Kinsome: AI with a Human Touch

With each new AI companion gracing our world, I become more convinced in our approach of leveraging AI to enhance actual human connection rather than replace it.

I don’t mean to knock any specific companies or their solutions, and I recognize what they’re creating could improve the status quo for many. God knows I could have used an AI girlfriend in high school (ok, maybe college too), and if I get any more stubborn in my old age, my wife will gladly hand me off to some AI robot designed for lonely older folks.

But joking aside, at Kinsome we’re hopeful that the continued acceleration in artificial intelligence innovation can be harnessed to strengthen uniquely human bonds. Coaching and counseling have proven effective in various forms of relationship building, be it executive teamwork or couples therapy. While we don’t discount the human element of any of this work, the reality is that it remains inaccessible to most people. The potential of AI to replicate some of the most effective techniques and pattern recognition skills via a “human-like” experience feels positive, given the stepchange in access it could bring.

Specific to Kinsome, our research suggests that the development of a strong bond between a young kid and a grandparent typically requires heavy facilitation, especially when they live far apart and don’t benefit from frequent, casual interactions. While parents are uniquely positioned to handle this facilitation role, they’re often at a place in life where their plates are already overflowing (my wife and I feel this pain acutely with three young kids,roughly one billion weekly tantrums, almost as many weekly activities to shuttle between, and biweekly viruses besieging our household, destroying any semblance of routine). Despite the best intentions, even coordinating a periodic Facetime call with grandparents and somehow convincing my kids to sit long enough onscreen to say anything coherent, much less touching, can be an insurmountable challenge.

We believe AI is well-equipped to take this challenge off of parents’ plates, and with unlimited availability and infinite patience, it might even do a better job at parts of it. Much of the AI in the Kinsome platform is embodied in a friendly robot character named Kinzey, who learns over time what gets each kid to open up and share more about their lives. Her job is to help kids create a window into their day-to-day lives specifically for their grandparents (i.e. she is not meant to be a robot spy…she makes it very clear that the updates are for grandparents as she probes and prompts).

While the goal is to make the experience enjoyable and rewarding for kids, Kinzey’s role is not all fun and games; she also takes on more administrative tasks like reminding a grandkid to wish Grandpa a Happy Birthday or suggesting that they ask Grandma how she’s feeling after a recent surgery. Maybe other people’s kids are more inherently thoughtful than mine and know to do these things without nagging, but for mine, I’ve found they react better when it’s other people (or robots) bugging them than when it’s me!

But in the end, the key to Kinsome is that the grandkids themselves are sharing personal updates from their lives, in their own voices. Kinzey can help teach them to be more thoughtful and thorough while making the routine of sharing more fun, but at the end of the day, the update the grandparents receive comes from their grandkid (with no signs of Kinzey). Similarly, while Kinzey might remind a kid of a grandparent’s birthday or suggest they ask certain follow up questions when responding to a message, the kid takes the final step, and that’s what grandparents see.

We haven’t told her yet (she’s a sensitive robot), but our goal is for Kinzey to render herself obsolete over time in each and every grandparent-grandchild bond she helps build. We are designing the experience so that she can gradually recede into the background as kids establish strong sharing routines and graduate to more direct communication channels, which eventually we’ll offer in the platform (e.g. video calling).

But don’t feel bad for her…there are a lot of grandparent-grandchild relationships in the world to build and strengthen, and we’ve got plenty of other work for her to do in the background that will support the Kinsome mission in other ways (hint: they involve all the memories being captured behind the scenes of the Kinsome experience and how we can organize those into a rich family history that can be drawn upon at just the right moments…but that’s for another post).

So again, if you want an AI flame to spice up your life or decide to buy an ornery parent a robot companion because you’re certain they would exasperate any non-robotic companion, no judgment here. But for those of you with extended families who aren’t as close as they could be, keep an eye on us over here at Kinsome. We’re going to continue to explore and leverage the latest and greatest when it comes to AI, but we think it’s best served with more than a little human touch.