Smartphones frequently overwhelm with endless apps and notification barrages. A fresh app named Poppy tackles this disarray by merging calendars, emails, messages, and additional sources into a unified dashboard.

The company's website explains it this way: "Poppy pays attention so you don’t have to."

Users link services to Poppy, including email, calendar, and location data at least. Poppy applies AI to these inputs, pinpointing what matters most based on your current circumstances. In practice, this lets you check the app or its widgets for scheduled meetings and pending tasks.

Yet Poppy's standout capability lies in its forward-thinking suggestions.

For example, if your calendar shows a 30-minute window and location data places you near a park, Poppy might recommend a brief walk ahead of your next engagement. Similarly, when arranging brunch with a friend, it could draw on prior messages about their food likes to propose fitting restaurants.

You can chat with Poppy for questions or instructions, treating it like a dedicated personal aide. It monitors flight updates with alerts or prompts you for medication doses.

Creator Sai Kambampati holds a Master’s in Computer Science focused on human-computer interaction. A former software engineer at AI hardware firm Humane, he witnessed firsthand efforts to redefine tech engagement.

"I've always been interested in challenging what computers are able to do, especially the idea of ambient computing and computers that can proactively sense what you need and anticipate your needs," Kambampati told TechCrunch. "That's something that I found very, very exciting. And I felt like with all the AI technology that we're seeing around us, it has never been more possible to embark on something like this."

Poppy launches with compatibility for common tools like Apple Calendar, Google Calendar, Gmail, Outlook, iCloud Mail, Apple Health, Reminders, Contacts, iMessage, WhatsApp, and more. (A Mac app handles iMessage access, though Apple typically restricts third-party messaging integration.) It also integrates Uber and Instacart, with plans to add further services.

User data stays encrypted in storage, and cloud LLMs follow a zero-retention policy for generating suggestions. Looking ahead, Kambampati aims to shift to on-device AI as tech improves.

"My hope, my dream is - within two to three years from now, when our devices have much more powerful compute, and the models get much smaller, cheaper and more high quality - eventually we can have all of this running on our own devices, and there won't even be a need to hit the servers," he says.

The four-person team in San Francisco secured $1.25 million in pre-seed funding from Kindred Ventures, joined by angels including DeepMind's Logan Kilpatrick.