WTH is Poe.com?

Poe.com: The App Store for AI Chatbots Streamlining Bot Development

The sad truth is that I didn’t know about Poe until the OpenAI drama unfolded. Much has been written about this already so I don’t need to add my thoughts on it as well, but it provides me with a good enough reason to look into Poe and if it can help me on my quest to build useful autonomous agents.

Executive Summary

Poe.com (Poe) is an App Store for Bot helping bot developers with discovery, distribution, and monetization. Poe was founded by Adam D’Angelo CEO of Quora who also happens to sit on the board of OpenAI.

If you want to understand Poe you need to understand how Silicon Valley sees AI. For them, AI is a new technology where existing business models can be easily rolled into. Hence I’d argue that Poe is like the App Store / Play Store that Apple and Google launched after they introduced their smartphones to the world.

These App Stores are an important part for businesses to benefit from the new platform and provide an opportunity to shuffle established players and allow entry to new players. 9th Ferengi Rules of Aquisition.

Problem

When tech companies introduce a new platform they have invested a lot of money in developing the processes, manufacturing capacities, trained and hired staff, secured IP rights, etc. Now they need as many people as possible to buy their new products. App Stores are a formidable way to provide immediate value to new users, distribute risks, and thereby increase adoption.

Hence the immediate tasks are