From Feed to Chat: How Opine Is Reinventing Social Media for Gen Alpha

Opine is not just another social media platform—it’s a radical reimagining of how content is consumed and relationships are built online. Founded in 2024 by Manuj Mishra and Diogo Valdivieso, Opine is at the forefront of a new digital era where AI influencers take center stage. Based in San Francisco and part of Y Combinator’s W25 batch, the startup is building what it calls “social media for AI influencers.”

Rather than passively scrolling through an endless feed, Opine users chat with AI-powered personalities who recommend content directly within the conversation. These AI influencers are powered by large language models (LLMs), while the content itself is still crafted by human creators. This hybrid experience fuses entertainment with personalization, forming a new kind of digital influencer that engages users more intimately than ever before.

How Does Opine Work?

At its core, Opine replaces the traditional feed with a chatbot interface. Users find a virtual influencer they like, add the influencer’s Opine-generated phone number to a messaging platform like iMessage or WhatsApp, and start chatting. The influencer then begins sending personalized content recommendations—videos, links, or updates—directly in the chat.

This interaction isn’t just a gimmick. It’s the main attraction. Instead of navigating away from messaging apps to scroll feeds, users get their entertainment piped directly into their conversations, where context, tone, and interests are remembered and tailored over time. It’s closer to talking with a real person than browsing a social media profile.

Why Is Gen Alpha the Perfect Audience?

Opine is laser-focused on Gen Alpha—the first generation to grow up entirely in the age of mobile, streaming, and AI. Their digital habits are deeply rooted in platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch, where influencer culture dominates. But even these platforms require users to search for content manually or rely on algorithmic feeds with limited personalization.

Opine solves that by creating a conversation-driven experience. The LLM-powered influencers act as content guides, curators, and companions. For a generation accustomed to conversational interfaces and deeply invested in parasocial relationships with influencers, Opine offers a social model that feels native, interactive, intelligent, and real-time.

What Did Opine Learn From Early Prototypes?

During their Y Combinator batch, the Opine team developed and tested two early applications.

1. An Instagram-style app: This version featured profiles with associated chatbots. While users enjoyed the chat element, the static feed clashed with the fluidity of real-time conversation. The format felt disconnected and didn’t deliver the personalized interaction users craved.
2. A TikTok-style app with AI-generated influencer videos: Here, the team leaned into AI creation but removed chat functionality. This version lacked stickiness—users missed the interactive layer that gave previous versions their charm.

From these experiments, the founders realized their key insight: the magic happens when conversation and content are inseparable. This led them to pivot toward integrating chatbots into existing messaging platforms, where users already spend most of their time.

What Makes Opine Different From Other AI Chatbots?

Chatbots are not new. Tools like Character AI have shown that AI personalities can captivate users and hold attention. However, Opine introduces a critical innovation: content recommendation as the core utility of the chat experience.

Instead of just offering generic replies or roleplay, Opine bots push curated media—videos, links, updates—based on the user’s behavior, preferences, and engagement. They don’t just talk; they guide, inspire, and connect. Opine isn’t just entertaining—it’s functional and deeply embedded in how users consume digital content.

This content-first approach makes Opine more defensible than other entertainment bots. It’s not just AI for AI’s sake; it’s AI with purpose, transforming how media is delivered and enjoyed.

How Can Creators Benefit From Opine?

Opine empowers creators in a way traditional platforms do not. While most creators are at the mercy of algorithms and platform rules, Opine gives them a more direct and controllable way to engage audiences. By pairing their content with an AI influencer persona, creators can maintain a presence in group chats, private messages, and digital conversations—all without being online 24/7.

These AI influencers extend the creator’s brand, personality, and values, building relationships with fans that are continuous and personalized. Monetization opportunities also expand—Opine is exploring in-chat purchases, premium content access, and influencer-led commerce, providing creators new ways to earn.

Who Are the Founders Behind Opine?

The Opine team brings a potent blend of technical depth and product experience.

Manuj Mishra, Opine’s CEO, was the second machine learning hire at the defense tech unicorn Rebellion. Academically, he’s a standout—graduating #1 in his Mathematics and Computer Science cohort at Imperial College London and earning a Master’s in Advanced CS from Oxford. He’s also a published AI researcher, with a first-author paper at the prestigious UAI 2024 conference.

Diogo Valdivieso, the CTO, has a rich background in building for scale and engagement. He previously launched Battle Arena, a mobile game that reached 1 million users across 70 countries. After studying Computer Science at EPFL, Diogo left his Master’s program to fully commit to building Opine.

Together, Manuj and Diogo combine academic rigor, product intuition, and startup grit—traits that have propelled them from concept to over 900 users on a waitlist and an active Discord beta community, all within a few short months.

What’s Next for Opine?

The future for Opine is as conversational as its product. The company is continuing to build its chatbot infrastructure, expanding into platforms like Telegram and Messenger, and fine-tuning how media is recommended within each chat flow. The goal is to create a seamless content network that feels native to messaging.

As they onboard more beta users and creators, Opine aims to prove that influencer engagement can be conversational, that content delivery can be contextual, and that AI personalities can become trusted curators in our daily lives.

Their north star? A world where Gen Alpha doesn’t just follow influencers—they talk to them. And those influencers, powered by AI, talk back.

Conclusion

Opine is not just launching another app—it’s redefining how we interact with digital content. By turning AI chatbots into influencer proxies and embedding them into our most-used communication tools, Opine builds a future where content comes to us, personally delivered in conversation.

This startup represents a shift from feeds to friends, from passive consumption to interactive recommendation, and from human influencers to AI-powered companions. As Gen Alpha grows into its digital identity, Opine may just become the platform that speaks their language—literally.