Fambot, a new AI assistant for families, has launched with the aim of helping parents manage the growing volume of school messages, children’s activities and household commitments.
The service, described by its founders as an “AI chief of staff” for parents, brings together information from email, calendars and selected WhatsApp groups before producing daily tasks and reminders about upcoming events.
It was created by David Reich, a father and former Uber product executive, and Greg Karlin, a former Instagram engineer who is Fambot’s chief technology officer. Jason Morrow, who has previously worked at Google and LinkedIn, later joined as the third co-founder.
Reich said the idea came from his own difficulty balancing work and family administration. After a day at work, he found himself spending time sorting through messages and organising commitments instead of being present with his children.
“I have three kids and am constantly struggling between doing all these executive jobs — as my wife is doing as well,” he said. “And then, getting home at the end of the day, I just want to unplug, spend some time with my kids, be present, do some homework together… kick the ball around, and instead I find myself just spending an hour, literally, catching up on 40 emails.”
Fambot’s founders said family information is often scattered across school platforms, sports and club applications, email chains, WhatsApp conversations and paper notices. The company is designed to monitor those sources and identify actions that need to be taken, rather than waiting for a parent to ask a question.
How the Fambot AI chief of staff works
Families can link the accounts and groups they want the service to follow. Fambot then creates a daily digest of jobs to complete, while also highlighting relevant dates and commitments further ahead in the calendar.
Users can communicate with the service by text, but Fambot is also available through a website and conventional mobile apps. The company says that broader software access will allow it to develop features beyond the text-based interactions offered by some other AI assistants.
The service is being built to connect with more of the platforms used by schools, sports teams, clubs and other children’s organisations. The longer-term ambition is to create a single place where parents can view and manage family communications.
Fambot says it uses several AI models and that those models are not permitted to train on users’ data, a significant consideration for a service handling private family messages and schedules.
More than 1,000 families tested the product before its launch. The company said trials included single-parent households, families with one child, non-working parents and larger two-parent households, suggesting that its intended audience extends beyond families with two working adults and several children.
“There’s 43 million families in the U.S. with kids under 16, and they just haven’t gotten the support that they need,” Reich said. “We know what you’re going to face before you do sometimes, so that you can be prepared for it.”
Fambot has raised 3.5 million dollars (£2.6 million) in pre-seed funding. The round was co-led by NextView Ventures and Baukunst, with backing from Correlation Ventures, Karman Ventures and Founders Network.
The service is currently free while it remains in beta on iOS, Android and the web. Fambot expects eventually to charge a monthly fee broadly comparable with a Netflix subscription, although the company said that price has not been finalised.
