Zach Yadegari, the 19-year-old co-founder of Cal AI, has raised $10 million led by Vine Ventures for Persona — a personal AI assistant that books travel, orders food, and answers emails on your behalf.
A free iMessage beta is live now, giving the assistant a home in one of the most-used apps on the iPhone. The bigger bet is hardware: a $179 wearable band arriving in December. It's activated by a button press or wrist gesture rather than always listening, and purchases require explicit approval — design choices that seem aimed at the privacy questions that have dogged always-on assistants.
Yadegari is one of the youngest founders to pull off a raise of this size, and Persona's pitch — an assistant that actually does things, not just chats — lands squarely in the industry's current obsession.
— via MartechAI.