Airchat Is a New Social Network That Talks to You
There’s a new old social network this quarter. It’s the brainchild of venture capitalist Naval Ravikant and former Tinder product chief Brian Norgard. And yes, there is a link to AI. Airchat is another audio-based social app option, but unlike Clubhouse, it may last more than a few months.
Airchat combines text and audio
Airchat is built on the idea of communication. We’re just talking. Users share updates in the form of audio and video messages on their feeds. But the channels themselves consist only of text. Airchat uses AI transcription to turn these audio and video clips into text in the feed.
At first glance, the Airchat feed looks like Twitter or Threads, filled with text updates and the ability to reply or repost. But when you watch it, something new happens: the channel talks to you as Airchat plays the audio or video from the update out loud while you read it. Scroll down to another message and you’ll hear that user talking to you. And you can respond with your voice just as quickly.
Another unusual element: the feed scrolls automatically. After Airchat finishes playing one update, it automatically scrolls and plays audio for the next update and the highlighted reply. Call it hands-free social media—imagine loading your feed while in your car and listening to updates in the background, like a podcast. (Yes, Airchat will continue to talk to you if you turn off the screen.)
Airchat also has private messages where you can communicate using the same methods, but privately. Unfortunately, if you don’t like hearing messages read out loud, there’s not much else to do in the app. You can sign up using your number or Apple account, but you’ll have to share your contacts to find other users and send invitations. The app also requires access to Apple’s dictation feature.
Should you try Airchat?
Like all new social networks, Airchat is currently filled with enthusiastic Silicon Valley bros. As of this writing, it’s also invite-only, and the company is still figuring out how to expand the invite system or make the app publicly available. They currently limit your invites to just two people, which is a shame if you’re hoping to get your friends on board quickly.
The current version of Airchat is something of a reboot. The previous version was more similar to Clubhouse in that it focused only on audio messages and interactions. Now, thanks to text transcription, the feed has become much more lively and interactive.
One thing that Airchat has achieved is creating a seamless experience. Recording and publishing audio and displaying it almost instantly as text is quite impressive. And it’s this cycle of instant gratification that can keep people coming back.
But questions still remain about its future viability, not to mention its basic functionality. Airchat doesn’t currently have a strong moderation system, and during testing I found that the app would sometimes crash.
Moreover, the future of the social network depends on much more than just a cool hook. It needs to develop a core user base and grow from there. And it’s hard to imagine this happening right now. Because the number of invitations is limited, there aren’t many people on Airchat yet (a problem that newer platforms like Bluesky have also faced). We will only realize the usefulness (if any) of a talking social network when it has more people talking about interesting and varied things.
Should you track your Airchat invitation right now? To be honest, you can wait. Social media is for people, and without your people, this channel will look like another channel that you forgot to update. Wait for public release. Once that happens, you can take the plunge and see if you even like this type of audio interaction with strangers.
Because one thing is clear: Airchat really wants its users to be active. This is not a consumption model. Similar to Reddit, what’s interesting about Airchat is that you can quickly jump into a casual conversation. Unlike Reddit, you’ll do this by voice rather than text. The question remains whether enough people will be willing to do it, and whether Airchat can avoid the fate of many other would-be social networks that have come (and gone) before.