New AI assistants are cute, capable and possibly terrifying

“Sintra has just released AI employees and it has me terrified”. This is the opening line from a social media ad for a new AI product aimed at businesses, introducing cute avatars as virtual assistants across various different skill-sets.

The product was launched a couple of months ago, and there are twelve different assistants on offer currently:

• Business developer

• Copywriter

• Customer support

• Data analyst

• Ecommerce manager

• Email marketer

• Personal coach

• Recruiter

• Sales manager

• SEO specialist

• Social media manager

• Virtual assistant

Sintra’s product uses Open AI’s GPT-4o, and the assistants were built using Wordware’s LLM. The assistants’ behaviour follows step-by-step prompts provided by experts with business experience in the specific business areas, with the aim being that responses and actions happen in the same way that humans would do them.

The product looks as if it would benefit businesses looking to integrate AI into their daily operations without there being a steep learning curve such as mastery of prompts.

The interface appears intuitive and GPT-4o has powerful capabilities, and this is aided by the ability to train the assistants with links and data to make them more knowledgable and relevant to subscribers’ businesses. Furthermore, it integrates with popular platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Maps and YouTube.

The product is clearly looking to cater to a broad SME audience, and has been cleverly packaged to make it accessible and appealing to the target market.

In my spare time I am researching AI quite deeply at the moment, so I’m planning on trying it out myself very soon - even if the some of the adverts and videos promoting the product are somewhat dystopian, despite the cute branding.