The Interaction Company of California

What The Interaction Company of California does

The Interaction Company of California, operating as Interaction Co. and Poke.com, is a Palo Alto-based private company founded in 2024 that builds Poke, an AI assistant designed to live natively inside messaging platforms rather than as a standalone application. Poke is accessible via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp without requiring app downloads or signups, and it became the first third-party AI agent officially approved for Apple Messages for Business Chat in March 2026. The assistant uses natural language processing, generative image capabilities, and autonomous agent logic to execute tasks such as responding to emails, scheduling meetings, paying invoices, controlling smart home devices, and retrieving fitness and health data through conversational commands.

The product's core technical architecture is an integration-and-orchestration layer that connects to eight named third-party services spanning smart home (Philips Hue, Sonos), health and fitness (Oura, Strava), communications (Microsoft Outlook, Gmail), and developer tools (GitHub). The company has raised a disclosed $25 million across a $15 million seed round in September 2025 (led by General Catalyst at a $100 million post-money valuation) and a $10 million follow-on in April 2026 from General Catalyst and Spark Capital.

The go-to-market strategy is product-led and community-led: Poke spreads organically through word-of-mouth among tech-forward early adopters (6,000 Silicon Valley insiders generating 200,000 messages per month), while the Apple Messages for Business Chat partnership provides an enterprise-grade distribution surface and per-user revenue share with Apple. The company is actively pursuing regulatory action against Meta in the EU and Italy to secure WhatsApp Business API access, a strategic positioning move that, if successful, would unlock an additional multi-hundred-million-user distribution channel. Public pricing, ARR, and monetisation model have not been disclosed.

Name

The Interaction Company of California

Legal name

The Interaction Company of California

Website

https://interaction.co

Company type

Private

Founded year

2024

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Interaction Company of California (dba Interaction Co., Poke.com) builds Poke, an AI assistant accessible via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp that automates email, scheduling, payments, and smart-home tasks without app downloads. It serves mass-market consumers and was the first third-party AI agent approved for Apple Messages for Business.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Palo Alto

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Apple Messages Business Chat Revenue Share: Apple receives per-user payments from Interaction for hosting Poke on Apple Messages for Business platform, representing a new revenue stream from third-party AI integrations within iOS.
2. Consumer AI Assistant (likely freemium/subscription): The company appears to offer consumer-facing AI assistant services, with monetization likely through freemium model or subscription tiers based on usage or feature access.

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

The Interaction Company of California builds and operates Poke, an AI assistant that lives inside messaging platforms (iMessage, SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp) and automates personal and professional tasks such as responding to emails, scheduling meetings and reminders, paying invoices, conducting web searches, and generating images. The assistant is accessible without downloads or signups and integrates with third-party services including smart home (Philips Hue, Sonos), wearables (Oura), email and calendar (Outlook, Gmail), developer tools (GitHub), and fitness (Strava) platforms.

Product overview

The Interaction Company of California builds Poke.com, a unified AI assistant product accessible through messaging platforms. The company operates as a single-product company where Poke serves as the core offering, available across multiple messaging channels including iMessage, SMS, Telegram, WhatsApp, and Apple Messages for Business. The AI assistant integrates with various third-party services to automate tasks such as email management, calendar scheduling, smart home control, and fitness tracking.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Poke: AI assistant accessible via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp, designed to help users automate tasks and manage daily activities. Can respond to emails, schedule dinners and reminders, conduct web searches, generate images, and integrate with third-party services including Philips Hue, Sonos, Oura, Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, GitHub, and Strava.

Products and services

• Poke AI Assistant An AI assistant accessible via iMessage, SMS, Telegram, and WhatsApp that helps individual users automate tasks and manage daily activities (email responses, scheduling, reminders, web searches, image generation) without downloads or signups. It integrates with third-party services including Philips Hue, Sonos, Oura, Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, GitHub, and Strava.
• Poke on Apple Messages for Business Enterprise-grade distribution of the Poke AI assistant through Apple's official Messages for Business Chat platform, making Interaction the first approved third-party AI agent on Apple's enterprise messaging platform.

Quantifiable outcome

• 6,000 Silicon Valley insiders engaged over four months
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers2 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration7 records

AI capability6 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.

• AppleflagshipStrategic or Co-development Partner · 4 June 2026Interaction's Poke became the first third-party AI agent officially available via Apple Messages for Business Chat. The partnership enables Apple to receive per-user payments from Interaction for hosting Poke on its platform. This represents a significant strategic win as a first-mover in Apple's Business Chat ecosystem and validates Interaction's technology for enterprise messaging integration.
• Microsoft OutlookcoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with Microsoft Outlook email and calendar services, enabling Poke to respond to emails, schedule meetings, and manage calendar events.
• GmailcoreTechnology or IntegrationIntegration with Gmail email service, allowing Poke to read and respond to emails through the messaging interface.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights2 records

Broad incumbents

• OpenAI (ChatGPT): OpenAI's ChatGPT is the dominant consumer AI assistant. While ChatGPT requires an app install, it competes for the same end-user task automation use cases Poke addresses via messaging, making it a broad incumbent comparable in category if not in distribution model.
• Anthropic (Claude): Anthropic's Claude offers a conversational AI assistant for productivity and task automation. Like OpenAI, it competes for the same consumer/prosumer workflows Poke targets via iMessage, but is delivered through web/app interfaces rather than messaging platforms.
• Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft Copilot is integrated across Outlook, Teams, and Windows for task automation. Poke directly integrates with Microsoft Outlook, positioning the two as both partners and overlapping assistants for email/calendar/scheduling tasks.
• Apple Intelligence: Apple Intelligence is Apple's native AI assistant embedded directly in iMessage, Mail, and Siri across iOS. It competes head-to-head with Poke inside the same Messages surface and represents the most significant platform-level competitive threat.
• Meta AI: Meta AI is integrated natively into WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. The Interaction Company filed antitrust complaints against Meta for blocking rival AI agents on WhatsApp, making Meta AI the principal incumbent competitor for messaging-native AI assistance globally.
• Google Gemini: Google Gemini is Google's consumer AI assistant competing for task automation and integration with Gmail/Calendar (same integrations Poke supports). It competes for the same prosumer/early-adopter audience via different distribution (web, Android, Workspace).

Emerging players

• Huxe: Huxe is a consumer AI assistant that also delivers personalized audio briefings via messaging-style interfaces. It targets a similar early-adopter prosumer segment with messaging-native delivery, making it a direct emerging competitor to Poke.
• Replika: Replika is a conversational AI companion delivered through messaging interfaces (iMessage, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp). It shares Poke's messaging-platform-first distribution philosophy and consumer AI focus, though with more emphasis on companionship than task automation.
• Adept AI: Adept builds autonomous AI agents that take action across software tools and APIs. Poke's conversational task automation across Outlook/Gmail/GitHub/Strava overlaps with Adept's agentic vision, though Adept focuses on enterprise workflows via its own product surface.
• Inflection AI: Inflection AI (Pi) built a consumer-facing personal AI assistant focused on conversational task help. It targets the same horizontal consumer AI use case as Poke but distributes via web/app rather than messaging platforms.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/interaction
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/interactionco

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds3 records

Investors7 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about The Interaction Company of California