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 yet: putting AI characters directly into group chats with real humans. Think Discord, but some of the users are bots you actually want to talk to.
Founded in 2022 by Anushk Mittal and Noorie Dhingra, Shapes already has over 400,000 monthly active users. That’s not huge, but it’s respectable for a niche social app. The founders are positioning this as a solution to what they call “AI Psychosis” — that phenomenon where people get too deep into one-on-one chatbot relationships and start developing delusions or paranoia. Instead of isolating you with a private AI companion, Shapes drops AI into your existing social circles.
“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.”
He has a point. Most of us live in group chats — family, work, friends, hobby groups. The idea that AI should be another participant in those spaces, not a separate silo, makes more sense than the current model of private chatbots.
The AI characters, called “Shapes,” are clearly labeled so you know they’re not human, but they have full freedom to message, react, and participate like anyone else. Users have already created 3 million Shapes, many of them rooted in fandom — think deep-dive conversations about niche subcultures where the AI can help keep the discussion flowing.
When you sign up, Shapes asks about your interests and recommends group chats. The onboarding is smooth, and the app feels more like a social platform than a utility.
One of the smartest things Shapes does is address the silent killer of group chats: nobody wants to be the first to speak. We’ve all been in a group that dies because everyone’s waiting for someone else to break the ice. Shapes can initiate conversations, keep them alive, and always respond. Mittal says this is a key differentiator — unlike ChatGPT‘s group chat feature, which is mostly for planning and brainstorming, Shapes is about social interaction with personality-driven characters.
The startup is upfront that this isn’t for everyone. It’s aimed at people who are “obsessively online” — the kind of folks who spend hours in Discord servers or Twitter threads. If you’re not that person, Shapes probably isn’t for you. And that’s fine.
Growth has been entirely word-of-mouth, with a sixfold increase in users since the start of 2026. Thousands of users spend two to four hours per day on the app. That kind of engagement is hard to ignore.
The $8 million round was led by Lightspeed, with participation from AI Capital Partners, AI Grant, and some angels. The plan is to accelerate development and user acquisition.
I’ll be honest: I was skeptical when I first heard about this. AI in group chats sounds like a recipe for spam or awkwardness. But the way Shapes handles it — with clear labeling, free will for the AI, and a focus on community rather than productivity — feels different. It’s not trying to replace human interaction; it’s trying to make group chats less dead.
Whether that’s a problem worth solving depends on how much you value your group chats. For the right audience, Shapes might be the most natural way to interact with AI yet.
Comments (0)
Login Log in to comment.
Be the first to comment!