Bluesky leans into AI with Attie, an app for building custom feeds
Bluesky's new service isn't about AI; it's about accessibility.
Attie is a tool by Bluesky that makes it easy for anyone to build their own algorithmic feed.
I think what’s neat about this announcement is not the AI angle — AI is just there to make the process simpler for users that don’t want to code or get into the details. It’s the democratization of feed creation itself.
“With Attie, anyone will be able to build their own custom feed just by typing in commands in natural language, the same as if they’re chatting with any other AI chatbot. To use the app, people will sign in with their Atmosphere login (meaning their login for any app that runs on atproto, which includes Bluesky). Attie will immediately understand what you’ve been talking about, what sort of things you like, and more, because Bluesky and the wider ecosystem are open systems that share data across apps.”
It’s important to say that Attie is not the first tool that allows anyone to build a feed. Graze and Surf also offer this feature — for example, I’ve used the latter to create my Speaking Truth to Power feed of newsrooms covering the US and my equivalent for structural tech news. But it does offer a very different kind of interface for doing so.
The stated ambition is more than feeds: it’s also to help anyone to vibe code their own social app. Those features are coming down the line, but it’s a clear delineation between what open social platforms can do and the limitations of a traditional social media platform. In the latter, you’re stuck with the apps and algorithms you’re given, which is a huge problem if your platform happens to be owned by an oligarch who bought it to further their own ideological ends (looking at you, X). Here you can create the experience you want, and the platform custodians clearly want to make sure that customization isn’t limited to technical people. Accessibility is openness too.
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