You could argue that personal assistants are one dimensional, but there’s a race to make true AI assistants a reality, and this race is heating up quickly with OpenAI’s launch of its ‘Scheduled Tasks’ feature. But if you’re not keen on the limitations and costs of ChatGPT, there’s a new AI assistant in town called the J1 Assistant by Matter.
Akin to ChatGPT, Matter’s J1 Assistant is also task-oriented but optimized to manage to accurately get a hundred scenarios of tasks done – but aims to do these hundred scenarios really well.
The J1 Assistant is powered by its own LLM, aptly named Jarvis and designed to centralize any spur of the moment tasks or search queries you might have, under a single roof. But unlike other AI assistants, the J1 Assistant blurs the connection between searching and task setting, by enabling you to do both at the same time – especially if you’re busy or on-the-go.
When you open the app, it’s clear J1 skips out on the bells and whistles. But in some ways, it’s a minimalist design language.
Oriented around tasks, you’re greeted with a direct message from Matter’s Jarvis AI assistant that encourages you to start off by asking Jarvis a question or handling “complex tasks.â€
In this case we long pressed the ‘microphone’ button. After the command, it then pops up with a unique multi-option button that you drag to select your preferred search method, which Matter calls “Ripple Touch.â€
Sliding my finger toward the “J1 Assistant†logo, this prompts my request to be processed by Jarvis, though the option to also use ChatGPT, Google Search, send as a Message, or even to leave it as a Task are presented to me. Since we’re here to test out the J1 Assistant, I asked Jarvis to suggest some work-friendly coffee shops in San Francisco, but also at the same time asked Jarvis to set up a hypothetical meeting at that same coffee shop with my editor.
Javis left me with a laundry list of coffee shop options, which hit the nail on the head, and prompted me to select one of the multiple shops. From there, the meeting itself gets sent to a separate “To Do†page within the J1 Assistant, where it should remind me to get to that meeting.
You can also ask Jarvis through the same steps as above to leave you a note or set up a meeting with a specific person, as long as you permit J1 Assistant to give access to your phone contacts.
I could see how if we’re relying increasingly on not having to think about the job of when I should book my meetings and also spending time on searching for information like what to eat or where I should go, whereby an AI could do all the above for me. That could probably free up even a half hour in my day for me. I’d rather be spending that time on other things. And I could see how there’s value in that especially for those of us that can’t really afford a professional personal assistant of our own.
Where the J1 Assistant as an app gets extraneous is that it’s clear it aims to be an all-in-one app of sorts. A separate page within the app opens the option to search up to sixteen different websites or platforms, be it several search engines or social networks. You can even use this to search Perplexity. In that way, there’s not much of a need for me to open up new applications.
Matter’s J1 Assistant is currently in Beta mode and its APK is available on Matter’s website to download. According to Matter, the iOS version is in development but on the way.
As for questions around how many times you can command Jarvis on the J1 Assistant, you can enjoy up to 20 commands per day, with the option for more commands priced at USD $5 for an additional 30 commands.