Bluesky has launched Attie, AI assistant app powered by Anthropic’s Claude, but users are not happy
Yesterday, Jay Graber (Former Bluesky's CEO) introduced Attie – the first agentic social app on Atproto.
(currently as an invite-only closed beta)
It should allow users to:
– create custom social feeds and, eventually,
– build their own apps on the open AT Protocol (atproto)
– it’s similar to Grok in that it reads and understands posts
AND that's where users of Bluesky started criticising Jay, that the platform started mirroring X.
Bluesky management thinks that thanks to this step, they will be able to collect 100M+ users (although they now have around 40M).
I thought that this project would do better (honestly), but for the last year and a half, there wasn't any significant growth, just 2 changes (1. They raised $100M Series B, and 2. changed the CEO).
Does anyone else use this platform? How do you perceive integrating AI into it?
I understand they don’t want to miss the train, but I don’t think this will solve their problems. Many of their users reported "Just Edit Button– that's all we want," when they presented Attie. It indicates that even their own users can against this step.
Replies
The reaction tells you more than the launch did. When your most vocal users respond to a major product announcement with "just give us an edit button", the core product still has unresolved needs.
Shipping something as ambitious as Attie on top of that doesn't move those users forward, it signals that leadership and the people already using the platform are looking at different problems. New features compound growth only when the existing experience is solid enough to retain whoever those features bring in. Attie doesn't solve that.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@arun_tamang yes, but it seems that the user base settled just for a basic app that helps them communicate like Twitter back in 2010. The team should definitely improve product + progress, but it seems they are not doing things properly. 😅
@busmark_w_nika Exactly. When a user base anchors to a specific, limited version of a product, shipping upward creates friction in both directions. Leadership pushing features users didn't ask for, users pulling back toward the familiar. That gap doesn't close through features. It closes through finding a different user segment that actually wants what you're building, or accepting that the current base defines the ceiling.
Honestly feels like they're chasing shiny object syndrome while ignoring basic user needs :/
The timing is weird too because Bluesky's whole appeal was being the "anti-X" alternative, so adding Grok-like features seems tone deaf.
I'm wondering how this plays out with their decentralized vision since AI assistants usually need centralized data to work well.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@rohanrecommends I read today, that attie account is the most banned account on Bsky nowadays :D more than JD Vence's account lol
ClawSecure
@busmark_w_nika The AT Protocol is genuinely interesting infrastructure regardless of what happens with Bluesky's user numbers. An open, decentralized social protocol that anyone can build on is the right long-term architecture. The problem is that most users don't care about protocol-level innovation. They care about where their friends are and whether the content is good.
The X mirroring criticism is predictable but misses the point. Every social platform is going to integrate AI. The question isn't whether but how. Reading and understanding posts to create custom feeds is table stakes at this point. The more interesting play is the "build your own apps" piece. If Attie actually makes it easy for developers to build custom social experiences on atproto, that's a platform play, not a feature.
The 40M to 100M growth target feels ambitious given the trajectory. We've watched similar dynamics in the crypto/Web3 space for years. Decentralized protocols attract ideological early adopters fast, then hit a wall when they need to convert mainstream users who don't care about decentralization as a feature. Bluesky's challenge is the same one every decentralized platform faces: the technology is better but the network effects live somewhere else.
The invite-only beta for Attie is smart though. Controlled rollout lets them iterate before the inevitable backlash from users who joined Bluesky specifically to escape algorithmic AI feeds. That tension between "we need AI to grow" and "our users came here to escape AI" is going to be their biggest challenge.
Curious to see if the open protocol angle attracts developers who build something unexpected on top of it. That's usually how these platforms find their real growth, not from the parent company's roadmap but from what the community builds.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@jdsalbego So what do you think? Will Bluesky Flop? Because I cannot help, but it is not happening so much there.
minimalist phone: creating folders
@oshylabs they are not doing well at the moment. I somehow feel that even that refresh with the new CEO hasn't helped so much.