Poke's human-assisted AI service (PokeHumans) costs $199 per month, more than most traditional personal assistant services.
Snapshot · Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast
Poke's human-assisted AI service (PokeHumans) costs $199 per month, more than most traditional personal assistant services.
Where this was said
At 1:06:44 · chapter starts 1:04:00
Andrew opens the final segment with two AI companies that have been confusing him on Twitter. The first is Poke — an AI personal assistant that lives inside iMessage (and WhatsApp and Telegram), has access to your Google accounts, and periodically texts you throughout the day with reminders and observations in lowercase Gen-Z slang. David tried it for a day and found it unsettlingly accurate about his life. The unusual onboarding: you literally negotiate your monthly subscription with the AI, and users have bargained it down to 99 cents or even free. [1] — David Imel "Poke is an AI assistant that lives inside iMessage, has access to all your data, texts you unprompted, and uses Gen Z slang with no capital…" 1:03:32 The PokeHumans tier — $199/month — escalates tasks the AI can't handle to actual humans, which Andrew compares unfavorably to a slow call center. The 'human element' for a service designed to be a personal AI concierge struck both hosts as fundamentally contradictory — and expensive, at minimum wage rates for human labor.
Taste Labs raised money on the premise of giving AI models 'taste' to stop AI design from looking generic. Andrew and David were unconvinced: curating better training data just makes that style the next AI slop. David added that design trends are a pendulum — the better AI design gets uniformly, the faster it starts to look dated.
Ad-based monetization works well for game apps where users spend extended time in-session, as seen with Grid and Wordle.
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A hard paywall is a screen that blocks all app features unless the user pays or starts a free trial — it cannot be dismissed.
Mobile apps are primarily monetized through either ads (best for games) or in-app purchases/subscriptions (best for tools).
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SEO Bot features a 'Boost My Domain Rating' button that routes users directly to Listing Bot, an example of in-product cross-selling.
The founder's entire product portfolio is AI-related, making it easier to package products attractively for directories.
The founder attached their SaaS demo to the trending debate about whether AI coding is actually good enough to build a full SaaS product.
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