{"id":1909243,"date":"2026-04-29T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1909243"},"modified":"2026-04-29T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T10:00:00","slug":"meet-shapes-the-app-bringing-humans-and-ai-into-the-same-group-chats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1909243","title":{"rendered":"Meet Shapes, the app bringing humans and AI into the same group chats"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270785056.jpg?resize=1200,686″]<\/p>\n

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Shapes, an app where humans and AI characters chat together in shared group conversations, is emerging from stealth with $8 million in seed funding. Think Discord, but with AI characters alongside humans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Founded in 2022, Shapes has more than 400,000 monthly active users. The app\u2019s founders, Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, believe that Shapes can address issues around \u201cAI psychosis,\u201d which refers to cases where prolonged interactions with AI chatbots or AI companions can cause individuals to develop delusions or paranoia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead of isolating people with one-on-one interactions with AI, Shapes allows people to connect with AI within their everyday interactions with real people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, all of our conversations with AI are very private and one-on-one, but that\u2019s not really how humans collaborate and communicate with each other,\u201d Shapes CEO Mittal told TechCrunch in an interview. \u201cOur lives run on group chats. That\u2019s where we spend all of our time. That\u2019s where we talk and communicate with each other. It\u2019s just natural to bring in AI into those same conversations where AI has all of the context and is readily available to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the app, AI characters, called \u201cShapes,\u201d are viewed as any other user and can interact in all the same ways humans can. They\u2019re clearly labeled as \u201cShapes\u201d for transparency, but they aren\u2019t restricted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Users can create their own Shapes and set their personalities. The company says users have already created three million Shapes to add into group chats. Many Shapes are rooted in fandom, as the app serves as a way for fans to deep-dive on subculture and meet other fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When users sign up for the app, they\u2019re asked to choose their interests so the app can recommend a selection of group chats they might be interested in joining.<\/p>\n

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While some may question the need for adding AI into group chats, Mittal and Dhingra believe one of the main reasons group chats die is that some participants don\u2019t want to be the first person to send a message. Shapes solves this, as AI agents can initiate conversations and play a key role in keeping them going.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Additionally, users don\u2019t have to worry about not getting a response to their messages because Shapes will always acknowledge and respond to them.\u00a0Unlike AI companions on other apps that need to be summoned, Shapes have free will and can decide when to message.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that although the popular chatbot ChatGPT already allows AI and humans to converse in group chats, those conversations operate differently from Shapes. For example, when you create a group chat in ChatGPT, it\u2019s mostly for planning or brainstorming. On Shapes, however, it\u2019s all about social, community-style interactions with AI characters that have various personalities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The startup is aware that not everyone will want to bring AI into their group conversations, which is why the app is designed for a specific type of online user.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShapes is about human conversations,\u201d Mittal said. \u201cIt\u2019s more of a next-gen chat app than an AI app. The demographic is people who are obsessively online, who spend a lot of time online connecting and sharing. Those are the users who come in and they get an opportunity to obsess about their interests, and the AI acts as a facilitator in those conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapes\u2019 growth has been driven by word of mouth, Mittal says, with the app seeing a sixfold increase in users since the start of the year. The company also says that thousands of users spend two to four hours in the app each day.<\/p>\n

As for the new funding, the company plans to use it to accelerate development and user acquisition. The round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from AI Capital Partners, AI Grant, and angel investors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2270785056.jpg?resize=1200,686″] Shapes, an app where humans and AI characters chat together in shared group conversations, is emerging from stealth with $8 million in seed funding. Think Discord, but with AI characters alongside humans.\u00a0 Founded in 2022, Shapes has more than 400,000 monthly active users. The app\u2019s founders, Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, believe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,62],"class_list":["post-1909243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-techcrunch-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1909243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1909243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1909243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1909243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1909243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}