Acti, a Singapore-based startup, has introduced an agentic keyboard for iOS and Android devices. The app integrates AI tools directly into the apps users already use, such as email, messaging, and social media, eliminating the need to switch between apps for assistance. According to Young Wang, Acti’s founder and CEO, the keyboard addresses the challenge of fragmented user context across different apps, offering a unified context layer for AI interactions. The keyboard’s AI capabilities allow it to perform actions on behalf of users, such as providing local restaurant recommendations or sharing stock prices directly in chats. This approach streamlines the user experience by embedding AI into familiar interfaces rather than requiring users to open separate AI chatbots. Source: techcrunch
The agentic keyboard is powered by Google’s Gemini models, which Wang said were selected for their balance of intelligence, speed, reliability, multilingual performance, and cost-efficiency. One of the app’s key features is called Skills, which functions like custom shortcuts. Users can program a single key on their keyboard to trigger multistep tasks, such as translating a message or sharing a meeting link. The app is built around a local-first model, ensuring that users’ personal context remains on their device by default for privacy. Acti does not access or store private messages, conversations, or personal context unless explicitly required by a feature that involves external processing. Source: techcrunch
Wang, who previously spent a decade at Baidu, said the arrival of large language models (LLMs) marked a fundamental shift in how text is used. He noted that text has evolved into a carrier of intent, which can now be translated into action. This realization motivated him to reinvent the keyboard as a foundational interface for the AI era. Acti’s business model is still evolving, but the company plans to generate revenue through subscriptions offering advanced AI models, higher daily usage limits, and other premium features. Source: techcrunch
