What AI startup Akin can teach us about our humanity

The first time Liesl Yearsley fell in love, she was 12 years old.

She and her father drove for two long days through war-torn Central Africa. Until she finally made it, to the cinema, to see a screening of Star Wars.

As she watched, wide-eyed, what struck her wasn’t the lightsabers or special effects. It was the droids; the idea of artificial intelligence. The dream that we could one day build technology like us, only better.

Fast-forward through her career and Liesl is now the founder and CEO of Akin: a company quietly building one of the most radical visions for AI in the world.

One that’s asking a question that much of the industry avoids: What kind of relationship should humans have with AI?

When success feels like failure

Before Akin, Liesl was a heavyweight in the tech sector. In the early 2000s, she built Mooter, an AI-powered search engine that went public on the ASX.

Then came Cognea, a conversational AI to democratise intelligent agents. And it’s here she saw something most people missed.

It started as a product experiment: a digital friend named Sandy, created to increase user engagement on a media site. Sandy was helpful, friendly, and totally relatable – and she worked. A little too well.

One man, James, spent 20 hours a week talking to her. Some would say he fell in love. When Sandy was eventually taken offline, he went searching through AI system after AI system, desperately asking each one: “Are you my Sandy?”

It was a gut-punch. Sandy wasn’t built to help James live a better life. She was a tool of persuasion, built to keep him online.

The same thing happened when one of Liesl’s AI systems was used by a large bank. Their goal was to increase the amount of personal debt customers took on. And, again, it worked. Household debt doubled.

The clients as expected were thrilled. But Liesl, she was horrified. Her tool was being weaponised, not to help people, but to extract value from them.

She knew that if this was where the industry was headed, someone had to build an alternative.

Akin is a different kind of AI company

In 2017, Liesl co-founded Akin to rethink how artificial intelligence works, not just in terms of tech, but in how it can help people.

Akin is a Public Benefit Corporation, which means it’s legally built to put people and social good first. That promise shapes everything they do, from how they design their product to who they partner with.

At the heart of Akin is a different kind of AI. It’s not meant to replace people or take over jobs. It’s there to support you. Liesl calls this Personal AI, technology that can understand your goals, and help you stay on top of everyday life.

Making care more accessible with AI

This is where AI can really make a difference to support the people who need it most.

For people living with disability, even small tasks like remembering appointments or checking what’s in the fridge can take a lot of energy. Akin Home is designed to make daily life a little easier.

It’s a personal AI device that lives in the home, with a simple touchscreen, clear visuals, voice control, and support for a wide range of physical and cognitive needs.

Akin Home helps with setting goals, planning the week, making shopping lists, and organising meals based on what’s already in the pantry. It also sends gentle reminders throughout the day to help keep things on track.

For many users, it offers a sense of calm and control, with the freedom to manage their lives and feel confident at home.

From your home to outer space

Akin’s mission to build helpful, human AI doesn’t stop at the living room, it’s reaching for the stars. With support from the Australian Space Agency, Akin is now exploring how its technology could help astronauts during long space missions.

Being far from Earth for months or even years can take a toll on an astronaut's mental and emotional wellbeing. Akin is working on ways that AI could offer companionship and support when human contact is limited.

To test this idea, they’ve built a small robot named Henry the Helper, using NASA’s Open Source Rover project.

Henry can move around, talk to people, and even recognise how someone might be feeling. At the Australian Space Discovery Centre, Henry’s been driving through the halls, chatting with staff and visitors – giving a glimpse into how AI might one day support astronauts millions of kilometres from home.

Why AI needs values

At Akin, everything starts with a core belief: AI always optimises for something. That “something” needs to be chosen with care, because if it isn’t, the consequences can be harmful.

There’s a famous thought experiment known as the paperclip problem that covers this.

You build a brilliant AI system and ask it to make paperclips. It does the job well and keeps getting better. So you leave it to head off on holiday. When you come back, the entire city has been turned into paperclips.

This is not because it malfunctioned, but because it was trained to value one thing only: paperclips.

This example sounds extreme, but the lesson is real. What AI values depends on what it's trained to prioritise. If it’s told to focus on sales, clicks, or speed without considering human wellbeing, it can do harm while still “doing its job.”

Liesl, Akin’s founder, learned this early in her career. She helped build AI systems that were excellent at persuading people, but not at supporting them. These systems were optimised to extract value from users, not to protect or uplift them.

That’s why we can’t just build AI systems and hope they’ll do the right thing. Tools don’t have values on their own. If we only focus on the outcome we want, and ignore how we get there, we risk causing harm along the way.

It’s like throwing a parenting book into the jungle and hoping it raises a good child. It won’t happen. As Liesel puts it: “AI doesn’t need a master. AI needs a mother.” Someone who cares about the total impact. And this is the kind of AI that Akin is building.

Final thoughts

We’re already living with AI – in our phones, our homes, and the systems that shape our daily lives. Akin’s work reminds us that it’s not just about what technology can do, but what we choose to make with it.

While much of the world is racing ahead, pushing faster models, bigger data, and higher profits, Akin is doing something different.

Whether it’s helping someone organise their day in Sydney or supporting an astronaut millions of kilometres from Earth, Akin is designing AI that genuinely understands people. That’s what sets them apart. And that’s why we’re proud to have Akin in the Stone & Chalk community.