A personal AI assistant can promise to keep your data private while sending it to the cloud, and it can promise useful shopping advice while showing sponsored products. Persona, the new startup from Cal AI co-founder Zach Yadegari, is trying to make both arrangements sound reasonable. It has raised $10 million to build an assistant and a $179 wearable band that activates on demand rather than listening continuously.
A second startup after Cal AI
Yadegari, 19, left MyFitnessPal in June to start Persona. MyFitnessPal acquired Cal AI in March for an undisclosed sum, after the calorie-tracking app generated more than $30 million in annual revenue in less than two years. Yadegari and his co-founders initially joined the buyer and continued working on Cal AI.
Vine Ventures led Persona’s $10 million funding round. Z Fellows founder Cory Levy and Collective Global also took part. Yadegari is working with another co-founder whose identity has not yet been announced.
His first business came earlier. Yadegari started it in ninth grade and sold it for $100,000 when he was 16.
An assistant you have to activate
Persona is intended to handle everyday tasks such as ordering food or rides, taking notes, booking travel, answering questions and dealing with email. For now, users can try a free beta through iMessage. The company says it has attracted a few thousand beta users.
The planned wearable band adds a physical way to reach the assistant. It will have a button, and users can also configure it to activate with a wrist flick. Unlike an always-on device, Persona says, the band will not constantly listen or record. The band is expected to be available in December, and a companion app is in development. Persona says preorders have already brought in five figures in revenue.
The design puts Persona among a growing set of personal assistants tied to consumer hardware. Its intended distinction is not that the assistant can do more than answer questions, but that people can call on it without opening a phone app or leaving a microphone running all day.
Privacy claims meet cloud processing
Persona says it does not run its AI model or store user data on the band. Instead, information is sent to the company’s cloud, where the model runs. The company says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, and users can delete it. It also says conversations will not be sold to advertisers or data brokers.
That is a set of protections, not on-device processing. The assistant still depends on user data reaching Persona’s servers, so the privacy story rests partly on how the company handles information once it gets there.
The company also says it is building defenses against phishing and prompt-injection attacks, two risks associated with AI agents. Yadegari says the assistant will not be able to see credit-card details, and that users must approve purchases. Payments will be handled by outside providers, including Stripe Link.
Sponsored results in the shopping assistant
Persona’s current business model includes advertising. When users research products, the assistant may show sponsored items. Yadegari says the agent will not know which recommendations are ads, and will choose products based on a user’s preferences.
That distinction is meant to preserve the assistant’s neutrality, but it does not remove the commercial relationship. Sponsored products can appear in the same answer as other recommendations, while the company says the model itself will not favor them because of their ad status. Whether users find that distinction clear will matter more than how neatly it can be described.
Yadegari’s larger ambition is for Persona to take on jobs now handled by separate phone apps, from shopping to rides and email. For now, the product is an iMessage beta, and the wearable is still expected in December. The promised personal assistant may eventually replace a row of app icons. First it has to earn trust while asking for a place in the cloud, and possibly in the shopping results.