Building Invisible AI with Bubbl Founder Tony Xiong: The AI Assistant With No App — It Just Texts You
with Tony Xiong — Founder & CEO
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Tony Xiong has been building since he was 15 — first a portable drive 10x faster than anything on the market, then a camera he launched into the stratosphere for Sony. Now he's building Bubbl: an AI assistant that lives in your texts and pulls what actually matters out of your message chaos. No app to install — you just text it.
On Episode 7 of 18VC, we sit down with Tony Xiong, founder & CEO of Bubbl, on why the real problem was never information overload, how his Action Context Engine learns who you are, and the on-campus growth stunt that taught him a hard lesson about virality.
Highlights & Key Insights:
- Why the real problem was never information overload — it's knowing which 100 of your 1,000 daily messages actually matter
- The "invisible AI" thesis: why the best productivity tool has no app and no interface — you just text it
- Inside the Action Context Engine (ACE): how your personal context, relationship graph, and messaging style decide what's worth interrupting you for
- The numbers — 47% day-7 retention, 260 beta testers, and 60,000+ messages sent to Bubbl in two months
- The growth mistake: hundreds of campus signups in a day who never came back — and what it taught him about viral distribution
- Why he calls Bubbl "an introvert" — it listens in the background so it can strike at exactly the right moment
- How Bubbl reads your Gmail and WhatsApp without storing a single message
Featured Company
Bubbl
Turn message chaos into actions.
About Tony Xiong
Tony Xiong
Founder & CEO
Serial entrepreneur. intuitive product designer. full-time introvert. building bubblai.com, an invisible AI to help you see less and do more.
LinkedInHosts
Timestamps
00:00 Episode highlights
00:58 Welcome to Episode 7
01:53 From product designer to founder
02:48 Building since 15 & a stratosphere stunt
06:32 Meeting his co-founder in a group chat
07:22 What Bubbl actually is
08:18 The origin story & 20 signups on the spot
09:50 No app — just text "Hi Bubble"
11:18 The real problem isn't overload
12:58 "Invisible AI" & why SMS
15:03 How Bubbl decides what matters
16:58 Inside the Action Context Engine
20:28 Privacy: what it stores (and doesn't)
21:19 Competitors & "not an iMessage product"
23:45 Traction, retention & the moat
25:47 Go-to-market & the viral-marketing mistake
30:26 Why Bubbl is "an introvert"
32:34 Hiring & a people-first culture
34:38 Decisions & the message you never knew you missed
37:54 Life beyond building
Show Notes
— Connect with Tony Xiong —
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haoyu-tony-xiong/
— Bubbl —
Website: https://bubblai.com/
Try it: text "Hi Bubbl!" to +1 (949) 283-8690
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