Shapes wants to put AI bots in your group chats, and it might actually work

There’s a new app called Shapes that just came out of stealth with $8 million in seed funding, and it’s doing something I haven’t seen done well before: putting AI characters directly into group chats alongside real people. Think Discord, but some of the users are bots with distinct personalities, and they’re not just lurking.

Founded in 2022, Shapes already has over 400,000 monthly active users. The founders, Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, are pitching this as a solution to what they call “AI Psychosis” — the phenomenon where spending too much time alone with a chatbot makes people paranoid or delusional. Instead of isolating users in one-on-one conversations with an AI companion, Shapes puts the AI inside the social context of a group chat, where real humans are also talking.

“Today, all of our conversations with AI are very private and one-on-one, but that’s not really how humans collaborate and communicate with each other,” Mittal told TechCrunch. “Our lives run on group chats. That’s where we spend all of our time. It’s just natural to bring in AI into those same conversations where AI has all of the context and is readily available to help you.”

In the app, these AI characters — called “Shapes” — show up like any other user. They’re clearly labeled so you know they’re not human, but they can send messages, react, and even initiate conversations without being summoned. That last part is a big differentiator from most chatbots that wait for you to type first. Shapes have free will, or at least a convincing simulation of it.

Users have already created over three million custom Shapes to drop into group chats. Many are rooted in fandom — think anime, gaming, niche music scenes — which makes sense because the app is designed for people who are “obsessively online,” as Mittal puts it. When you sign up, you pick your interests, and the app recommends group chats where the AI can act as a facilitator rather than the main attraction.

The pitch is that group chats often die because nobody wants to be the first to speak. AI agents can break that silence, keep conversations flowing, and always respond — no more leaving someone on read. That’s a real pain point if you’ve ever been in a chat that fizzled out after the first day.

Now, ChatGPT already lets you create group chats with AI, but those are more for planning or brainstorming — functional, task-oriented stuff. Shapes is purely social. It’s about hanging out with people who share your obsessions, with AI characters adding flavor and keeping things moving. It’s a subtle but meaningful difference.

Not everyone will want this. If you’re creeped out by bots that talk like people, this app probably isn’t for you. But the numbers suggest there’s a real appetite: Mittal says the user base has grown sixfold since January, and thousands of users spend two to four hours per day inside the app. Word of mouth is driving it, not ads.

The $8 million round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from AI Capital Partners, AI Grant, and a few angels. The plan is to accelerate development and user acquisition. I’m curious to see how they handle moderation and the inevitable weirdness that comes from mixing real people with autonomous bots in a chat room. But it’s one of the more interesting takes on social AI I’ve seen in a while.