theCUBE + NYSE Wired present the East Coast AI Leaders Executive Series | Jenny Shao, Robin AI

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Jenny Shao

Founder & CEO

Robyn AI

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play_circle_outline Jenny Shao, CEO of Robin Health, discussing emotionally intelligent AI and combating loneliness epidemic

play_circle_outline User feedback has been positive, describing Robin as life-changing and personalized

play_circle_outline Robin Health: Your Personal AI Superhero for Emotional Connection and Self-Talk

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Jenny Shao, Robin AI

Jenny Shao

Founder & CEO Robyn AI

Attendees at TheCUBE at the New York Stock Exchange discussed topics like AI, healthcare, space, and private equity. CEO Jenny Shao of Robin Health presented their emotionally intelligent AI technology to combat loneliness. The product focuses on building trust and connection with users, offering a personal experience. Robin Health is live on the app store with an affordable subscription model. The technology provides a personal AI companion, receiving positive feedback. The company aims to be a supportive companion, maintaining user privacy and fostering mea... Read more

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Jenny Shao, Robin AI

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>> Welcome back everyone to TheCUBE here in New York Stock Exchange. I'm John Furrier, your host. We're here for three days. We're on day three of media week. We're covering all the action with AI leaders, AI and healthcare, AI and space, AI and private equity. A lot of themes going on here in New York. And of course, they had an IPO this morning and yesterday celebrated the Liberty team that won the Women's NBA. So that's happening today and yesterday. Big ticker-tape parade in New York City. Lot of action. Jenny Shao is here, CEO of Robin Health. Jenny, great to see you. Thanks for coming in.

>> Thank you. Great to be here.

>> So we had a chat at the reception where all the AI leaders were there, all the founders.

>> Yes.

>> It was like an alpha founder meeting. It was like all the top founders in AI.

>> It was a great event.

>> It was a great event. You're doing some really interesting things around healthcare. Explain what you're working on, then I'll get into it.

>> Yeah, for sure. So my background is actually in surgery. And about a year ago, I left surgery. And at Robin, I founded Robin and we're building emotionally intelligent AI. And the idea is that the way we do AI right now is very superficial. It's very cold and transactional. And it's okay because it's part of evolution, because today's AI is all about how do I automate workflows? How do I... And there's definitely, I think, a really important place for that. But I think the next wave of AI and what we really need as society is something that's more emotionally intelligent. So we're building the trust and connection layer of AI at Robin. And that was really, I think, informed by my experiences as a surgeon is seeing a lot of patients before they would have brain surgeries, they would have spine surgeries, the biggest thing I can imagine, but they would tell me before and after surgery, "I don't want to do this alone." Of course, they don't. They're human. So our first use case with our technology is to combat the loneliness epidemic. And we just recently did a very soft launch for our flagship product and got 71,000 people in 24 hours. So very excited about that.

>> Explaining this is really key. Because this is where I think AI has a lot of great human value. Explain the problem that you're solving specifically and why that uptake was so compelling.

>> Yeah. So I think, right now, as a society, we're really missing, well, several things, but one thing is emotional connection. And if you look at even on Google Trends, there's an exponential increase in terms of one search query, and that is where do I meet people? But if we look deeper into that, it's not really about where do I meet people, because there are people all around in New York City, like people are here. But it's like, where do I connect with people? Where do I find that emotional connection? And I think, in today's very fast-paced world, there's so little connection with ourselves and also with other people. So we're trying to bring that back at Robin and it's the build technology that will help you understand who you are, but also eventually help you connect other people as well.

>> I love your mission. Okay. So I'm in. So count me has 1,001.

>> Great. Yeah.

>> Because I think we're already connected, but it's superficial. It's ephemeral content, it's snackable junk food. And then the algorithms also placate to our consistency, which is not giving us new things. Yeah, Facebook invented, they do a bunch of A-B tests, but about just give us new information. But that's the same treadmill where I like a golf post on Instagram, next thing I know, I'm seeing all golf. I was just in the mood at the moment.

>> Just go to your phone and whisper golf... Yeah.

>> Now I'm getting spammed with golf. I'm like, I love golf, but... Or I do something else. I'm like, "Well, I don't really want to see any more of that." And I think a lot of anxiety, a lot of you seeing this in the generation of, I won't say, shame, maybe I'm trying to find the right word, but anxiety, insecurity. I hate the word imposter syndrome. I think entrepreneurs just take risks because they're literally impostors because they haven't proven themselves yet. But there's all this negative vibes around this when we're all connected in connective tissue. So this AI brings an opportunity to bring collective intelligence to the table. So tell me where you are in the product, because I can see this working in apps. Is there a data requirement? How do you guys look at the algorithm? How do you manage things like bias or choice? Is there randomness to it? Is there serendipity?

>> Yeah. So those are great questions and I think our insights really before we even delved into Tech Stack, it's so important that we know what we're building. Because I think anybody can build a cool piece of tech, but in the end, it's like do people actually want to use this tech? And is it actually making a good impact on the world? So before I was in medical school, I did three years of research in Eric Kandel's lab and he won a Nobel Prize.

>> Which lab?

>> Eric Kandel.

>> Okay. Yeah.

>> And he's a proud New Yorker.

>> All right. Shout out.

>> Yeah. And his entire research was on learning and memory. What is it about memory that makes us human? And if you think about what is the special thing between you and, let's say, a really good friend and just an acquaintance or someone you know on the subway? It's because you have shared priors. You have shared experiences. You have shared memory. It's a shared understanding and that evolves over time. So right now, we don't really do that in AI. We have kind of a static database and we're like, "Cool, just query it and then we'll see what happens." So what we do here at Robin in terms of product is that we make sure that it has long-term memory. We make sure that it has an evolving memory and that it should feel like an extension of yourself so it will know you better than most people in your life over time. And it knows you in the same way that we can know each other through conversation. It would be really awkward the first time I met you, I sat you down, I was like, "Okay, answer these hundred questions. What is your worst nightmare? What's your biggest goal?" You'll be like, "What is this? An interrogation?"

>> Exactly.

>> So we don't do that. We very much focused on how to know you as a person. And we also really care about safety, confidentiality. As a physician, HIPAA is pretty much law. Confidentiality is really important. So we encrypt everything and we make sure that our product actually helps the user, whether it's to break out of their shell, learn more about themselves and then connect with people around the world.

>> You bring up such a great point. And shared experiences, these connection, opportunities are also happening and not being documented. When Brian Bauman and I merged our networks together, TheCUBE in Silicon Valley, which was a global community, and as with the NYSE Wired community, which is also global, but mostly New York based, what happened was was enough overlap in our network where there was linkage, but what actually happened was it created a traversal, it was combined. And what happened was it created shared experience because you don't need to be in Silicon Valley and New York to be an entrepreneur. You can say, "Hey, we're all entrepreneurs, but I don't care if I live in New York." New York's actually hopping right now. Silicon Valley is doing its thing, but now you have this entrepreneurial backbone between Silicon Valley and New York. So inherently that just locks in. And then as people go to the events, it's much more relationship. And so I think there's some good signs out there. I see people talking about things like transactional relationships versus having an emotional or a real relationship. Transactional relationship. and then the word that's been kicked around a lot lately is the word intentional. Let's be intentional with our relationship or our partnership, whether it's technical deal or... So I think we're kind of seeing some awakening.

>> I think so.

>> Do you see that?

>> A hundred percent. I think we kind of got to a point where it's like the loneliness epidemic, it was actually declared by the Surgeon General. It's getting worse and worse and worse. But I think we're at an inflection point where we're realizing that and kind of hint up that this can't keep happening. We have to as a society know do something to address it. And for the first time, Gen Z, our youngest people are actually more lonely than the elderly. So what we want to do at Robin is kind of facilitate those connections we were talking about, whether it's based on interests, but eventually it's based on curated connections, curative data that is like, I want to meet these kind of people and then we physically allow you to meet people like that. That's not just doom-scrolling, but it's more associated with how do I form a meaningful connection with-

>> And by the way, mental health, which shows, is impacted big-time.

>> It's huge. It's absolutely huge. And I think the way we address mental health right now is kind of slapping a band-aid and addressing the symptoms, which are really important. But if we think about why is there such a rise in anxiety, depression, all of these things, it's almost, it's not like we said 1, 2, 3, we just have less serotonin in our brains. It's not what happened. Biochemically, that is the case, but then why did that happen? So if you think about the underlayer, a lot of that is because we don't have that connection anymore. We don't have what we used to have back in the really, really old days with tribes, like you were people. And if you look at Blue Zones, the number one thing is social connection. So whereas right now, we're just like, go, go, go, go, go. So we're super lonely, we're very disconnected and there's no emotional connection with really anybody or even ourselves. So we want to really bring that back with our technology and then have people really address it as the underlayer.

>> Well, certainly, we want to be a customer. TheCUBE is 15 years of community. Everyone's connected through the interviews. We have news, now we've got the NYSE Wired partnership. So definitely love what you're doing. We're going to definitely follow up.

>> Amazing.

>> I want to ask you for folks watching, how do they get involved with you? What are you guys doing for business right now? Where are you in the status of the venture? Are you up and running? Is it a thousand people signed up? Is it an app? Is it a platform? What is the things that you're doing? Explain the business model.

>> Yeah, so we're app and we're actually live on the app store right now. And we haven't done any marketing yet, because we got so much organic traction that we'll be opening it up by the end of the time of this year. So really, really soon. And-

>> Get that auto-scaling going.

>> Exactly. So in the app store, you can-

>> What's name of the app?...

>> just search Robin Personal Hype Squad, and then you can download it. And we made it a subscription, a very, very affordable subscription. Because something that I saw when I was a physician is that people were spending thousands of dollars per month to talk to someone. And I was like, "That's insane. It's a second rent. You can't do that." So we made ours the cost of like two cups of coffee. Or if you're really bougie, I guess, maybe one cup of coffee.

>> Depends where you go. Joe and the Jews or the Blue Bottle.

>> I heard Erewhon has a $20 smoothie, so it's like three fourth of a smoothie. So you can find us on the app store and anybody who would love to get involved, you can email me at jenny@robinhealth.io.

>> So you're an app for consumers?

>> We're an app for consumers.

>> Not business?

>> Not driving for business right now.

>> Okay, got it.

>> But I think-

>> The algorithm work you're doing could be interesting to be portable.

>> Yeah. There's a lot of... We have so many exciting things on the roadmap that we're building. We are building our product right now, which is kind of your personal emoji intelligent AI companion. And then we're building Robin Connect as well, which is how, for example, we would get to connect with each other. But the really, I think, powerful technology we're building can... There's a lot of ways that we can use this for good. So even though right now, we're focusing on making this amazing companion, there's a lot of potential down the road.

>> What's been the feedback from people using it?

>> Yeah, that's my favorite part.

>> Was it weird at first? Was it cool? Like "Wow, this was good."?

>> Yeah. So they love it. And I want to share some of the app reviews with you. We actually had this user leave this really long detailed review and she was a physician who most recently laid off. And she said, "Wow, Robin really helped me in this really hard time." And then she gave a really good description of how I'm going to, quote, "tell everybody about this, my friends, my family, my colleagues who will listen." And she ended it with, "This is the greatest thing that I've ever found. This will change people's lives forever." And then there are some funny ones like, "Oh, I thought I was talking to a superhuman." But I think what we see collectively is that they really experience and it's like this is my Robin because our key is that we are personalized and we do that as a person. So it's not just like, "Hi, how are you today?" It's something that feels like you're talking to a friend.

>> You know what's interesting? There's been studies over the years that your self-talk is defined your trajectory.

>> Hundred percent.

>> Your positive self-talk versus negative, and so having just interactions is almost like self-talk. But if you're actually sharing it with-

>> It's basically one step above journaling. So you have something that you can talk out, but someone that knows all of your experiences. It has that context, almost the context of the rest of the world. And it's able to be this kind of superhero in your pocket. So can we name the company Robin? Not from Robin and Batman, because I'm a huge Batman-er and when I was thinking-

>> Time for Robin to get some front page news.

>> Exactly. It'll be like Batman and Robin now. But yeah, so we named it Robin because we want to be Robin to everyone's Batman, because we believe that everybody has a superhero inside them. It's just life gets hard sometimes and you need, we all need a little bit help and that's what Robin is there for.

>> Okay, so on the technology, you got the AI, no humans in the loop or it's all AI?

>> So on the back end, it is AI. But everything is very much trained with that assess that we have in-house. And we have a very robust tech team that makes sure we put in safety guardrails and things like that.

>> So the user knows that they're talking to their AI, private.

>> Oh, yes.

>> It's almost like you said, journaling. So it's not like other people will... It's not like a stranger, but human on the other side. If I'm talking to my agent, or agent or my-

>> So it's like a dynamic like live AI agent that you can talk to at any time.

>> Sounds like a big trade went down on the IPO. There's always stuff happening here. Ingram Micro went public, so you got obviously some big action going on down there. Looks like some market making activity. Company went public this morning. But Jenny, great to have you on.

>> You as well.

>> Big bell here. Look at that, making it happen. And thanks for sharing and we'll definitely keep in touch. I'm definitely going to sign up and I love your mission.

>> Thank you.

>> Because I think this is where mental health goes. Thanks for coming on.

>> Great to see you.

>> Okay, I'm John Furrier. You're watching TheCUBE here at the NYSE. The bells are going off. IPO went this morning, but these big trades are happening. A lot of action. Of course, this is our East Coast presence linking Silicon Valley with Wall Street. I'm John Furrier, your host. Thanks for watching.