Hint, a new AI startup co-founded by Martha Stewart, offers an AI assistant for homeowners

Martha Stewart is entering the AI software era in the most Martha Stewart way possible: She has joined the co-founding team at Hint, an app that leverages AI technology to manage the tasks surrounding home maintenance and management. With the Hint app, which launches today, homeowners can tackle challenges around maintenance schedules/tasks and energy management, learn about their soil and air quality, weigh insurance claims, and more.

It can also serve as storage for various contracts, files, and invoices related to the home and its upkeep, which can be queried through the built-in AI assistant.

Co-founder and CTO at Hint, New York-based Kyle Rush, says the home and hospitality empire founder lives nearby and is “very involved” with the startup, but is not a financial investor.

“She’s a real co-founder with a serious stake in equity, and she does work for the company and the app. She’s not a figurehead. I go over about twice a week,” he says. “We sit down and look at the app, and she looks at what it’s saying — when it’s wrong about soil, she’ll say it, and when it’s not right about something about the home…she’ll mention it, and she’ll comment on what I design and the branding and the language. And so she’s, I would say, very involved.”

The startup began in 2024 as a tool to help people navigate decarbonization incentives related to their home, but realized that broadening its use cases had more potential.

“We really quickly realized, why can’t this be the AI for your home? People don’t really have an app to manage their homes…so we just pivoted,” says Rush.

The app joins others in the AI ecosystem that are working to expand AI beyond chatbots to apply the technology to solve real-world problems, while also adding Martha Stewart’s personal expertise to refine the experience.

To get started with Hint, users enter their home address, and the app builds a profile of the home from public data, like property records, weather and soil information, utilities, and more. Users can then upload documents, like inspection reports, home warranties, mortgage documents, contracts, insurance policies, invoices, and more.

This data can tell you things about the soil below the foundation, and how that may affect lawn drainage or foundation risk movement. You can also learn about the air quality surrounding your home or how climate or drought information could impact the potential for floods, your home insurance rates, or your energy usage, among other things.

Then, homeowners upload photos of the home’s major appliances, which allows the app to guide you through any “how to” questions or other maintenance tasks.

This can be surprisingly revealing, as many people don’t know about the smaller tasks related to appliance upkeep.

For instance, you may know to change your refrigerator’s water filter, but did you know that you should occasionally vacuum out the coils on some models to prevent fire hazards? Do you know when to flush a water heater or when to check the salt level for a home well?

Hint’s personalized home maintenance schedule means you won’t have to remember these things, as it sends proactive push notifications about what needs attention and when. This schedule evolves with your home, leveraging its understanding of the house itself, its systems, and the macro environment.

This is where Martha Stewart’s decades of experience in managing homes comes into play, as she’s guided the app development in key areas. In addition, homeowners can use Hint to add one-off tasks to their maintenance plans — like a reminder to replace a damaged window screen or re-caulk some baseboards, or anything else that comes up.

Hint also provides an overall “home score,” offering an at-a-glance number that tells you how good of a job you’re doing managing your home to date.

Meanwhile, Hint’s in-app AI chatbot lets you ask any questions related to your home or your documents. That means you could ask questions as simple as when was the last time you had the AC serviced, or as complex as what you’re paying per kilowatt hour for electricity or whether a HELOC would be a good idea to tap into your home equity.

The app can also guide you through questions related to your homeowner’s insurance, like whether your deductibles are too high, if you’re missing coverage, or whether it makes sense to file a claim for a repair.

Ahead of founding Hint, Rush led engineering at mattress startup Casper during its growth phase and was CTO at online retailer Maisonette. Before that, he built technology for both the Obama and Hillary presidential campaigns. Yih-Han Ma, co-founder and CEO, based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, was previously SVP and GM at Red Ventures, a digital media and technology company.

Rush says the idea for Hint came about as he grew interested in applied AI technology and how it could be put to use for the average homeowner in a more practical way. Under the hood, Hint uses commercial libraries, largely those from OpenAI, as well as Gemini for image work.

The plan is to keep Hint’s AI intelligence free, but later add a premium subscription that could introduce power user features like managing additional properties. The app today generates affiliate revenue from its partner network of service providers, which Rush says is firewalled from the AI so it’s not biased in its recommendations.

Hint (whose name combines the “H” from “home” with “intelligence”) is backed by $10 million in funding from investors, including Montauk Capital, Brian Kelly (The Points Guy), Slow Ventures, Tusk Venture Partners, Energy Impact Partners, Amplo VC, and Hannah Grey.

The iOS app is currently available for free without subscriptions or ads. “We want it to be in the hands of every homeowner in the country,” says Rush.