Verse, a new creative app powered by AI, is setting its sights on helping Gen Z users craft highly visual and expressive content. Exclusively available on iOS, Verse allows users to design and publish multimedia-rich creations on an interactive canvas, all with the assistance of an AI-powered helper.
Imagine being able to craft a mini website, known as a Verse, for an array of purposes: moodboards, greeting cards, invitations, storefronts, fan pages, blogs, and beyond. This innovative tool offers content creators and influencers a fresh and imaginative way to engage their audience, all within an easy-to-share link-in-bio format.
The brains behind Verse are Bobby Pinckney, a former PwC management consultant, and Michelle Yin, an ex-Meta engineer. The duo crossed paths in college and previously co-founded a YC-backed music discovery app named Discz, an app that has already garnered over 1.5 million users.
Their journey to creating Verse started while enhancing Discz. They rolled out a Profile feature, enabling users to drag and drop songs or images to showcase their musical tastes. To their surprise, users began leveraging the feature as a versatile creative tool, transcending its original purpose.
“We imagined it as a way for users to say, ‘this is who I am and the music I love,’” Pinckney shared. “But it turned into this creative platform, blowing our minds. We never anticipated users would adopt it this way, transforming our music app into a multimedia showcase they shared widely.”
With such unforeseen creativity on display, the founders birthed Verse. Since its public launch on iOS in June, the platform has seen users create over 200,000 unique Verses.
Verse differentiates itself from the likes of Canva and Wix by offering a dynamic, scrollable canvas that’s anything but template-bound. Users can integrate a multitude of elements into their creations, including photos, stickers, videos, links, GIFs, text, backgrounds, songs, and more. There’s even the ability to link one Verse within another for added complexity.
Guiding users through the entire process is Verse’s AI assistant, tapping into advanced language models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta’s Llama, and Mistral to ensure a seamless journey from design to publication.
“We’ve harnessed these complex technologies to make publishing and design accessible straight from your mobile device, simplifying it to an extraordinary degree,” Yin explained.
After creating a Verse, users can publish it as a mini-website to share across various social media platforms.
“Many people seek self-expression but are not keen on being on camera or making TikToks,” Pinckney noted. “Our platform provides an outlet for those wanting to share interests or hobbies in an artistic manner, without the pressures of video content.”
Artists and brands are also finding unique ways to utilize Verse. For instance, British singer Kenya Grace created a Verse to promote her EP, featuring links to her new single, tour dates, ticket purchases, social media profiles, and more. Similarly, Lunar, a hard seltzer company, uses Verse in its Instagram bio to market its products and direct buyers to purchase points.
Beyond being a design tool, Verse includes social features. Users can explore Verses by categories like Trending, Featured, Music, Lifestyle, Art, Film, Gaming, and more, and can leave comments on Verses they admire.
Currently free, Verse is considering introducing a subscription model in the future. Ahead lies an Android app and web-based creation tools, aligning with feedback from marketing teams eager to craft engaging brand experiences online.
