Augment Me is a company that creates a Neuro AI Agent called WotNow?!, which uses a phone’s camera to monitor biometric signals, translating them into insights to improve focus, productivity, and mental well-being for students and professionals. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Augment Me founder Sameer Yami to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Sameer Yami’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Yami said:
“My journey in technology began at Sun Microsystems and Netscape, where I built one of the first single sign-on systems (SSOs). That technology has since become an industry standard, which remains one of my proudest contributions to the field. Subsequently, at Toshiba I earned recognition as a top inventor and accumulated over 30 patents.”
“I went on to lead applied research at Amobee until the company’s $239 million acquisition. The entrepreneurial spirit drove me to found WikiSeer, an early semantic advertising technology platform that explored new ways to connect content and context.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for Augment Me come together? Yami shared:
“When COVID-19 transformed our world, I witnessed something that changed my focus entirely. I saw rising stress and disengagement among children everywhere, including within my own family. The isolation and disruption were taking a visible toll on young people’s wellbeing and learning capacity.”
“I began experimenting with a VR headset prototype with built in EEG sensors to gauge focus. This early work evolved into Augment Me, an AI-driven application that provides users with real-time guidance and personalized recommendations to improve focus, productivity, and mental health. The app adapts in real time to users’ engagement levels and stress indicators, providing personalized support when they need it most. Initially designed to help students better engage in the classroom, the concept has proven powerful for professionals too.”
“Our initial pilot study of Augment Me with nearly 100 students has reinforced our qualitative experiences with the app, resulting in significant improvements in test scores. Seeing technology actively support children’s emotional and educational needs has become my most meaningful work yet.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Yami reflected:
“When we first launched our pilot study in a Bay Area school district, something remarkable happened just a month in. In one of our meetings, the school psychologist and the principal shared that many students were lining up outside the psychologist’s office to use Augment Me’s software. They were eager to assess themselves and dive into the recommended lessons.”
“Later, the psychologist told me about one particular student, a 6th grader who had been performing at a 4th-grade level. After engaging with the Augment Me sessions, her performance not only caught up but leapt ahead – she began performing at a 7th-grade level.”
“Our pilot study research is available here:
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7411726/v1.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Yami explained:
“We’ve built a real-time “productivity agent” designed to improve focus, engagement, and cognitive performance. The application is available on iPhone and Android.”
“The agent uses biometric signals (rPPG facial analysis) to measure cognitive state, detect when attention drifts, and align tasks with peak energy and focus times.”
“It works by providing immediate, precision feedback in plain language to restore attention and optimize performance without being intrusive. This can look like suggesting a breathing exercise right when someone needs a reset or adapting homework problems based on how well a student is engaging.”
“Unlike meditation apps or generic AI tools, the agent adapts to humans (not the other way around), matching mental state to task and offering ambient, supportive guidance.”
“The app is available to students, teachers, and professionals for any context where mental alignment and sustained focus drive better outcomes.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector of work recently? Yami acknowledged:
“We first set out to measure individual engagement. Then a customer posed a bigger challenge: could we do the same for entire groups? Rising to this request was anything but simple. It took thousands of experiments and countless iterations before we finally unlocked the breakthrough.”
“The result is the Neuro AI Teammate Agent, a system that not only senses the overall engagement of a classroom or conference room, but also acts on it. In real time, it can recommend the most relevant content for discussion or suggest activities designed to re-energize and guide the individuals in the room. What began as a complex research challenge has evolved into a transformative system that redefines how groups learn, collaborate, and stay engaged.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Yami noted:
“Augment Me began as a hardware company, building a custom VR headset with integrated EEG technology. However, the high cost of hardware and the realization that we could deliver the same benefits in a far more accessible way led us to pivot.”
“This shift, which took a few months, proved transformative. It not only enabled us to scale more effectively, but also allowed us to design our system from the ground up. In doing so, we carried forward the core insights from EEG and brainwave sensing, substituting the rPPG facial analysis technique, and embedded them deeply into our product.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Yami cited:
“We recently officially announced the launch of our Engagement-Based AI Agent WotNow?!, bringing Attention Intelligence to the world.”
Funding
When asking Yami about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“We were part of the Stanford StartX AI series and have raised pre-seed from angel investor.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Yami affirmed:
“What sets Augment Me apart is WotNow AI, a Neuro AI Agent built on two years of rigorous research. Unlike many competitors that focus narrowly on analytics or generic personalization, WotNow AI is grounded in the science of Neuroscience, AI, Psychology, and Human Performance, brought together into a true Affective Computing platform.”
“This unique approach allows us to sense engagement at both the individual and group level and then act on it, recommending content that matches the user’s current state of mind. More importantly, the system can actively improve engagement by suggesting targeted interventions, making the experience adaptive, responsive, and deeply human-centric.”
“In short, while others measure, we understand and respond, turning real-time engagement into meaningful outcomes.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Yami concluded:
“To make the Neuro AI Teammate Agent available to everyone!”
