Interaction is a Palo Alto-based startup building Poke, an AI assistant that operates entirely within iMessage and SMS. The architecture constrains the system to function through messaging protocols rather than native apps, requiring the assistant to parse natural language commands, maintain conversational state, and execute actions across text, email, and calendar integrations - all mediated through message-based I/O. This introduces latency and throughput considerations inherent to SMS delivery networks and iMessage's API surface, alongside constraints on rich UI feedback mechanisms available to native applications.
The company raised $15M in seed funding led by General Catalyst. The technical challenge centers on building proactive intelligence that surfaces relevant information from communication patterns while operating within the reliability and availability constraints of carrier networks and Apple's messaging infrastructure. Cross-platform integration across email and calendar systems adds complexity in authentication flows, permission models, and error handling when actions must be triggered through conversational interfaces rather than direct API calls.
The team includes engineers from quantitative trading firms, MIT, Cambridge, and international science olympiad competitors. The stack includes Next.js, React, and SwiftUI, suggesting server-side processing for NLP workloads with client components for any companion interfaces. Production success depends on handling edge cases in natural language understanding, managing state across asynchronous message exchanges, and maintaining consistent behavior despite variable network conditions and platform-specific limitations in both iOS and carrier SMS systems.