We still want to meet the person.

When every email sounds personal

Over the last couple of years, AI outreach tools have made it easy to send thousands of emails that sound as though they were written for one person. They use your name, mention your work, and arrive with a friendly reason to connect. You can read the whole message and still have no idea whether the sender spent a moment thinking about you.

Email has been a way to reach someone you don't know for a long time. You find a person whose work you care about, think through what you want to say, and take a chance on writing to them. Now that heartfelt message can disappear into an inbox full of generated pitches. The person reading has good reason to be skeptical, and your careful note can look just like everything they've learned to ignore.

Attention should go both ways

We think a personal email carries a small promise: I've thought about why I'm writing to you, and I hope you'll consider what I have to say. Reading it takes time and attention. When both people make that effort, there's some mutual respect in the exchange, even if the answer is no. Nobody owes a stranger a reply, but the person asking for attention ought to have given some first.

That feels unfair when a recipient reads a message carefully and the sender has never even read it. One person is considering the words, deciding whether to trust them, perhaps writing a thoughtful reply. The other has left the whole introduction to a system. The email may sound warm, but the attention is only coming from one side.

You can see the problem in sales outreach and job applications. A salesperson with a useful idea has to get past the suspicion left by automated pitches. Someone who cares about a particular job has to explain that interest among applications that could have gone to any company. We worry that we're getting used to dismissing each other before we've had a chance to meet.

Why we chose video

We chose video as our way of trying to bring some of that connection back. Taking a minute to record an introduction for one person gives you a chance to explain why you wanted to reach them. They can hear how you talk about an idea and see the person asking for their time. That's the kind of first meeting we want hi.video to make possible.

In hi.video, you record a short introduction in your browser and send someone a link. That link can go in the email you'd already planned to send, alongside your proposal or job application. They can watch without creating an account, then reply or book a conversation using the details you chose to share. The email gives you a way to reach them; the video gives them a chance to meet you.

There's something useful about hearing someone work through an idea in their own words. Maybe they pause for a second or laugh because they lost their train of thought. Those moments can tell you something about the person you might end up working with. We think they're worth keeping.

Recording yourself can feel awkward. You notice your voice, wonder where to look, and consider starting over. A good introduction leaves room for that awkwardness. You should be able to say what you mean without feeling like you need to become a presenter first.

The person should make the recording

Of course, AI can make a convincing video of someone saying words they never said. Choosing video doesn't settle the question of whether someone took the time to speak to you. Imagine opening a recording that seems to have been made just for you, then wondering whether the sender ever sat down to say any of it. That doubt changes how you listen.

That's why hi.video asks you to make the recording yourself, inside the product. We don't offer generated avatars or a video upload button. If you're reaching out about a job, take a moment to explain why the work interests you. If you have an idea for a client, talk them through it. Making time for that introduction is the part we want to keep human.

We also owe you honesty about the limits. A browser recording cannot prove someone's identity or guarantee that AI was never involved. Our recording explanation describes what we can say about a video made here. You should know those limits before deciding what to trust.

We want someone on the other end

What worries us about the idea of a "dead internet" is getting used to the possibility that nobody is there. You send a message, an automated answer comes back, and neither person has really paid attention. After enough of that, it gets harder to believe the next introduction is worth your time.

We want an internet where reaching out still feels worthwhile. Where a stranger can become someone you know because one of you made the effort to start a conversation. Human connections often begin with something small, and we'd like technology to make that first step easier to take.

hi.video is our contribution to that. A short recording won't fix everything that feels impersonal online. But if it helps you get to know someone you would otherwise have passed by, that is a useful thing for us to build. We hope you'll have someone in mind when you press record.