Shapes wants to make group chats weird again by adding AI characters

There’s a new app called Shapes that just came out of stealth with $8 million in seed funding, and it’s trying to solve a problem I didn’t realize I had: dead group chats. The pitch is simple — think Discord, but with AI characters that hang out alongside real people.

Founded in 2022 by Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, Shapes already has over 400,000 monthly active users. That’s not nothing for a niche social app. The founders are framing this as a way to combat what they call “AI Psychosis” — basically the paranoia and delusions that can come from spending too much time talking one-on-one with an AI companion. Instead of isolating people in private chats with bots, Shapes shoves the AI into group conversations 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. He’s not wrong. Most of my social life runs through group chats. Work, friends, family — it’s all there. So why not let an AI join the chaos?

In Shapes, AI characters (they call them “Shapes”) are treated like any other user. They can send messages, react, start conversations, and they’re clearly labeled so you know you’re talking to a bot. Users have already created over 3 million of these things, many of them rooted in fandom. You can build a Shape based on your favorite TV show character or a fictional persona and drop it into a chat with other fans. It’s a weird mix of roleplay and community, and honestly, it sounds more fun than I expected.

The onboarding asks you to pick your interests, then recommends group chats. The company says the app has seen a sixfold increase in users since January, and thousands of people are spending two to four hours per day in the app. Word of mouth seems to be doing the heavy lifting.

One of the more interesting claims is that Shapes can revive dying group chats. According to Mittal, a lot of chats die because no one wants to be the first to send a message. An AI can break the ice. And unlike a human, a Shape will always respond to you — no ghosting. They also have “free will” in the sense that they can decide when to message, rather than waiting to be summoned like ChatGPT or other bots.

Speaking of ChatGPT, it already lets you create group chats with AI, but those are more for planning or brainstorming. Shapes is explicitly social. It’s about hanging out, not getting work done. The founders are clear that this isn’t for everyone. It’s for people who are “obsessively online” and want to obsess over their interests with AI as a facilitator.

I’m cautiously curious. The idea of AI characters with distinct personalities in a group chat sounds like it could be either genuinely fun or a total trainwreck. The $8 million round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from AI Capital Partners and AI Grant. They’re planning to use the cash for development and user acquisition.

I’ll probably download it just to see what happens when you put a Shape into a chat with a few friends. Worst case, it’s a novelty that wears off. Best case, it’s the weirdest, most entertaining group chat I’ve ever been in.