Macaron
Macaron AI stands out as a stealthy APAC innovation from 1997-born serial entrepreneur Kaijie Chen, delivering empathetic, memory-rich agents for custom life tools, and making it a credible co-investment play for U.S. institutions targeting the burgeoning lifestyle AI sector.

Region
US
Sector
AI Agent
Stage
Pre Seed
Funding
Pre Seed Round
Macaron AI: World’s First Personal AI Agent Revolutionizing Everyday Life
Project and Product
Macaron AI isn't just another entry in the crowded AI landscape—it's a deliberate pivot toward what the founders call the "Era of Experience AI." Launched quietly on August 15, 2025, this platform positions itself as the world's first Personal AI Agent, designed not to optimize your workflow but to enrich your personal life. While giants like Meta and OpenAI chase enterprise-grade productivity tools, Macaron focuses on the intimate, often overlooked aspects of daily existence: emotional support, hobby cultivation, family management, and self-discovery. It's a product born from the frustration that AI has overwhelmingly tilted toward professional efficiency, leaving personal fulfillment in the shadows, as articulated in a recent podcast where founder Kaijie Chen describes it as an agent that "makes you live better" rather than making you work harder.
The origins of Macaron trace back to Chen's entrepreneurial journey, marked by three major pivots over seven years. His first venture was a smart home robot company that achieved an annual revenue of 10 million, demonstrating early traction in consumer tech. The second was an AI game inspired by GPT-2 and the narrative depth of "Westworld," exploring interactive storytelling. The third, MidReal, was an AI-powered interactive story platform that amassed 3 million users and 300,000 monthly active users, honing skills in user engagement and AI personalization. Each pivot brought Chen closer to what he calls the "correct answer" in AI: creating agents that integrate seamlessly into life, much like how "macarons blend into life, or Apple Mac computers enter every household."
At its core, Macaron is an empathetic companion that evolves with you. Upon signing up, users undergo a quick onboarding process involving three personality tests. These aren't your standard quizzes; they're crafted to match you with a unique "Macaron" persona—complete with distinct colors, personality traits, and communication styles. This personalization sets the tone for an AI that feels less like a bot and more like a trusted friend. The agent remembers not just facts but nuances: your dietary goals, emotional highs and lows, or even that one-off mention of wanting to learn guitar. This "Deep Memory" feature, powered by advanced reinforcement learning and innovative "memory tokens," ensures conversations build context over time, outperforming traditional prompt-based AIs by up to 77% in handling complex, ongoing interactions. As Chen explains, "The core reason for low penetration in personal scenarios is lack of context," and Macaron addresses this by proactively sensing user needs like a friend.
What truly differentiates Macaron is its ability to "cook up" mini-apps on demand. Users describe needs in natural language—"Help me track my family's nutrition while juggling work"—and Macaron generates tailored tools in seconds. These aren't generic templates; they're bespoke applications exceeding 100,000 lines of code in some cases, covering everything from fitness trackers and language learning modules to financial planners and anime personality matchers. For instance, a busy parent might request a nanny payroll tracker that logs workdays, calculates wages, and sends reminders five days before payday. Macaron handles it seamlessly, integrating reminders and data resets without bugs, as highlighted in user testimonials from WeChat communities.
The product's resource system adds a gamified layer. "Almonds" serve as the in-app currency for creating or modifying projects (10 almonds each) or adding from a shared "Playbook" (2 almonds). Subscriptions—Classic (60 almonds/month, one fixed project, 500 voice minutes) or Sweet (350 almonds/month, four fixed projects, unlimited voice)—ensure sustainability while rewarding engagement. Voice chat, a premium feature, allows for hands-free interactions, with customizable voice packs enhancing the human-like feel.
Multilingual from day one, Macaron supports English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, with seamless switching. This global readiness is evident in its payment options: Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and PayPal worldwide, plus WeChat Pay and Alipay in China. Refunds are user-friendly, with a 7-day no-questions policy for subscriptions, deducting only used resources.
Drawing from X posts by @Macaron0fficial, the product shines in real-world scenarios. One thread showcases a custom Duolingo alternative: users build personalized language apps that adapt to their strengths—vocabulary drills for some, conversational practice for others. Another demonstrates a nutrition analyzer that evolves with family needs, factoring in kids' preferences and parental schedules. Fun elements abound, like an RPG role-finder for gamers or a horoscope reader blending zodiac insights with MBTI-style analysis. These examples underscore Macaron's ethos: AI should combat burnout, not contribute to it. As one post declares, "We’re declaring war on all Productivity Agents. They promised convenience but gave you burnout."
The WeChat article echoes this sentiment, portraying Macaron as a "life companion" that remembers your reduction goals during casual chats about office lunches. Unlike Character.ai's superficial interactions, Macaron combines emotional depth with practical utility, turning it into a diary, advisor, and tool-builder rolled into one. The author notes creating a flawless nanny tool in three minutes—faster and more reliable than competitors like Lovable—highlighting its edge in lifestyle scenarios.
Technically, Macaron leverages a massive 671B-parameter model trained on just 48 H100 GPUs, emphasizing efficiency and scalability. It's not about brute force; it's about agentic memory that anticipates needs, making it ideal for users feeling overwhelmed by life's trivia. Target audiences include AI enthusiasts, young parents seeking emotional ballast, hobbyists documenting passions, and language learners craving a patient partner. With no hard data on user adoption yet—beta testing wrapped recently—early buzz on X suggests organic growth, with posts garnering thousands of views and engagements.
Challenges in development included balancing user expectations with agent capabilities, as Chen notes the risk of "overestimating agent capabilities or user abilities," which can lead to perceived pseudo-demands. Future plans involve deepening engagement through sub-agents that share memory and data, targeting users amid life changes, and fostering profound connections with the world. In essence, Macaron represents a stealthy shift in AI paradigms. While the industry fixates on coding agents and marketing bots, this project quietly addresses the human side: bettering life beyond the 9-to-5. It's cross-border by design, originating from APAC but engineered for universal appeal, making it a prime candidate for U.S. expansion and collaboration.
Team
Macaron AI's team embodies the understated innovation of APAC entrepreneurship—low-key, tech-savvy, and driven by personal passion rather than hype. At the helm is Kaijie Chen, the founder and visionary behind the project, born in 1997 and a serial entrepreneur with seven years of experience across three major pivots. Chen attended Duke University for two years, where he founded a technology society with over 200 members, worked in research labs, and even appeared on variety shows, showcasing his diverse interests from violin performance to content creation as a Bilibili UP host with 110,000 followers. His decision to take a leave of absence was pivotal: "Resting is a difficult decision? Leaving is easy, going back is harder," reflecting his bold approach to pursuing opportunities outside traditional paths. Before Macaron, Chen's background in China's tech ecosystem—fueled by Eastern philosophies of harmony and well-being blended with Western AI advancements—equipped him to experiment with new human-AI relationships.
Supporting Chen is a compact, multidisciplinary team of "Macaron chefs." The core team has collaborated for over five years, operating in a distributed office setup built on trust and evolving from a technology-driven focus to a product-oriented one. They address internal disagreements through innovative mechanisms like opinion-weighted discussions and open forums, ensuring alignment in a "relatively blank" space of mobile agents for life scenarios. While details remain sparse—aligning with the project's hidden-gem vibe—clues point to a blend of AI engineers, UX designers, and behavioral scientists from across Asia-Pacific. For instance, the team's emphasis on personality matching and emotional resonance suggests input from psychologists or NLP experts familiar with multicultural nuances.
The team's Asian roots shine through in Macaron's design: intuitive interfaces inspired by regional apps like WeChat, combined with global scalability. Chen's public persona is refreshingly candid; a July 2025 X post reveals two weeks of "intense and slightly chaotic" discussions to finalize the name and design, opting for "Macaron" to evoke delight and layers—much like the French pastry. This humility extends to beta reflections: sharing "hilariously bad" prototypes in a "gallery of failures" post, demonstrating resilience and iterative mindset.
No flashy board or celebrity backers here—Macaron's team operates in stealth mode, akin to early unicorns like ByteDance before their breakout. Chen's leadership, emphasizing "soft shell, sharp brain, sweet heart," mirrors Asian entrepreneurial spirit: innovative, user-centric, and poised for cross-border leaps. This team isn't chasing valuations; they're building for longevity, making Macaron an attractive, under-the-radar partner for investors seeking authentic talent.
Why It's US-Ready
Macaron AI's US-readiness isn't an afterthought—it's baked into its DNA, making it a compelling opportunity for VCs and institutions to co-invest in a cross-border success story. Launched with immediate availability in North America (English support), the product addresses a glaring market gap: lifestyle AI amid a productivity overload. U.S. consumers, grappling with burnout rates at historic highs, crave tools like Macaron that prioritize mental health and leisure—think Peloton meets therapy apps, but AI-powered. Founder Kaijie Chen's vision, inspired by Apple Mac computers aiming to "enter every household," directly aligns with American innovation icons, suggesting a natural fit for the U.S. market.
Technically, Macaron's infrastructure supports seamless U.S. integration. Multi-device sync, global payment gateways (including major U.S. cards and PayPal), and compliance-friendly features like data refunds position it for rapid adoption. Its launch in North America alongside Japan and South Korea signals strategic expansion, with English as a core language ensuring accessibility. The app's App Store presence (ID: 6747623785) facilitates easy U.S. downloads, and early X traction—posts viewed by tens of thousands—indicates organic buzz potential in tech hubs like Silicon Valley.
From an investment lens, Macaron's low-profile status offers high upside. As an APAC-led project with no major funding announcements yet, it's primed for U.S. partnership. The lifestyle AI sector remains a blue ocean; while U.S. retailers pour billions into AI (97% planning increases in 2025), personal agents lag, creating a niche for Macaron. Co-investment appeals: APAC founders bring cost-efficient innovation (e.g., training on minimal hardware), while U.S. partners provide market expertise and capital for scaling.
Regulatory alignment is another strength. Macaron's focus on privacy—deep memory without invasive tracking—aligns with U.S. data laws like CCPA, avoiding pitfalls of more aggressive AIs. Its empathetic design could attract grants from institutions promoting mental health tech, especially post-pandemic.
Culturally, Macaron resonates with American individualism: custom tools for hobbies like anime quizzes or RPG roles cater to diverse subcultures. As Chen notes, it's "ahead of this wave," even as Meta builds similar concepts—positioning Macaron as a nimble alternative. For U.S. institutions, backing Macaron means bridging APAC ingenuity with American demand, fostering a global AI ecosystem. In a market wary of AI bubbles, this hidden project's credibility—rooted in real user value and a founder's track record of pivots toward "the correct answer"—makes it a safe, exciting bet.
This analysis is based on publicly available information and company disclosures. For investment decisions, please conduct thorough due diligence and consult with qualified financial advisors.
US Readiness Assessment
Readiness Level: High
This startup demonstrates strong readiness for US market entry with established compliance, market strategy, and operational infrastructure.
Key Strengths
- ✓First Personal AI Agent emphasizing lifestyle over work efficiency
- ✓Deep Memory AI with 77% better context handling than traditional prompt-based systems
- ✓On-demand mini-app generation exceeding 100,000 lines of code for personalized life tools
- ✓671B-parameter model trained efficiently on just 48 H100 GPUs with multilingual support
Company Information
Founders
Kaijie Chen
Website
https://macaron.im/Discover More AI Startups
Explore our curated directory of US-ready cross-border startups from global founders.
Related Startups
Aivilization
From Hong Kong's innovation hubs comes Aivilization, an APAC-led AI platform blending gaming with large-scale multi-agent simulations to explore societal evolution and intelligence multiplication. Backed by HKUST and targeting global users, this cross-border project bridges academic research with practical applications in simulations, citizen science, and beyond.