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another day • another launch

oio news #36

Author

Matteo Loglio
21 Jan

Your monthly non-spammy-gif-heavy newsletter from your friends at oio.

Hey friend! New year, new you, new everything. Year of the fire horse they say, but is it a new horse? We don’t know. One thing we know: 2026 is the opposite of 6202. What? Anyway, here’s some actual content.

Last year it’s been quite hectic. Many project launches, a school to organize, shooting videos, public projects, not-so-public projects, new people. It’s been a year of growth, we definitely feel taller. In this issue, we briefly throwback to our adventures of 2025, coding a new brain for our creative director Roby, hosting the second edition of oio school, rolling out our very own energy-conscious AI, the Hot Air Factory, along with other secret services we’ve been providing behind the scenes. Meet our project manager Mara in another oio team corner entry, then some public talks. If you stay until the end of this nonsense, you can enjoy a special winter gift uniquely crafted by oio just for you.

But before all of that, we have a very special project to share with you.

↓

pomelli • can AI do branding?

A while ago, Google DeepMind approached us with the task of exploring how AI could enhance the process of brand marketing. We helped them create a vision and prototype; and now, the project is out there on Google Labs for anyone to use! Well, only if you live in the US for now, or use a VPN. It’s rolling out in other parts of the world too later this year, including Greenland. Anyway take a look at the launch video below.

Here’s what the Deep Mind team says about Pomelli, from Google’s official blog:

Creating impactful, on-brand content can often require significant investment in time, budget, and design expertise. For small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), this can be a major obstacle. That’s where Pomelli, our newest experiment from Google Labs in partnership with Google DeepMind, comes in. Pomelli is an AI marketing tool designed to help SMBs more easily generate scalable, on-brand social media campaigns to help grow their businesses.

Google Blog

We helped the DeepMind team in the early days of the project, a few months ago. They came to us with an idea, and we helped them to shape it into a design vision and actual prototype, that the team later developed further into what Pomelli is now.

Pomelli is a classic oio project™ • take something that sounds really cool, but you are not really sure it’s possible with today’s technology. We turn that simple idea into a product, design it from the ground up with our stellar design team, AND make it actually work. Everyone can dream, but we actually turn fantasy into reality. Do you have a dream? Get in touch! Our 6202 is starting to fill up quickly already.

oio team corner • mara

corner of the room | Shanghai Lingang Technology Innovation Center

this month’s handpicked corner

Back again with another corner, where you get the chance to meet one of oio’s brilliant minds and souls, in a corner. Please welcome… Mara!

hello hello

Marijana Janković • Mara for friends and family, is our project manager at oio. Mara comes from Belgrade, where she’s currently based. After joining the oio team in October 2024, she’s been the driving force behind the good shape of our daily routines, removing noise from the work process so that we can focus on our creative nonsense. As the person in charge of timings, structure, feedbacks and everything-operations, Mara thinks her role could be be better described as “Fate Orchestrator”. Mara works from her cozy home in Belgrade with her loyal coworker Sreda.

Sreda doesn’t seem convinced

We are a complicated bunch, and one of Mara’s greatest abilities is to actually understand each one of us delicate flowers. “I try to avoid assuming too much. I don’t feel bad about asking”. Which is very good advice to all sorts of relationships, isn’t it.

When not working on oio’s projects, she is an artist herself. Working with the textile medium at the moment, Mara is exploring the feelings of nostalgia and fairytale symbolism. You can find more about her personal work here: @nightmara_.

push UX

In October, my friend and co-founder Simone Rebaudengo gave a talk at Push, a UX conference in Munich, exploring the future of the UX practice. The talk is titled “Of Futures, Products and Burritos“. The actual talk is even tastier than an actual burrito, but at the moment the only way to see it is to become a member, link here.

one year of local intelligence

remember Roby and the HAF?

In March, we brought our AI creative director Roby home, from the far-away server clouds back into a very grounded MacMini, right underneath our desk. Roby received a full upgrade: it talks, it thinks, it even tracks its own energy usage by benchmarking it to the energy cost of making coffee. Roby was our first attempt at exploring a truly open, domestic AI. If you haven’t yet, be sure to try the new Roby on our Discord.

At the end of summer, we rolled out the Hot Air Factory, a small, domestic AI with a pinwheel that shows the hidden energy cost of every prompt. Clouds are heavier than you think, and we often overlook the cost of energy consumption regarding tech and AI. The Hot Air Factory makes that cost visible and tangible, with a small device that thinks locally, warms up, and spins a pinwheel with every answer. Every prompt comes with its own little energy bill, so you are aware of your actions. You can read more about the process here. The Hot Air Factory is still in its experimental phase, so reach out if you’d like to join the quest!

One big chunk of handpicked 𝕠𝕚𝕠 𝕔𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕗𝕚𝕖𝕕™ fine goods from our Discord community (not there yet? Join now 🏃‍♂️).

Want to share your cool links? Join us on Discord!

📈 monthly stonks

wait!

before you close this window, we’ve prepared a little something for you…the oio-curated-one-of-a-kind winter mixtape 2025 💿🔥

once unhinged • always unhinged

~ M+N