Why AI reminders fail, and what we're building instead
Ask people what they want from an AI agent in their messages, and the answer is often not "more features". It's "remind me". Builders of text-based assistants have said publicly that simple reminder requests are among the most common things people ask for. People in ADHD communities describe the sa
Ask people what they want from an AI agent in their messages, and the answer is often not "more features". It's "remind me". Builders of text-based assistants have said publicly that simple reminder requests are among the most common things people ask for. People in ADHD communities describe the same instinct from the other direction: they text themselves things, and pin those chats, so they don't forget.
Reminders sound like the easy part. In practice, they're where AI assistants lose people's trust fastest.
1. They silently don't fire. In public forums, users of AI assistants describe scheduled reminders and automations that sometimes just don't trigger, and that get confused when time zones change. A reminder that doesn't arrive is worse than no reminder, because you stopped holding the thought yourself.
2. They're confidently wrong. Users also describe assistants saying a task was done when it wasn't, or setting something at the wrong time while insisting it was right. The bug isn't only the wrong time. It's that you weren't told.
3. They're one ping you can swipe away. Many people ask for reminders that keep going until something is actually done. Parents talk about wanting reminders that reach family members who ignore app notifications. A single notification is easy to dismiss and forget.
None of these failures is really about intelligence. They're about honesty and follow-through.
Moralie is a personal AI agent we're building to work inside a Telegram chat. It isn't available yet, and everything below is what we're designing for, not something you can use today.
We'd rather ship a small set of things that behave honestly than a long feature list that occasionally lies to you.
A few lessons that apply to any assistant, not just ours:
Moralie's soft beta is coming soon, and we plan to open it in batches. The first people on the waitlist will get invites first. We can't promise a spot or a date, but we'll be straight with you about where things stand.
馃憠 Join the waitlist: https://moralie.pages.dev?utm_source=devto
What's the reminder an assistant has let you down on? Tell us in the comments.