Acti embeds AI agents directly into your smartphone keyboard, raising $5.3 million

BitcoinWorld

Acti embeds AI agents directly into your smartphone keyboard, raising $5.3 million

Acti, a Singapore-based startup founded by a former Baidu executive, is launching an agentic keyboard for iOS and Android that goes far beyond predictive text. The keyboard, simply named Acti (short for ‘action’), is designed to understand user intent and perform tasks across apps — from sharing a restaurant recommendation in a chat to displaying a live stock price — without requiring users to switch between applications.

A keyboard that acts, not just types

The core premise of Acti is that the keyboard is the most frequently used software interface on a smartphone, yet it has remained largely unchanged for years. Young Wang, Acti’s founder and CEO, previously spent a decade at Baidu growing its Facemoji Keyboard to over 300 million daily active users. He told Bitcoin World that the arrival of large language models fundamentally changed his view of text input. ‘Text was no longer just something people typed; it had become a carrier of intent,’ Wang said. ‘And in many everyday contexts, that intent can now be directly translated into action.’

Acti sits across all apps on a user’s phone, building a contextual layer that belongs to the user rather than any single platform. For example, if a friend asks for a local restaurant recommendation in a messaging app, Acti can surface a suggestion directly within the conversation. If a stock ticker is mentioned, Acti can pull in the live price. The company argues that today’s AI agents are fundamentally limited because user context remains fragmented across separate apps.

Powered by Google Gemini, built for privacy

Under the hood, Acti is powered by Google’s Gemini models. Wang said Gemini was chosen for its balance of intelligence, speed, reliability, multilingual performance, and cost efficiency. The keyboard operates on a local-first model, meaning personal context stays on the device by default. The company states that Acti does not access or store private messages, conversations, or personal context unless the user explicitly invokes a feature requiring external processing.

One of Acti’s key features is called Skills — custom shortcuts that users can program to trigger multi-step tasks automatically. For instance, long-pressing the letter ‘T’ on the keyboard can translate a message to another language, while long-pressing ‘C’ can generate and share a meeting link. Users do not need coding knowledge to create a Skill; they can describe the desired action in plain language, and Acti builds it. Ahead of launch, early access testers built over 1,000 Skills in less than two weeks. These Skills can be kept private or shared publicly via a Skills marketplace, which could eventually offer monetization opportunities.

Funding and team background

Acti also announced that it has closed $5.3 million in seed funding, led by BITKRAFT Ventures. Jonathan Huang, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, said in a statement: ‘We backed Acti because this team has a real shot at owning the next phase of human-computer interaction.’ The founding team includes CTO Mike Sun, who was the founding technical lead behind Baidu’s Yike Album, which scaled to over 10 million daily active users, and CSO Junbo Yang, who previously led dozens of consumer investments at HashKey Capital.

Business model and availability

Acti’s business model is still taking shape, but the company plans to generate revenue through subscriptions offering users access to more advanced AI models, higher daily usage limits, and other premium features. The app is currently available for download on iOS and Android. Acti ships with several built-in Skills, and users can browse the Skills marketplace for community-created shortcuts, such as accessing real-time World Cup data or Polymarket links.

Conclusion

Acti represents a notable shift in how consumer AI might be integrated into daily smartphone use. Rather than asking users to open separate AI chatbots, the company is embedding intelligence directly into the keyboard — the interface people already use hundreds of times a day. Whether this approach gains widespread adoption will depend on user trust, privacy protections, and the usefulness of the Skills ecosystem. The company’s strong founding team and early funding suggest it is well-positioned to explore this new category.

FAQs

Q1: What makes Acti different from a regular smartphone keyboard?
Acti is an agentic keyboard that can take actions on your behalf, such as sharing recommendations, displaying live data, or translating messages, without requiring you to switch between apps.

Q2: Does Acti access my private messages?
Acti is built on a local-first model. The company says it does not access or store private messages, conversations, or personal context unless you explicitly invoke a feature that requires external processing.

Q3: Can I create my own custom shortcuts in Acti?
Yes. Acti features Skills, which are custom shortcuts you can program using plain language. You can describe the action you want, and Acti builds it. No coding is required.

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