Tomo's lesson: personal agents need to live in iMessage, not their own app
floguo · x · 2026-11-11
The Tomo team shipped hundreds of iterations over a summer building a standalone iOS app and forcing users off iMessage — retention never matched iMessage-first cohorts. The analogy: if your friend Justin is only reachable via the 'Justin App' and replies in 1-10 minutes, how often would you talk to him? Personal agents must live in async messaging platforms consumers already use (text, Slack, Teams). Tomo's best users message over iMessage and occasionally deep-link into the app for deeper topics and the system of record.
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