{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"AI & I","title":"The AI Alien Companion App That's Bringing In $4M a Year (Best of the Pod)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":4928,"description":"LLMs are a new medium for storytelling.\nThat’s according to the creators of Portola, the company behind Tolan: an embodied AI companion that lives on its own planet and chats to you with a distinct personality. In 2025, Portola's founder and CEO Quinten Farmer and Head of Story Eliot Peper joined Dan Shipper to explain how they’re building this new medium from scratch. Their aim is to help users go from overwhelmed to grounded through conversations with Tolan that feel personal and spontaneous, not scripted. \nOn this week’s AI & I, Dan revisits his conversation with Quinten and Eliot. They discuss why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces, how Portola designs AI personalities users will click with, and why character-driven AI could become a new computing interface. \nIf you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!\nTo hear more from Dan Shipper:\nSubscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe\nFollow him on X: https://twitter.com/danshipper\nGo to https://attio.com/every and get 15% off your first year.\nTimestamps:\n 00:01:30 - Introduction\n 00:04:07 - Talking to the Portola CEO's Tolan, Clarence\n 00:09:11 - How Portola went from building software for kids to AI companions\n 00:23:40 - Why response time is everything for voice-based AI interfaces\n 00:29:54 - Tolans don't use scripted prompts—they're taught to improvise\n 00:37:23 - How to know which AI personalities your users will click with\n 00:42:27 - Developing the character traits of an AI companion\n 00:49:48 - What does it mean to build technology that makes us flourish\n 01:01:10 - How Portola evaluates whether Tolans are resonating with users\n 01:11:01 - Inside Portola's viral growth strategy","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/tpm1hNSy8JXTtPDypo5McPF0S6eDqruRTGYywu9SVrc/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yNDM2/YzU4NDNmYTQxNTJh/MTEzYjE4YmJmYTg5/ODY1NS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}