Multiplayer AI: Make Internet Social Again

The death of the feed and the rise of AI-first social protocols.

Feeds killed social. Now millions are finding real connection in an unlikely place: deep conversations with AI companions. It's the ultimate plot twist of the social media era. Are we finally admitting that machines make better friends than humans? Or are we about to witness the biggest revolution in online connection since the friend request? My take: AI isn't here to replace human connection—it's here to revolutionize how we find it.

The Internet's Failed Promise

The internet turned the world into a massive battle royale, dropping billions of people into an arena of infinite possibilities with no playbook for navigation. Our first attempt to tame this chaos was the feed—algorithmic sorting that worked brilliantly for static entities like products and content, but fell short with the most complex entities of all: humans.

But humans aren't static content to be optimized and served. Yet that's exactly how we built our connection tools: Dating apps reduced rich human chemistry to binary swipes, professional networks flattened careers into keyword searches, and social platforms compressed our multifaceted lives into performance art. We solved for distribution, but lost the essence of human connection along the way.

So when millions started turning to AI companions for deep conversations, it wasn't just another tech fad. People are choosing AI not because it's new, but because it promises to restore what the feed era stripped away: the feeling of being truly seen, heard, and understood. After a decade of treating humans like content to be sorted, we're finally admitting that connection needs a new paradigm.

The feed era is over.

The Death of the Feed

To understand what comes next, we need to look back at how our attempts to connect billions of people online have evolved—from digital wandering to algorithmic feeds, and now to AI-powered conversations:

• 1st wave - Profile-first: MySpace championed digital wandering, like exploring a vast city of personal spaces. Users discovered each other by following trails of interests and connections—a digital flaneur experience. Serendipity came from human exploration, much like stumbling upon a fascinating shop while walking through a new neighborhood.

• 2nd wave - Feed-first: Facebook's revolutionary News Feed transformed social media into a passive consumption experience. The algorithm became our curator, ranking and filtering content based on engagement metrics. While this increased content discovery, it also created echo chambers and turned meaningful interactions into a game of likes and shares.

• 3rd wave - Chat-first: Now AI-powered conversations enable uniquely tailored interactions, replacing passive consumption with dynamic exchanges that evolve based on real-time context. Like a skilled host at a dinner party, AI enables more natural discovery of both content and connections, making each interaction genuinely personal.

The Social Renaissance

Just as Web2 platforms cracked social with likes and feeds, a new generation of AI-first companies is rewriting the rules of human connection. Their secret? Three unlocks that could usher a new wave of social:

1. Voice-first: Voice is becoming our default digital interface—universal, intuitive, and infinitely richer than text. As costs plummet, a powerful flywheel emerges: more people naturally engage through voice, generating emotional and tonal data that makes AIs better at understanding human nuance, which in turn drives more voice interaction. This wealth of voice data becomes the foundation for understanding users in entirely new ways, enabling the next breakthrough in social connection.

2. Non-declarative: Building on this rich voice data, we're finally moving beyond explicitly signaling who we are through LinkedIn skills, Facebook interests, and Insta stories. Real connection rarely works through declaration. Early platforms like Airbuds (intuition portfolio) and Bump showed how organic signals like music and location could spark natural connections. Now, AI companions analyze our voice patterns and casual conversations, catching Miles Davis references and space enthusiasm through natural chat, creating a detailed map of who we are without ever asking us to fill out a profile.

3. Individualization: Where social platforms once relied on static profiles and feed algorithms, voice data and non-declarative signals now enable AI to build dynamic, living representations of who we are. While personalization merely optimized feeds for consumption, individualization lets our different modes emerge naturally—professional, music nerd, athlete. By replacing rigid profiles with fluid, AI-mediated understanding, we're moving from carefully curated personas to authentic, multi-faceted connection.

The New Social Protocols

It’s time to Make Internet Social Again. The pieces are finally falling into place. Voice is becoming natural, AI is becoming ambient, and most importantly, we're tired of performing online. What's missing isn't better AI models - those are becoming commoditized. What's missing are new social protocols made possible by AI that make the internet feel human again. AI companions are fun, but as always, the real game begins with multiplayer.

The pattern feels familiar. Instagram started as a single-player tool, helping users enhance their photos with filters, before evolving into a multiplayer social protocol that created a new marketplace for connection. Similarly, today's AI companions are starting in single-player mode, helping individuals feel seen and understood. But the real revolution will come when these companions enable multiplayer connections, using their deep understanding of each user to facilitate authentic human matches. We're moving from a Fortnite-like social era where everyone competed for attention in a massive battle royale, to a Minecraft-like future where AI helps us build meaningful connections and collaborative experiences together.

So, while tech giants struggle to retrofit AI into aging platforms, a new wave of startups is inventing social protocols native to the AI era. These pioneers aren't just building smarter chatbots—they're crafting new languages of human interaction. Yes it’s clunky, weird, sometimes scary—but here’s to these experiments making the internet less lonely, one connection at a time. And ofc, if you’re building around the thesis, ping me 🤝

• 🎮 Gaming & Virtual Worlds: Gaming is emerging as the perfect testing ground for new social protocols. Inworld AI and Artificial Agency are transforming NPCs from scripted characters into sophisticated conversation partners, using voice AI to create natural dialogue and living ecosystems. Ego AI takes this further by enabling voice-driven world creation, while AI Dungeon adapts multiplayer stories in real time. These platforms aren't just making games more interactive—they're creating social spaces where AI analyzes player interactions to match compatible teammates, resulting in 3x better team retention.

• 💬 Social Platforms & Communities: The social media landscape is being reimagined by companies like Social AI, which transforms passive feeds into interactive dialogues. Status is gamifying social interaction with AI character integration, while Shapes and Butterflies AI builds evolving narrative networks. Replika, known for pioneering AI companionship, is now exploring multiplayer modes that use voice chat to facilitate human connections. These platforms are using AI hosts to analyze conversations and facilitate introductions, creating micro-communities based on detected passions and compatible thought patterns.

• 💼 Professional Networking & Collaboration: In the professional sphere, Boardy.AI is revolutionizing networking through voice-first proactive introductions, while Mercor transforms hiring by analyzing workplace chemistry and communication styles. Delphi (intuition’s portfolio is pushing boundaries by creating personal AI clones for networking, envisioning a future where our digital twins meet first. These platforms are particularly focused on matching complementary problem-solving styles and pairing big picture thinkers with detail-oriented executors.

  ❤️ Dating & Relationships: The dating landscape is being transformed by platforms like Gigi (angel portfolio), which combines AI matchmaking with conversation coaching. These new approaches analyze voice patterns to predict compatibility and detect chemistry in group settings, making matches 4x more likely to succeed. Activity-based matching and real-time behavior analysis are replacing traditional profile-based matching.

• 📚 Education & Learning: Educational platforms are creating more effective learning environments through AI-powered matching. Knowunity enables peer connections with AI tutoring support, while OKO Labs facilitates group learning through interactive problem solving. These systems create learning circles matched through teaching patterns, resulting in 60% better knowledge retention, and form study pairs based on complementary learning styles.

• ✈️ Travel & Experiences: Travel is becoming more social through platforms like Pilot, which transforms trip planning into collaborative experiences through AI-assisted group coordination. These systems match travelers based on conversation styles and shared passions, creating group journeys that connect explorers with compatible energy levels and curiosity types.

• 🛒 Commerce & Shopping: In the shopping realm, platforms like Haz are creating community-driven commerce experiences through AI-curated purchase tracking and sharing. These systems match shoppers based on decision patterns and preferences, facilitating group buying and social product discovery.

• 💪 Health & Wellness: Health-focused platforms are creating more supportive communities. Wisdo enables precision-matched peer support through AI analysis of shared experiences. BringSoul transforms gratitude practice into interactive conversations, while Rosebud turns journaling into supportive dialogue through AI-guided self-reflection. These platforms create support groups matched through voice-detected coping styles and recovery circles grouped by compatible motivation patterns.

• 🎬 Entertainment & Lifestyle: The entertainment sector is evolving toward more social experiences, with platforms matching viewers based on compatible commentary styles and shared media preferences. Similarly, fitness and wellness platforms are creating workout groups matched through motivation patterns and achievement networks paired by accountability styles.