Meet your assistant Kite
Say it once. Kite takes it from there.
The personal assistant inside VestraAI. Tell it what you need in plain words, and it reminds you, keeps your lists and checks on things, asking before it acts for you.
Kite is the personal assistant inside VestraAI. An ordinary chat is for questions. Kite is for the things you would otherwise have to remember: it sets reminders, runs tasks on a schedule, keeps your lists and keeps an eye on things, then tells you when there is something to know.
Open it from Talk to Kite at the top of the sidebar, and talk to it the way you would text someone who has worked with you for years. There are no commands to learn.
I’ve used Kite every day since it launched, and it has made my daily routine noticeably faster. I no longer skim long articles to find out what happened overnight, the day before or over the week. Every morning at 8am, Kite sends me a digest of tech and general news, and it’s been exactly what I need. I’ve used VestraAI at school too, and it’s been brilliant.
At a glance
- 1Ongoing conversation, so Kite keeps the thread
- 2Kinds of Kite: reminders, and tasks Kite carries out for you
- 3Ways to hear back: every time, only when it finds something, or once and then stop
- 5Ways to schedule one: once, every few minutes or hours, daily, weekdays or weekly
Just say it
Short and casual works best. Kite picks sensible defaults (mornings are 8am, “weekly” means Monday at 9am) and tells you what it chose, so you can change it. The replies below are illustrative; Kite’s wording varies.
Reminders
Prompt
remind me to call Mum at 6
Response
Done. I’ll remind you to call Mum at 18:00 today.
Repeating
Prompt
ping me every 2 hours to drink water
Response
Set: a reminder to drink water every 2 hours. Say “stop the water reminders” when you’ve had enough.
Digests
Prompt
send me tech news every Friday at 5
Response
Your tech digest is set for Fridays at 17:00. Each week I’ll look up what’s new and write you a short round-up.
Watchers
Prompt
let me know if bitcoin drops under 50k
Response
I’ll check every hour and message you only if it drops below 50,000. Until then you won’t hear from me about it.
Lists
Prompt
add eggs, milk and bread to groceries
Response
Added eggs, milk and bread to your groceries list. Ask “what’s on my list?” any time, or tell me to cross things off.
Correct it casually (“no, make it 7”, “actually, weekdays only”), and ask “what Kites do I have?” to see everything it is doing for you. Results land in your inbox in VestraAI. Turn on notifications to get them even when VestraAI is closed, or have any Kite emailed to you as well.
On paid plans, Kite also has a private cloud computer for sums, data, charts and files: “turn this table into a spreadsheet”. Every script is checked before it runs. And on a voice call, you can simply ask for a reminder out loud.
A day with Kite
08:00
Weekday briefing
The weather for your city and the top news.
10:00
Water
The first of the two-hourly reminders.
13:15
One message, two jobs
“Add eggs to groceries and remind me to shop at 5:30” adds the item and sets the reminder.
17:00
Friday digest
Kite looks up the week’s tech news and writes it up for you.
17:30
Shopping
The reminder arrives, and “what’s on my list?” reads it back.
All day
Watcher
Checks the price every hour and stays quiet unless it drops.
Asks first
Kite does things for you, so it follows clear rules about when.
| What Kite is doing | For example | When it happens |
|---|---|---|
| Looking something up | A web search, a page, the weather, your Kites | Straight away |
| Changing your own things in VestraAI | A Kite, a list, a memory | Straight away, with a card under the reply. Many can be undone from the card. |
| Working on a website for you | Finding the cheapest flight on a given day | Only after you tap Approve, every time |
On a website, Kite uses a real browser. The Approve card says which site and what for; once you approve, it works only on that site, and you can watch it in the browser panel.
Scheduled Kites run while you are away, so they can do less: they look things up and update your lists, and nothing that needs your approval is ever offered to them.
The cards under each reply show what actually happened: a reminder set, a list changed, a site approved. If there is no card, it didn’t happen.
Memory and privacy
Tell Kite about yourself and it uses that from then on: “my name’s Sam, I work nights”, “I live in Leeds”, “I’m vegetarian”, “keep replies short”. When it picks things up on its own, it sticks to lasting facts such as your city or your job, and leaves out sensitive topics such as health, religion, politics and money.
You decide what it keeps. In Settings → Memory you can see everything it remembers, delete one thing or clear the lot, or switch memory off so that nothing new is saved.
- VestraAI, Kite included, runs on Vestra’s servers in Germany.
- Your Kite conversation is saved to your account, like your other chats. Delete all data in Settings removes your chats, settings and memories from your device and from our servers.
- Kite emails only you, at your own address, and only when you have asked it to.
- It can’t send texts or messages for you, email anyone as you, or log in to websites for you.
Runs on Robot 1.1
Kite runs on Vestra Robot 1.1, the new model behind VestraAI, which has replaced Robot 1.0. In our early internal testing it is more capable than Robot 1.0, and its answers are about a quarter of the length. That matters most here: Kite’s messages arrive while you are busy, so they should say what you need and stop.
Coming soon: Gmail and Calendar
Kite will be able to look through your Gmail and your Google Calendar, so you can ask “did the venue reply?” or “what’s on tomorrow?”. It will only read, never send or change anything, and it will ask before every look-up, like everything else Kite does on your behalf. We’ll announce it here when it’s ready.
Try it
Open VestraAI, choose Talk to Kite at the top of the sidebar, and tell it one thing you would rather not have to remember. Questions and feedback are welcome at [email protected].
