AI-powered app maker Wabi pivots to a messaging experience
- ID
- 29906
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 30 Sep 2026, 1:20 AM
- Fetched
- 30 Sep 2026, 8:25 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/29/ai-powered-app-maker-wabi-pivots-to-a-messaging-experience/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 5.5
- Created
- 30 Sep 2026, 8:25 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- developersvibe_codersai_agent_usersfounders
What happened
Wabi, the prompt-to-app startup founded by Eugenia Kuyda (who previously founded Replika), announced 'Wabi 2.0' on September 28 — an invite-only AI messenger that generates the interface it needs in the moment, rather than competing head-on with other vibe-coding tools. Kuyda's stated rationale is that chat-only agents degrade with use because history and ongoing tasks end up buried in one endless scroll. The pivot lands the same week OpenAI's Dev Day announced updated ChatGPT plugins, which let apps offer interactive experiences inside ChatGPT with the app name pinned more visibly in the sidebar.
Why it matters
If you ship a vibe-coded app or an agent product, this is a fork in the road: build your own messenger-style surface that generates UI on demand, or distribute inside ChatGPT's sidebar via the updated plugins and trade control for reach. The article gives no pricing, launch date beyond 'invite-only', or user numbers for Wabi 2.0, and no technical detail on how the generated interfaces work — so treat it as a positioning signal, not a validated playbook. Nothing here is Malaysia-specific.
Discussion angle
Is 'chat-only agents get worse the more you use them' a real product insight or a marketing line? Push the group on whether generated on-demand UI actually fixes the buried-history problem, and whether they'd rather own a messenger surface or ship as a ChatGPT sidebar plugin where the platform owns the relationship.