized, exhibiting distinct personalities that resonate on a personal level with users.

In this exclusive interview, we dive deep with Ahad Shams, founder of Moemate. Keep reading to learn more about the philosophy, technology and aspirations driving the company’s evolution and explore how his creation is shaping the future of our digital lives.

What do you think personal AIs will evolve into over the next 1-2 years, and how do you see that affecting Moemate?

Personal AIs will finally be personal and with a personality. If we look at the most used personal AIs… there is absolutely nothing personal about them. They sound robotic and emotionless. It does not matter how much you have spent time with them, they still treat you like they would treat you on day one.

In the next 1-2 years, we will start seeing AIs with distinct personalities. They’ll adapt and change the more time that we spend with them. This will lead to overall better functionality.

All of the fundamental technology that powers Moemate is improving at lightspeed. Language models are getting better, vision models are getting faster and real-time, and Mixed Reality just had a step change.

What do they look like in a decade?

The next generation of AIs will be highly capable. Not only will we talk to our computers, but our computers will be meaningfully able to carry out complex tasks and actions just speaking to them.

For example: “I need a vacation. Can you please help me book the cheapest vacation to Mexico during June and July? I feel like having mostly a lazy vacation. Nothing crazy. I want to relax.”

We are already seeing early demonstrations of them.

The average person sees AI as an interactive application. What should people be seeing it as?

I have always believed that AI is a feature, not a product. When that feature is integrated across so many different products, we will stop thinking of singular products as representations of the technology.

I think the average person would soon expect most computer programs to be conversational, rational and logical. It would be the base expectation that anything in the digital world has a certain level of conversational understanding.

Any products that don’t natively integrate AI would fall behind and wouldn’t have an intuitive user interface and experience.

What do you think is the catalyst to begin changing that view?

All breakthrough technologies start as toys. I think the catalyst to changing that view has already started by releasing these AI models and putting them in the hands of the people.

When certain apps initially came out, everyone was bamboozled by it and gave it an exalted status. Eventually, we reached a state where people are constantly tinkering with AI tools and finding out where they work, where they break, their strengths and their inherent limitations.

When people play with AI, they understand what it is. They accept it with all its quirks, and they enjoy it as well.

What are the current bottlenecks AI faces in its evolution?

There are some technical bottlenecks right now, such as cost, speed and capability. I think all of these will improve in the coming years.

Another real challenge is possible censorship. I think Base Foundational Models should definitely not be censored.

If you are making a product for kids, you should definitely put a safety filter on top of the foundation model.

How do you see Moemate fitting into an increasingly automation-centric world?

The biggest insight we got after launching Moemate is that everyone thinks AI will bring massive productivity to society. We are thinking of all productivity and utility use cases.

But AI is going to transform entertainment and our society in a deep, fundamental way.

It took us a while to figure out, but the main use case for Moemate was creativity, exploration, and imagination. Our goal with Moemate is to make it the hub of entertainment with different tools and games.

What are the main ways users are engaging with Moemate now? And how does that differ from your original intention?

The main ways people engage with Moemate is primarily for fictional roleplay. Users are imagining a character and talking to them.

Secondly, people are engaging with Moemate to make character bots. They’re creating bots, personas, or scenarios in which they have an interest.

Thirdly, people also use Moemate to create a domain expert (a history teacher or a loremaster), learn more about the particular domain, and just debate with that character about the specific domain.

Finally, people are using Moemate as a new genre of media and fiction. People imagine worlds, populate them with different character personas and let the AI develop them further.

Our original intention was primarily to make Moemate a helpful companion, but we soon realized that people don’t want to talk to only one AI but rather with multiple AI personas depending upon their mood.

It’s time for AI to get personal with the people

The future of personal AI, as envisioned by Ahad and embraced by Moemate, transcends mere digital assistants that perform tasks at our behest.

These evolving AIs, characterized by distinct personalities and adaptive learning, promise a paradigm shift in user interactions. Each digital encounter will be tailored, intuitive and resonant with human emotions.

As Moemate navigates the seas of creativity and entertainment, it illustrates that AI’s potential lies not just in productivity enhancement but also in reshaping the landscape of creativity and leisure.

The departure from Moemate’s initial design as a singular companion to a platform housing a multitude of AI personas demonstrates the fluid nature of technology.

Behind Moemate’s playful façade lies a robust vision for the future — one where AIs become an integral, entertaining and interactive part of the digital ecosystem.

VentureBeat newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content. 

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