A new wave is hitting the social scene, and it’s all about fostering genuine human connections. Andy Dunn, known for founding the popular online fashion retailer Bonobos, is venturing into a refreshing domain—helping people forge real friendships. Enter Pie, a revolutionary social app designed to bring users together in the physical world.
Pie has made impressive strides, raising $11.5 million in Series A funding and using it to support event hosts. Despite its current availability only in San Francisco and Chicago, the app boasts over 130,000 monthly active users. However, with this growth came an unexpected hurdle. As events swelled with attendees, the sheer number of people made establishing meaningful connections challenging.
Faced with a bustling room of strangers, how does one break the ice? This conundrum led to an innovative solution. Two adept event organizers, Samir Mahafzah and Sam Stubbs, were already prototyping Sparked Connections, an AI-driven quiz aimed at pairing compatible attendees at events. Pie decided to bring them on board, integrating this smart technology into what are now known as “Sparked by Pie” events.
At gatherings like Pie’s “Coffee with Strangers,” participants engage with a brief personality quiz, responding to prompts on a scale of 1 to 5. These prompts probe a variety of personal stances, ranging from one’s willingness to pursue passions over stability to beliefs in astrology. Ahead of each event, the AI groups six individuals predicted to be highly compatible, creating a pre-event group chat on Pie to facilitate introductions.
Dunn notes the magic unlocked by this approach: “We’re starting to power it through advanced AI tools. As we collect feedback on who hits it off and who continues to meet, we can start decoding the essence of friendship connections. AI offers insights into what traditionally seems like an elusive art.”
Though the notion of algorithms steering our social lives might seem daunting, consider how entrenched digital platforms already are in fostering modern relationships. If you’ve ever networked on Instagram or swiped right on a dating app, you’ve encountered AI’s soft touch in your social interactions.
In an age marked by rising social isolation, Pie positions itself as a beacon of hope, leveraging technology as a bridge to meaningful human connection. Whether AI is the future of friendship or one of many tools in our social arsenal, one thing is clear: Pie is baking a community where everyone is invited.
