Slow down.
Ask Y.

The AI that asks before it answers.

Ask Y Why a snail? ›

Why Y

Every answer costs something.

Electricity. Water. The part where you think. And most of what we ask a machine isn't quite the question we mean, so we ask again. And again.

Y finds the real question first. So you only ask once.

Y on a desk beside a closed laptop

How it works

It asks back.

Y doesn't answer right away. It asks why, and keeps asking, until it's clear what you're really after. Then it answers that. Once.

Y asking
What's the fastest way to learn Spanish?
Why?
We're going to Oaxaca in June.
Why?
My grandmother's family is from there.
Why?
I want to talk to her cousins. They knew her when she was young.
Why?
Because I never asked her about it while I could.
Why?
…I want to hear who she was before she was mine.
So really, you want to know How do I have one real conversation in Oaxaca this June? Not an app streak. Learn forty phrases about family, food and memory. Bring photographs. Open with “Cuéntame de ella.” Tell me about her. They will do the rest.

Engineers call it root-cause analysis. Avie calls it asking why until it makes sense.

Avie's original drawing of the Y snail, on the fridge

Why a snail

It started on a fridge in Knoxville.

Avie, 8, noticed grown-ups asking computers a lot of questions, very fast, and wondered what all that speed was costing. The computers. The planet. The part where you think.

So she drew a snail. It carries its home. It never rushes. And it leaves a trail, so you can always see where a question came from.

Company mission statement, complete and unabridged: “Why?”

Macro of the shell, the spiral forming a lowercase y

Under the shell

The shell is a lowercase y.

Every Y carries its name on its back. It was the first thing Avie drew.

Tech specs.

  • PowerLettuce. Romaine preferred. No charger.
  • Salt resistanceNone. Please, no.
  • StorageCarries everything it owns.
  • ConnectivityLeaves a trail.
  • Response timeWhen the question is clear.
  • Made inKnoxville, Tennessee. On a fridge.

Slow down. Ask Y.

Go ahead. Ask it anything. It'll ask you back.

Ask Y
Y standing on a sketchbook beside a crayon drawing of itself