Soar

If you could go anywhere… where would you go?

Assistant Benchmark creator David Pawlan sits down with a16z's Anish Acharya to unpack the sudden explosion of personal AI agents and what it will take for one to become part of everyday life. David has been testing dozens of assistants across real-world tasks, from managing email and booking travel to handling financial admin. They discuss why the most useful agents may become increasingly invisible, proactively checking you into flights, finding refunds, filing reimbursements, or simply handling the small tasks that pile up across everyday life. They also explore whether the winning interface is an app, text thread, voice, or wearable; how much autonomy consumers will actually give their agents; and what happens when agents start interacting with other agents. From commerce and restaurant reservations to entirely new agent-native services, Anish and David ask what the internet looks like when software starts acting on our behalf. 00:54 Poke, Instinct, Muse: the agent boom 03:41 What Assistant Bench actually tests 09:14 Cost savers beat time savers 14:53 Muse charm as Meta's data play 20:03 Silent agents in group chats 26:01 Proactivity is the real moat 32:21 Assistant vs agent, defined 40:22 Amazon blocks Muse, Shopify opens the door 47:35 The $20/day agent economics YouTube: youtu.be/3T5sij3spWw @DavidPawlan @illscience

growing up is realizing your whole friend group can’t make every trip. Some ppl are home friends. Some are vacation friends. Lol

Remember this startup drama? Turns out the story goes much deeper: businessinsider.com/soar-sta…

I’m joining @soarapp to build the future of travel. This past summer, I worked on the AI Experiences team at Expedia. I left convinced this is one of the biggest industries about to be rebuilt by agents. A few things I learned: → Vertical agents > horizontal ones. The best agents won’t just “do things.” They’ll be deeply personalized and built for edge cases. → Travel tech is overdue for a reset. The way we plan and manage trips hasn’t fundamentally changed in years, despite how much AI has advanced. → Airline infrastructure is advancing. Better APIs and real-time data will create a new layer of travel products. → Group travel is still a mess. Getting 5 people to agree on flights, dates, hotels, budgets, and itineraries is a coordination problem begging for agents. I’ve never been more excited about a space :) Text soar at joinsoar.co and DM me any thoughts you have about the current experience!

Just realize Soar was featured in @phocuswire Hot Travel Startup list if you work in the travel industry, you’ll get why this is awesome. we just getting started @soarapp ✈️ Thanks Phocuswright!

@soarapp kinda goated for telling me to check in to my flight i always forget

@soarapp ui kinda sick

pov: you run to catch every flight because you chronically test airport theory without @soarapp i would be missing all of them