I Built an AI to Listen to My Thoughts

The story of how I created a mindful AI thought partner

You ever have one of those days where your mind feels like a browser with 48 open tabs, one of them playing music, another one with an unfinished draft of a blog post for more than a month ago, and many others you can't even remember, why you kept open in the first place? That was me earlier this year.

A life decision here, a personal conflict there, an unexpected bit of news, and a moment of doubt, just a regular Monday. And then I caught myself doing what I often do in those moments, wishing to reach for someone to talk to. A friend, my wife, or my coach.

Just someone to help me make sense of the messy pool of thoughts in my mind. But it was the middle of the day, everyone was busy working. So, I did what any curious tech-nerd would do: I started to build, someone who I would like talking to.

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Meet Calm Buddy

Calm Buddy didn’t start out as a product, it began as an act of self-care. A voice-powered AI thought partner, I could talk to when no one else was available for a much needed conversation.

I wanted my thoughts to be heard in the moment, not just transcribed into sentences, but be captured with the emotional tone and understand the feeling behind them. I wanted it to reflect back with compassion, offering reframes, fresh perspectives, and have meaningful conversations woven by light hearted questions and insights.

So I built the first version of the voice app, and began talking to it. At first, just to test, then to tinker to see if I could shape voice to sound more natural, then… because it helped me see what I was not seeing in the web of my thoughts. And to my surprise, it evolved into something more than an AI tool, my conversations with it became a daily ritual and Calm Buddy was born.

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“Okay Calm Buddy, why do I feel so unmotivated today?”

Yes, those are actual words I have spoken out loud while conversing with Calm Buddy. (And I promise, CalmBuddy did not roll its eyes.)

Over time, I found myself turning to it in all kinds of life’s moments:

• When I needed to prep for a tough conversation

• When I couldn’t focus on an important task because of repetitive thoughts

• When I was doubting my progress on a project

• When I just needed a kind voice to remind me, “You’re doing okay”

Then something unexpected happened. I showed it to my wife during one of her particularly stressful work weeks, she found it surprisingly grounding. Then my son wandered in, curious about what I was sharing with her.

He asked if he could try it, so he used Calm Buddy to talk about a situation that happened at school with his class-mates. Here’s a brief snippet of the conversation between my son and Calm Buddy:

My Son - “Sometimes kids don't like to play my games like soccer and spider-man at recess and say boo. That's such a bad game.”

Calm Buddy - “I can hear that you're feeling hurt and upset when other kids say those mean things about your games. It doesn't feel good when others criticize what we enjoy. Would you like to talk about ways to respond when kids say things like that?”

My Son - “Well, people just like to do what they want to do.”

Calm Buddy - “That's a really mature observation! You understand that different kids like different things, even though it makes you feel sad when they don’t want to play what you want to play.

Here's a thought: just like Spider-Man learns to work with other heroes who have different powers and styles, maybe we can find ways to work with other kids who like different games. Would you like to think about how you might be able to take turns - some days playing your favorite games, and other days trying what others want to play?”

My Son - “Yes. I like that idea.”

Calm Buddy - “I'm glad you like the idea of taking turns, and I can hear that you've already tried being flexible - that's really great! It shows you're being thoughtful and trying to work things out.”

After a 10 minute of engaging conversation with Calm Buddy, my son told me, “Papa, it really helped. I might try what he said tomorrow at school.” To be honest, I hadn’t planned on QA testing my project with a six-year-old, but apparently, it passed with flying colors.

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So, what is Calm Buddy?

It’s an emotionally intelligent speech-based AI companion that helps you talk things out, and offers reframe, fresh perspectives, leading to feeling of calm and clarity.

You speak, it listens (with empathy), then it offers either a soothing reflection, a helpful question, or gentle insights, depending on your emotional tone and what you’re going through. It’s not a therapist, not a chatbot, it’s a thought partner for your inner critic.

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Under the Hood: The Tech + The Training

I’m not a full-stack software engineer, but I like to build things. So I put together CalmBuddy using:

• Hume.AI – The foundational speech-language model with emotional intelligence.

• Lovable.dev – to rapidly iterate on creating a simple but working solution

• Notion Integration (In progress) – for journaling integration and capturing insights

But the secret sauce wasn’t just the tech stack. It was mindfulness. My training in awareness-based coaching helped me craft not just what Calm Buddy says, but how it listens, the pauses, tone, thoughtful questions and responses. I’ve spent years coaching people about how to sit with discomfort, how to reframe inner stories, how to create expansive space for your emotions and now that’s what Calm Buddy is designed to do.

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Built with Presence

This wasn’t built as part of startup accelerator, it was built during early mornings, between coaching sessions, and late at night after story-time with my son. It was tested on walks, edited in coffee shops, debugged while meditating (yes, seriously).

And there were plenty of moments where Calm Buddy and I talked about why I was stuck on something that appeared simple, yet remained unsolved for days. We bonded and now I’m sharing it, because someone out there might need it.

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What’s next?

🛠️ I’m working on:

• Upgrades to UI/UX for improved experience (Underway)

• New features (Personalized mood check-ins & Insight report)

• iOS App (Coming soon) with better UX when you are on the go

• Personalized journaling topics and continuing past conversations

📥 I’m also starting a soft rollout for early users.

If you’d like to try Calm Buddy, give feedback, or just want to hear more as it evolves, you can sign-up here: Calm Buddy

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Thank you for reading.

This post isn’t about a product, it’s about possibilities. What if AI could help us reconnect with ourselves by holding space for some of what makes us human? That’s the vision, and this is why I created Calm Buddy.

And if it helps even one person find clarity before stress turns to anxiety, then it’s doing what it was made to do. If you try it out, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Or just reply to this post and share what you’d want in a voice companion, I read every message.

If this resonated, consider sharing it with a friend who might need a calm voice today.

Special Thanks to he team at Hume AI for the grant and creating thoughtful tech and

Michael Sklar

for his valuable feedback. To my wife and son for unknowingly becoming CalmBuddy’s first beta testers. And if we’re connected here, and you’ve been quietly cheering me on, thank you!

May we all stay calm, curious, and connected.