The growth of Hello’s main business has reached its peak, and it has intensively launched a number of new vertical AI applications for trial and error.
According to Dujia, Hello has launched an AI weight loss app named “Calio”, which is positioned as a lightweight daily health weight loss platform, mainly targeting ordinary users who want to manage their weight gently and hate complicated operations. Different from the hardcore fitness-oriented weight loss software on the market, it takes “pet companion” as its differentiated highlight, combined with the AI food photo recognition capability, trying to lower the threshold for users to stick to weight management.
In the past six months or so, Hello has launched the AI job interview product “Hioffers AI”, the AI college dating platform “Match” and the AI community “Poki Planet”, which has apparently become a new app factory. Now it has launched Calio to enter the health weight loss track, continuously looking for new growth points outside its main travel business
What can this app do?
When you first enter the app, you need to fill in basic physical data and set weight loss goals, then the system will automatically generate an exclusive weight loss plan. The content includes the estimated weight loss cycle, daily calorie limit, proportion of three major nutrients and water intake indicators
The plan does not have a strict templated recipe, and is more inclined to the daily reference standard, which is suitable for beginners to implement step by step, avoiding the frustration caused by setting too high goals
AI photo recognition of meals. This is the core capability of Calio. After the meal, you can directly take a photo of the food, and the AI will automatically identify the dishes, quickly estimate the total calories of a meal, and the nutritional composition such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats
The recognition results support manual adjustment of food ingredients, re-recognition or deletion of records. After confirmation and saving, the system will automatically summarize the daily intake data. Compared with the traditional manual retrieval of food library mode, photo entry greatly reduces the operation cost, and you can complete the diet record by taking a casual photo after meals
In addition, Calio provides a convenient weight record entry, which cooperates with diet and water intake records to make management more complete. It also has a built-in calendar view function, which can quickly access all records of diet, water intake and weight on any past day. Long-term weight loss can be compared horizontally with data changes in different stages, which is convenient for reviewing eating habits and adjusting the weight loss rhythm in time
At present, most mainstream calorie tracking apps are more inclined to hardcore self-discipline styles, with a tense atmosphere, which is easy to make people feel stressed. However, Calio uses the cute panda IP as the “weight loss companion” that runs through the entire product interface
When you open the homepage, you can see the companion image, turning the boring calorie check-in into a daily task with a sense of companionship. For users who resist high-intensity self-discipline and do not like hardcore fitness tools, this gentle and lightweight product atmosphere is an obvious advantage. The interface has fresh and soft color matching, simple functional layout, no redundant modules such as complicated courses, live broadcasts, and e-commerce malls, focusing on the core demand of diet recording.
The product provides in-app purchase value-added services. The free version has certain restrictions on functions, so you need to pay attention to paid items if you use it in depth
AI has become a new growth story outside Hello’s travel business
Behind Hello’s frequent launch of new products, there seems to be a hint of urgency
Two-wheeled shared mobility is still Hello’s most important cash flow base, but the industry dividend has long faded, and the growth ceiling is clearly visible. Looking back at the capital market process, Hello launched its US stock IPO as early as 2021, but finally chose to withdraw its application materials, and the listing plan was put on hold. The long-term stagnation of the listing process means that the company cannot obtain continuous financing through the public market, and the urgency of developing new businesses and opening up a second growth curve is rising continuously.
In addition, this year’s 315 Gala exposed that there was a chaos of illegal decoding and speed increase in the electric vehicle leasing business under Hello, and compliance risks and public controversies continued to haunt its core travel business, which also made the business model relying solely on shared two-wheelers and electric vehicle leasing more fragile
By continuously and intensively incubating various AI vertical tools, it is not difficult to understand Hello’s thinking: compared with heavy-asset travel projects, light-asset AI applications have lower investment thresholds and trial-and-error costs. With a large number of travel users, Hello hopes to jump out of the cycling scenario, tap the consumption demands of existing users in a longer life cycle, and get rid of its dependence on the single shared travel track.
However, the practical challenges are very prominent. At present, Hioffers AI, Match, Calio and all other products are mutually independent Apps, which are relatively fragmented and have no linkage with the cycling scenario. It is difficult for travel traffic to be naturally diverted to job hunting, dating and weight loss tools, and no synergy effect can be formed. Multiple tracks are laid out at the same time, which seems to be extensive, but in fact the strength is scattered
A deeper question is: Can the user trust and brand recognition of a mobility platform be successfully transferred to completely unrelated tracks such as weight loss, dating and job hunting? The market of similar vertical tracks is already full of mature players. Hello, as a cross-border entrant, does not have natural advantages
This batch of scattered AI products are still mostly in the stage of extensive trial and error. How to integrate the scattered tracks, break through user barriers, and find a sustainable commercialization method will be the core problem that Hello must solve next
