Linq: your AI-assistants move into iMessage for 20 million dollars

Linq: Your AI Assistants Are Moving to iMessage for $20 Million

Why do we need another icon on the desktop when we already have iMessage? Startup Linq asked investors this question and received $20 million in response. The idea is deceptively simple: stop tormenting users with web interfaces and drag artificial intelligence into the place where people spend most of their screen time — ordinary messages. We've watched for years as companies tried to herd us into their proprietary applications for the sake of "better customer experience," but in reality, all it did was multiply entities and complicate life.

Linq builds a bridge between powerful language models and protocols that we considered nearly extinct or purely personal. Their API allows companies to deploy smart assistants within iMessage, RCS, and even good old SMS. These are not the dumb bots from the past decade that understood only three commands. These are full-fledged LLM agents capable of booking tickets, consulting on complex products, or processing returns without leaving the context of your everyday correspondence with friends or colleagues.

If we look back to 2016, we'll remember the "chatbot boom" in Facebook Messenger. Back then, Mark Zuckerberg promised us that bots would kill apps. That didn't happen for one simple reason: the technology of that era was too primitive, and the interfaces were clunky. Today, the situation has changed. We have neural networks that understand human speech better than many support employees, and Apple has finally opened the doors to the RCS standard. Linq caught this wind of change at exactly the right moment, offering businesses a solution that doesn't require users to make any extra moves.

The problem with most current AI services is friction. Every time you need to open a browser, log in, and formulate a query in ChatGPT or Claude, you're spending cognitive resources. Linq removes this friction. Imagine you're simply writing a message to your bank or airline in the same window where you just corresponded with your mom. This makes the technology truly "transparent." That's exactly for this comfort that investors signed a check for $20 million, understanding that in the battle for attention, the winner will be the one closest to the user's fingertips.

For business, this means colossal growth in conversion. Keeping a customer inside a native messenger is far cheaper than attempting to bring them back to a mobile app through push notifications that everyone has long learned to ignore. Linq is essentially offering to turn every contact in your phone book into a potential entry point for a service. This changes the very paradigm of interaction: AI stops being "a tool you have to go to" and becomes "an interlocutor who is always nearby."

Of course, questions remain about privacy and how Apple and Google will react to the proliferation of third-party AI agents in their sanctums. But for now, Linq looks like the most pragmatic way to mass-introduce AI into the real sector. We don't need new devices or new operating systems; we just need old tools to become a bit smarter. It seems that SMS, which we nearly buried, is awaiting the most unexpected reincarnation in the history of technology.

The key point: Linq is betting on the "invisible interface." Will they be able to convince corporations to abandon their own apps in favor of iMessage?