Ex-Apple Engineer Launching ‘szn’ iMessage AI Agent in October

A former Apple engineer is preparing to launch an AI assistant built inside iMessage, aiming to bring a digital agent directly into conversations on the iPhone.

Nikhil Gupta, the former Apple engineer behind Apple Intelligence and Siri, is launching ‘szn’ next month as an iMessage-based AI agent, no separate app required at first. Initially it will operate through an iMessage conversation to browse websites, complete purchases and communicate with vendors. The news was first reported by Mark Gurman in Bloomberg’s Power On newsletter.

‘Szn’ is designed around a personal identity model where each customer receives a virtual assistant with its own name, email address and phone number. The assistant can contact others and reply independently as a digital representative for the owner.

Gupta says the product includes privacy controls to limit data use. Each customer gets a dedicated model, and ‘szn’ will not use personal information for training.

‘Szn’ faces growing competition. Instinct, an invite-only personal AI agent from San Francisco’s Spear Street Technology, works over iMessage, WhatsApp and SMS and raised a $250M Series B at a $2.5B valuation in late August. Meta’s Muse launched September 8 in the US and September 18 in Canada, messaging users over WhatsApp from a dedicated cloud VM. SpaceXAI’s Grok Bot, always-on agents each with a cloud computer, launched in beta August 11 and passed 400,000 users in its first month. Leaks point to OpenAI’s September 29 DevDay in San Francisco unveiling a persistent agent codenamed “O”.

The agent is also built around Apple’s ecosystem, with support for shared Apple Notes, Find My and files stored in iCloud.

The company’s approach could face scrutiny from Apple, which has previously shut down third-party services built around iMessage. Gurman wrote that “We’ll see how the tech giant reacts this time” as ‘szn’ moves closer to release.

‘Szn’ is expected to launch in October.