A venture concept of my own: an AI assistant for the home. It gathers what arrives in email, calendars, WhatsApp and messages, turns it into a plan, tracks each family member’s health and medicines, suggests meals and orders the missing groceries, all with the family’s consent. You open it to a living orb and tell it by voice or text.
At a glance
The problem
In most homes one person carries the remembering: the school notice, the fee, a parent’s medicine, what to cook. The information is scattered across email, WhatsApp, messages and calendars, and no tool connects it into a plan.
What I designed
Hemma is an AI assistant for the home. It collects from email, calendars, WhatsApp and messages, and from what you tell it by voice or text, then plans, reminds the right person and, with consent, orders groceries and medicines.
The evidence behind it
Published research on the mental load, a review of four family products, a check of the shopping platforms, and four family scenarios designed end to end.
My role
Founder and product designer: research, thesis, product definition and app design.
Three decisions that shaped it
How I know it works
Items captured that become an approved plan, per household each week
Read it
01
A venture concept of my own. Families have plenty of calendars and to-do apps, yet someone still has to notice how everything connects and decide what the household needs today. I wanted to design an assistant that does that noticing and planning, and earns a family’s trust while it does.
02
Research on the mental load shows who carries the thinking work of family life, and how much of it there is.
71%
of household mental-load tasks handled by mothers
Fathers handled 45%. A study of 3,000 US parents on the thinking work of scheduling, planning and organising.
Source: University of Bath and University of Melbourne, 2024 ↗
30.4 hrs
a week parents estimate they spend on family scheduling and planning
A survey of more than 2,000 parents. The time is self-reported.
400M
monthly WhatsApp users in India in 2019
India was already the app’s largest market, so it is where family news arrives and where a reminder will be seen.
03
I reviewed four products families can use today, and the habits they replace. Each is good at showing the family what is happening. Most want the family to hand over one event at a time.
Each dot is a product. Left to right shows how information gets in. Bottom to top shows how much it connects the pieces. The green corner is the space nobody covers.
Connects the pieces, but you feed it
Reads what arrives and connects the pieces
A calendar you fill in
Reads what arrives, but stops at the calendar
Family organisers
Shared calendars and lists, one on the phone and one on a 15 inch wall screen. Both now import events from email, PDFs and flyer photos on a paid plan, but the calendar stays the centre.
AI assistants for parents
Ario raised a $16 million seed round in 2024 and adds a school schedule to the calendar from a photo. Ohai raised $6 million and works through a text thread. Both are early and US-first.
What families already use
This is where school notices, bills and plans really arrive. It works because it is already open, and fails because nothing links one message to the next.
The gap I saw
04
An assistant that reads and orders only works if the platforms let it. I checked both before designing the product around them.
20 tools
in Swiggy’s Instamart MCP, covering product search, cart, coupons, payment status, ordering and live tracking
It is open to developers, startups and enterprises through Swiggy’s Builders Club, which makes Instamart the first route for placing a grocery order for a family. Blinkit and Zepto are partnership conversations.
SMS
Google Play limits SMS permissions to default handlers and approved exceptions
So messages reach Hemma through connected accounts, forwarding and share-in first, with deeper reading decided per platform.
iOS
Apple developer support says an iOS app cannot fetch SMS and iMessage conversations
Connected email and calendars, and share-to-app, work on both platforms with the family’s consent, which is why they carry the first version.
05
Four pieces of work, each one feeding the next: what is known, what I believe, what is possible, and what the product does.
Research brief
Market, competitors, personas, architecture, risks and privacy law, written down with sources.
Competitor and platform review
Four family products, and what the messaging and quick-commerce platforms allow, so the design starts from what is possible.
Thesis and product spec
One sentence on the real problem, the cast of six, four scenarios, a consent model and the scope of a first version.
App design
The orb home, voice and text capture, the plan, the family profiles, the ordering and medicine flows, and a design system, in Light and Dark.
06
The signature scenario I designed around. A notice arrives, and everything after that depends on one person remembering.
The notice arrives
A paper circular, a photo in a WhatsApp group, an SMS or an email: Annual Day on Thursday at 5:30 PM, costume required, a ₹500 fee due Monday.
One parent reads it
Usually the same parent each time. The details live in their head from that moment.
Some of it is typed in
Maybe the event goes into a calendar. The fee, the costume and the shopping rarely do.
Others find out late
The other parent learns by asking, or not at all, and may already have a meeting that evening.
The rush happens
The fee is remembered late and a costume is assembled the night before.
07
The same few problems sit under every dropped ball.
Someone has to notice
A calendar says when. It does not say what the event means for the household. A person is the only link between the pieces.
Everything lives somewhere else
Plans in calendars, chatter in WhatsApp, bills in SMS, prescriptions on paper, groceries in shopping apps.
The load is invisible
The work is continuous and it disappears when it is done, so nobody sees it and it is rarely shared.
Medicines are easy to lose track of
Several people, several prescriptions, different doses and refill dates. A parent’s tablets running out is a problem nobody notices until it happens.
What to cook today
Someone decides every day what the family eats, around everyone’s health, tastes and what is in the kitchen. It is a small decision that repeats, and it is never off the list.
Silent automation feels risky
Families will not hand over school, money, health and children’s data to something that acts without asking.
08
A household is not one user. Hemma serves all six people through the one who coordinates, and each role carries a hypothesis the next round of research tests.
Meera
The coordinator
Carries most of the remembering today, for the children, the husband and Meera’s own parents. The one who sets Hemma up, tells it things and approves what it proposes.
Hypothesis. If what arrives becomes a plan they only have to confirm, they will keep it switched on.
Karan
The husband
Wants to see which actions are his, where he needs to be and what to pick up, without reading the whole picture.
Hypothesis. If assigned actions arrive with a reason, he will take them on instead of having to be asked.
Aarav and Diya
The children
School notices, events, packing lists, meals and health needs. Meera and Karan decide what they see, and Hemma keeps their health details private to the adults.
Hypothesis. If the school plan reaches Meera before the deadline, fewer things are forgotten at the door.
Lata and Prakash
Meera’s parents
Regular medicines, appointments and meals that suit their health. Meera looks after them, so their reminders come to Meera rather than to them.
Hypothesis. If Meera sees every dose and refill in one place, a missed tablet or an empty strip is caught early.
09
The questions I put to families next, each with a clear way to test it.
Will families grant access
Will they connect email and calendars, and which message sources would they refuse? Test: a prototype of the permission flow, with interviews on what they would share.
Is approving a plan welcome or a chore
Does confirming a proposed plan feel like help or like extra work? Test: a prototype of the approval step with real notices.
Will they let it order and pay
Will a family approve a cart and let the assistant pay on their saved UPI or card? Test: a prototype of the order approval, with interviews on trust and limits.
How accurate is reading
How well are dates, fees and requirements read from real notices, and drugs, doses and frequency from real prescriptions and pharmacy invoices? Test: a set of real documents run through the extraction.
10
Six rules I set before drawing any screen. Each one answers something that would break trust.
The agent is the app
You open Hemma and talk to it. There is no menu of features to learn first.
Reading is a permission, not a default
Every source is switched on by the family, shown clearly, and can be turned off and deleted at any time.
Plans, not notifications
Everything it captures ends in a decision or an action for a named person.
Ask before it acts
It suggests, the family approves, then it acts. Spending money and messaging other people always need a clear yes.
Per person, not per household
Health and medicines belong to a named person, with their own privacy setting.
Suggestions, not medical advice
Meals and reminders support the family. They never diagnose or replace a doctor.
11
Seven decisions shaped the product. Each one comes from a problem that would cost a family’s trust, or from a limit I found.
01
What the app is
Options I weighed
Why
The hard part of a household is deciding what matters now. An orb that listens by voice or text puts that question first.
02
How it learns about the household
Options I weighed
Why
The notice already arrives somewhere. Reading it, with a permission the family can withdraw, saves the typing that makes other tools fall out of use.
03
How it acts
Options I weighed
Why
A wrong date or a wrong order costs trust fast. Showing the plan keeps the family in charge.
04
How groceries work
Options I weighed
Why
The list is not the job, the dinner is. Hemma starts from past orders, asks about what it cannot know, and orders on the family’s saved UPI or card after a yes. Instamart is the first route, and Blinkit and Zepto are partnership conversations.
05
Who gets the medicine reminders
Options I weighed
Why
Meera looks after Lata and Prakash. A missed tablet is the failure to design against, so the reminder goes to the person who will act on it.
06
Where health information comes from
Options I weighed
Why
Prescriptions and pharmacy invoices already hold what Hemma needs. Wearables add data and complexity, so they follow.
07
Which platforms and languages
Options I weighed
Why
A family’s phones are mixed, so one platform would leave someone out. English lets me test the idea well, and regional languages follow.
12
Five jobs, in order: collect, combine, plan, act and remind. The first version covers them for one household, from the school notice to the dinner table and the medicine cabinet.
Collect
Tell it
Speak or type, the way you would tell a person. Every entry is read back as a card to confirm.
Connected sources
Email, calendars, WhatsApp and messages, only the ones the family switches on.
Documents and photos
A photo of a notice, a prescription or a pharmacy invoice, for anything it cannot read on its own.
Combine and remember
One household memory
A notice, a prescription and a calendar clash land in one place, each linked to the right person.
Per-person profiles
Meera, Karan, Aarav, Diya, Lata and Prakash each have health notes, routines and their own privacy setting.
Reads what matters
Finds the person, event, date, place, fee, drug, dose and deadline, and shows what it is unsure about.
Plan
A plan for the day and week
What matters now, and what is waiting for a yes, on the first screen.
School and events
A notice becomes a calendar entry, a fee reminder, a costume task and a clash warning.
Birthdays and family events
A custom plan with a gift reminder, a draft message and a checklist, handled with consent.
Health, food and medicines
Health, logged per person
Information for all six, entered by voice, text or document.
Breakfast, lunch and dinner
Recipes that fit each person’s health notes, preferences and what is in the kitchen.
Groceries, ordered
It compares the recipes with what is at home, recommends what is missing and orders after a yes, with the family’s saved UPI or card.
Medicines, tracked
Built from prescriptions and pharmacy invoices, with regular reminders and a warning before a course runs out.
Reorder from a pharmacy app
Refills through apps such as PharmEasy and 1mg, after a yes.
Remind and trust
Reminders where you look
App notifications and WhatsApp, timed to the person and the task.
A consent log
Every permission, and a history of every action taken on the family’s behalf.
Explainable and reversible
Every suggestion carries a short reason and can be undone.
Controllable memory
Review, correct, delete or restrict anything Hemma remembers about the household.
Privacy by design
Built around India’s DPDP Act 2023, GDPR and COPPA: explicit consent, protection for children’s data and no selling of data.
13
The school notice again, with the design answering each thing that goes wrong.
Today
The ₹500 fee is remembered late
With Hemma
A payment reminder is created with the notice and sent before the Monday deadline.
Today
The costume is assembled the night before
With Hemma
A preparation task is proposed early, with the reason shown.
Today
One parent has a meeting during the performance
With Hemma
The clash is flagged when the plan is proposed, before it becomes a surprise.
Today
The other parent hears about it late
With Hemma
The confirmed plan reaches them with their own actions.
Today
Missing props and supplies are noticed too late
With Hemma
Hemma lists what is needed, checks what is at home, and orders the rest once Meera says yes.
Today
Nobody has decided what to cook on the busy evening
With Hemma
A meal that suits the evening and everyone’s health is suggested, with any missing ingredients ready to order.
14
Three stages, each one built on the last.
First version
The orb home, voice and text capture, email and calendar sources, messages and WhatsApp as consented sources, profiles for all six, school notices, medicines from documents, meals with a grocery order, events and a consent log. Manual and document health inputs, English, iOS and Android.
Next
Wearables as a health input, more quick-commerce partners and family members with their own logins.
Later
Regional languages, and booking a doctor’s appointment.
15
The idea is much bigger than the first version. I kept the first version to what proves that families will trust the assistant.
Diagnosis and medical advice
Hemma supports the family. It never replaces a doctor or a pharmacist’s judgement.
Wearables
They add data and complexity. Documents and manual entry come first.
Wallet payments
Saved UPI and cards cover the first version. Wallets can be added later.
Regional languages
English first, so I can test the idea well before translating it.
16
Measures I would track, chosen to show whether families trust the assistant, not how many people installed it.
Captured items that become a plan
The main measure: items that turn into an approved plan item, per household each week.
Proposals approved
The share of proposed actions a family approves. A high share means the suggestions are right.
Medicine reminders acknowledged on time
Whether the reminders reach the person who acts on them.
Orders completed from a suggested cart
How often a recommended grocery cart becomes a delivered order.
Sources kept on
Households that connect sources and still have them on after a month. The clearest sign of trust.
18
This section fills in as I finish it: the flows, a design system, the screens and an interactive prototype.
Flows
Tell it, read with consent, confirm, plan, order and track, from one school notice and one prescription.
In progress
Design system and screens
The orb home, voice and text capture, the plan, the family profiles, the sources and the order approval, on iOS and Android.
In progress
Interactive prototype
The orb and the approval flows, embedded here so you can use them.
In progress
There is more behind this
13 more sections, about 10 minutes of reading.
