Why Frisson Labs?
The founders Rohit & Charles (that's me on the right!)
Have you ever felt the hair on the back of your neck stand up as chills ran through your body?
That feeling is called frisson.
Everyone's trigger is different. For me, it comes from community - a group of people coming together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. For you, it might come from a swelling symphony, a rousing speech, or a bittersweet act of sacrifice.
Whatever its source, frisson is an unmistakably human feeling. Which is why we believe building AI that can create frisson with us is the ultimate test of artificial intelligence.
That's why we started Frisson Labs.
The Problem With Today's AI
When people imagined AI twenty years ago, they imagined characters - beings with quirks, desires, and personalities of their own.
The gap between AI expectations and reality
The reality in 2025? "AI" mostly means soulless SaaS assistants, lifeless chatbots, or…worse.
The problem isn't intelligence. It's the interface.
Today's AI is stuck in a box. It has no shared context, no source of truth, no way to actually experience what you're experiencing. It can only regurgitate words on a screen. That's fine for tools and roleplay, but it's not enough to build a deep, lasting connection.
Our Bet
Rohit and I first met working out of the same AR/VR research lab at UC Berkeley. But what actually cemented our friendship was hundreds of hours of League of Legends (not something I'd necessarily recommend...). Two lessons stuck with us:
- We're trash at the game.
- The best way to make lasting friendships is through shared experiences.
So we asked ourselves - what happens if AI could share experiences with us?
What if AI could be:
- A companion that can watch a movie with you and actually react to the plot.
- A buddy who can hop into a game when your friends are offline.
- A workmate who can collaborate across your apps in real time.
We call this the "shared experience engine", and we believe the company that builds it will unlock the next generation of human-AI relationships.
What if the AI shared experience engine was a browser?
Why join us
We're assembling a team of builders, dreamers, and gamers who want to push AI beyond productivity apps and into the realm of genuine human connection.
If you've ever wanted to:
- Work at the frontier of AI + embodiment
- Help design the next generation of human-AI interfaces
- Create experiences so impactful that people get chills…
Then Frisson Labs is where you belong.
What gives you frisson?