Bond uses AI to help users break their doomscrolling habit

Traditional social media platforms were designed to keep users glued to their devices, endlessly scrolling through eye-straining feeds of memes and low-quality videos, all to create more engaging spaces for ads. In recent years, however, a growing number of companies have capitalized on user burnout by promoting real-world experiences or removing addictive features like infinite scroll.

Bond, which officially launched on Tuesday, is one such platform. Co-founder and CEO Dino Becirovic says the site offers an AI-powered solution to America's screen addiction.

Here's how it works: much like a standard social network, users post about their recent activities. Bond allows them to update their profiles with what it calls "memories" through photos, videos, and audio files.

Unlike other platforms, Bond is designed to act as an idea generator for what users should do in the real world.

Experiences stored in Bond feed its AI system, which learns to provide personalized, event-based recommendations, according to Becirovic.

For example, if you frequently post about loving pho and craving it, Bond might recommend a nearby Vietnamese restaurant with good reviews. Or if you're into heavy metal, it could alert you that Iron Maiden is playing in your city next week.

The more you share your experiences, the better the system's recommendations become, Becirovic says.

Image Credits:Bond

The layout resembles Instagram, but without a traditional feed. Instead, user profiles are displayed in a cluster format. Clicking a profile reveals the user's current stories, which disappear from the public profile after 24 hours, Becirovic said, but remain stored in a private archive. Users can search their memory archive anytime.

Bond's team includes people who previously built major social media apps like TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook, the company says. Becirovic previously worked at Kleiner Perkins and Index Ventures, while founding researcher Arthur Bražinskas co-led user signal integration at Google Gemini.

What's the revenue path for a company like this? Most social media platforms are essentially giant ad vehicles, generating the bulk of their revenue from advertising. Bond has no ads, so how will it make money?

Interestingly, Becirovic envisions a future where users can license their data from Bond's archives to companies for AI training. In this model, Bond would take a small licensing fee, creating ongoing revenue and positioning itself as a data provider for AI companies refining their models.

"The idea behind this licensing model is that you can monetize your memories," he said. "If we become a platform with the right incentive structure to get billions of people to share about their daily lives, we'll naturally become a very attractive place for training GPT‑6, GPT‑7, and all the variants that will come in the future."

Processed with DarkroomImage Credits:Bond

In another scenario, Bond would use its accumulated data as a product recommendation tool integrated with e‑commerce sites. "Our users would opt into this experience. If we are able to do this, we believe we could capture some value from the transaction with merchants by enabling a better user experience, driving conversion, and/or increasing throughput," Becirovic told TechCrunch in an email.

Becirovic said Bond would never sell user data for advertising purposes, and users can "delete any memories by either deleting them in the Memory tab or using natural language in Memory chat." He added: "Users can also delete their profile if they are not getting value from Bond. As the product grows, we will introduce more privacy control features to our users for them to manage their data."

Becirovic said Bond will improve its encryption over time, though he was somewhat vague about the platform's current protections: "E2EE encryption is a priority for us in the near future after launch. In the meantime, we store all user data securely in our database and ensure it is protected," he said.

For now, Becirovic seems primarily focused on making Bond appealing. "Monetization is not a short-term priority," he said. "Our initial focus is on creating an application where users get more value the more they capture their memories."