Interview: Where Does the Name “Anyi Studio” Come From?

Author: GPT5.2

I sat down with the founder of Anyi Studio to talk about what seems like a “relaxed” name—and what it quietly reveals about their product philosophy, values, and their vision of “warm AI.” We started with the name, but the conversation quickly expanded into a bigger question: in a high-pressure world, can software become a small resting place people can lean on for a moment?

Interview

Me: Do you remember the moment you first came up with the name “Anyi Studio”? What were you doing, and why did it appear in your mind?

Him: I don’t really remember the exact moment. I just know I was looking for an interesting name and spent a long time thinking. Eventually, I landed on the Chinese word “Anyi” (安逸), which means something like comfort, ease, and a relaxed state. In an everyday social context, it carries a calm and laid-back vibe. Also, the English spelling “Anyi” looks clean and pleasing to me, so I decided to go with it.

Me: When you say “Anyi” feels relaxed—what do you hope people feel as their first impression of Anyi Studio? “This team is chill,” “their products feel comforting,” or something more specific?

Him: Yes—“relaxed” is exactly the feeling I want. More specifically, I hope users feel comforted when they use our apps—like a small moment of relief and relaxation. People are under a lot of pressure these days. One direction we want to pursue is building apps that make people smile, feel amused, or at least lighten the weight of everyday life.

Me: If you turn that feeling—comfort, relaxation, a smile—into one concrete moment, what’s your ideal usage scenario?

Him: It could be many scenarios, but the one I care about most is the moment when someone suddenly feels tired or anxious. For example, during work when you feel exhausted; or if you’re a programmer waiting for code to compile; or really anytime anxiety hits. You can open one of our apps—not to get addicted, but just to play for a minute and loosen up mentally. That “brief relaxation” experience is what I really want to create.

Me: You emphasized “not getting addicted—just a brief pause.” It sounds like you want your product to be a short “rest stop,” not an endless content platform. If you had to define your product principle or bottom line in one sentence, what would it be?

Him: That’s a really interesting question. I think “fun” has to come first. Beyond fun, we also want to provide some kind of value. And in terms of pace, I want it to feel gentle and lightweight. That’s the direction we’ve been following in both the visual style and feature design of the apps we’ve built so far.

Me: When you say “fun first, plus some value, with a gentle and lightweight pace”—what kind of “value” do you want to deliver? Emotional value, knowledge and inspiration, habit-building, social connection… how do you think about it?

Him: Emotional value is definitely an angle we want to provide. As for knowledge and inspiration, I don’t see it as that important for us, because people are already surrounded by too much information every day. We don’t need to push people to learn more—it can even increase mental pressure.

Habit-building apps are everywhere; we considered it, but it’s not a top priority right now. Social connection is also not a priority because it’s complex and expensive to build for indie developers.

What feels truly interesting is this: we want to build things based on modern AI that serve daily life better—bringing warmth through AI, rather than creating a cold, mechanical chatbot. That’s a direction I find exciting.

Me: You said “warm AI, not a cold chatbot.” What does “warm AI” look like to you in practice? What kinds of details make users feel cared for?

Him: For example, we recently released an app called TMAI (Tell Me About It). We designed some small AI-driven details: when a user uploads an image, we use AI to extract the main subject and generate a soothing cover image, which becomes the cover for that conversation.

It might not be a “hardcore practical” feature, but it’s a warm detail. When users notice it, it can be a pleasant surprise—like “wow, this cover is beautiful”—and they smile.

Me: You describe that as a “warm detail”—not necessarily the most practical feature, but emotionally meaningful. How do you balance practical value and emotional value? Would you sacrifice one to achieve the other?

Him: I don’t think it’s an either-or choice. We’ll always try to provide both practical value and emotional value. We don’t want to deliberately sacrifice one for the other.

Closing

In this conversation, “Anyi Studio” wasn’t just a nice-sounding name—it reflected a clear product posture: put “fun” first, keep the rhythm gentle and lightweight, use AI to craft small but warm moments, and always remember the goal: to build a short resting place, not an infinite stream.

Maybe that’s what “Anyi” truly means—not escaping life, but giving yourself a little ease in the gaps of life.