The Foursquare founder’s new app is an AI-powered ‘DJ’ for neighborhood updates

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley has unveiled his newest enterprise and sure, it is one other location-based social app. However, somewhat than the check-ins Crowley first popularized greater than 15 years in the past, “BeeBot” has a really 2025 tackle the idea. As an alternative, the app is an AI-powered “DJ” that may ship contextual audio updates to your ears as you progress by way of your day.

Crowley describes BeeBot as an “app for AirPods,” although it would work with any kind of headphones, in addition to sensible glasses with audio capabilities like Meta’s. “Everytime you put your AirPods in, it activates,” Crowley explains in a post on Medium. “Everytime you take your AirPods out it turns off. And when it’s ‘on’ it’ll push you snippets of audio concerning the individuals, locations, and occasions which might be close by.’

To do that, you may want to provide the app entry to your location and share a handful of “key phrases” about your pursuits. You may as well share your contacts to get updates from associates who’re utilizing the app. The BeeBot “DJ,” which in fact has an AI voice, will then have the ability to speak to you as you all through the dat and warn you to fascinating occasions, landmarks or updates from associates who occur to be close by.

In some methods, it seems like Crowley is making an attempt to re-create a few of the serendipitous IRL social interactions enabled by the unique model of Foursquare. BeeBot would not have “mayorships,” badges or any of the gamification options that helped popularize FourSquare, nevertheless it’s meant to have a few of the “similar playful spirit,” of OG Foursquare, in keeping with Crowley. (Foursquare shut down its metropolis information app of the identical identify earlier this yr, although its check-in app, Swarm, lives on.)

And, as a result of it is 2025, there’s additionally a complete bunch of AI thrown in, together with “a mixture of totally different LLMs” and “artificial voices.” The app is “powered by a TikTok-style algorithm,” Crowley says, “however one which’s centered on what’s occurring close by and IRL.”

There additionally appears to be a little bit of DNA from Marsbot, the short-lived (and IMO very underrated) chat-based app Foursquare launched in 2016 that would proactively present personalised restaurant suggestions. Whereas BeeBot is not as closely centered on neighborhood suggestions as Foursquare, it’s meant to proactively let about close by happenings you is likely to be interested by or perhaps a little bit of gossip from associates. Along with associates’ standing updates, the app will draw on native Substacks and newsletters for related data a couple of given space.

Crowley says the DJ’s audio cues might “often” interrupt your music or podcast to provide an replace, although customers ought to anticipate to listen to these solely a pair occasions all through the day. BeeBot will not interrupt voice or video calls.

BeeBot, which is the inaugural challenge of Crowley’s new firm Hopscotch Labs, is out now within the App Retailer, although it is nonetheless “very a lot a piece in progress,” according to Crowley. “I really feel just like the model of the product we’re sharing with people at the moment is form of the place Foursquare was when it launched at SXSW in 2009 – an fascinating imaginative and prescient, a good-enough execution, however one thing that also must be formed by the individuals utilizing it to completely blossom.”