Bluesky Launches Attie AI: Custom Feeds, $100M Funding, and a CEO on Rebuilding Social Media in 2026

The key change reshaping social media in 2026 is that Bluesky has launched Attie, an AI-powered tool that allows users to design, refine, and deploy their own custom algorithmic feeds using natural language commands.

Attie, announced in September 2026, represents a deliberate departure from the opaque, engagement-maximizing algorithms that define platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Instead of a one-size-fits-all feed, Bluesky is betting that users will embrace the ability to craft their own content discovery experience — and that AI is the right interface to make that accessible to non-developers.

This article explains what Attie does, how it works under the hood, why Bluesky is betting big on user-controlled algorithms, and what the platform's latest funding and leadership changes say about its long-term ambitions.

What Is Bluesky Attie?

Bluesky Attie is a standalone AI assistant, launched in September 2026, that lets users build custom social media feeds using natural language prompts. It is built on Bluesky's AT Protocol and leverages Anthropic's Claude as its underlying AI model.

Unlike the recommendation engines on mainstream platforms, which are black boxes optimized for engagement and ad revenue, Attie is designed to be transparent and user-directed. A user might type "show me posts about indie game development that are popular with people I follow" or "give me a feed of climate science news from verified researchers," and Attie will construct a corresponding algorithmic feed.

The tool was announced via TechShots and covered in detail by Engadget, which reported that Attie will eventually allow users to "vibe-code" their own social apps — creating entirely new client experiences on top of the AT Protocol.

How Attie Works: AI Meets the AT Protocol

Attie operates as a natural language interface layered on top of Bluesky's existing infrastructure. Rather than requiring users to learn a query language or manually configure feed parameters, they describe what they want in plain English.

The AI interprets the request, translates it into feed logic, and generates a live algorithmic feed that pulls from Bluesky's public firehose. Users can then refine the feed iteratively — asking Attie to "make this more about photography" or "exclude reposts from accounts I don't follow."

According to AI News Today, Attie is powered by Anthropic's Claude, which handles the natural language understanding and feed generation logic. This is a notable partnership: it means Bluesky is not building its own foundation model but rather integrating a best-in-class external AI.

The xix.ai coverage notes that Jay Graber, who served as Bluesky's CEO through its early years, has transitioned to the role of Chief Innovation Officer to lead the Attie initiative. Graber has been a vocal proponent of decentralizing social media algorithms, and Attie is her most concrete product expression of that philosophy.

Why Custom Feeds Matter: The MySky Example

Bluesky's push toward user-controlled feeds is not happening in a vacuum. A separate project called MySky, built on top of Bluesky, is already demonstrating the appetite for alternative recommendation systems.

As reported by Tech & Social Cohesion, MySky allows users to adjust a "constructiveness score" that influences which posts appear in their feed. The score identifies content that promotes reasoning, curiosity, and respectful discourse — effectively allowing a user to dial down toxicity and dial up substantive conversation.

MySky's transparent and adjustable recommendation system is a direct contrast to the engagement-driven feeds of mainstream platforms. Early research suggests that such "constructive" feeds can reduce affective polarization — the tendency to view out-group members negatively — by exposing users to more reasoned, less inflammatory content. Bluesky's Attie, by giving users even broader control over feed parameters, generalizes this concept to any kind of content preference.

$100 Million Funding and Leadership Changes

Attie's launch is accompanied by significant financial and leadership developments at Bluesky. The company announced $100 million in new funding, signaling long-term stability and ambition.

Metric	Detail
Funding round	$100 million (September 2026)
Product launch	Attie AI assistant for custom feeds
New CEO	Toni Schneider (appointed July 2026)
New role	Jay Graber → Chief Innovation Officer (leading Attie)
Key technology	AT Protocol + Anthropic Claude

Toni Schneider was named Bluesky's permanent CEO in July 2026, as announced in a Bluesky blog post. Schneider, a veteran technology executive, brings experience scaling platforms through periods of rapid growth and product evolution.

The funding and leadership restructuring position Bluesky to invest aggressively in Attie and related products. The company has stated that addressing monetization and privacy challenges will be a priority, though it has not detailed specific plans beyond the custom-feed product.

Can Social Media Start Over? Bluesky's Vision

Bluesky's leadership has been making the case that social media can and should be rebuilt from first principles — and that open protocols are the way to do it.

Toni Schneider and COO Rose Wang are set to present this vision at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in August 2026. Their thesis is straightforward: the centralized, ad-driven model of social media has created perverse incentives — engagement at any cost, opaque algorithms, data exploitation, and polarization. By decoupling the protocol from the application, Bluesky aims to create an ecosystem where users can choose not just which content to consume, but which algorithm curates it.

The vision extends beyond feeds. Attie's eventual ability to let users "vibe-code" their own social apps — creating entirely new client experiences on the AT Protocol — would transform Bluesky from a single social network into a platform for building social networks. This is a radical departure from the Facebook/Instagram/TikTok model, where the platform owns both the protocol and the application.

Decentralized Protocols in Context: Bluesky vs. the Fediverse vs. Nostr

Bluesky is not the only project building decentralized social infrastructure. Mastodon (based on the ActivityPub protocol, collectively called the Fediverse) and Nostr (a simpler, crypto-native protocol) are also competing for the same vision.

A comprehensive comparison published by Soapbox breaks down the trade-offs:

Dimension	Bluesky / AT Protocol	Fediverse (ActivityPub)	Nostr
Protocol design	Centralized relay network with portability	Federated (many independent servers)	Simple relay-based, crypto-signed
User identity	Handle-based, domain-portable	Server-dependent (user@server)	Cryptographic key pairs
Algorithm control	User-selectable feeds (Attie expands this)	Server-admin-controlled, some client-side filters	Client-defined, fully user-controlled
Moderation	Centralized (Bluesky) + server-level	Server-level (instance admins)	Relay-level filtering
Maturity	Growing rapidly, ~20M users as of mid-2026	Mature, ~1.8M users	Niche, but developer-friendly

Each approach has strengths. ActivityPub is battle-tested and powers Mastodon, which has a strong community ethos. Nostr offers maximal user control via cryptographic signatures. Bluesky's AT Protocol, with Attie, is betting that transparency and user-facing AI will be the killer features that attract mainstream users.

Practical Implications for Users and Marketers

For everyday users, Attie means they can finally escape the algorithmic filter bubbles that define platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Instead of being shown what an opaque AI — optimized for time-on-site — decides they should see, they can explicitly define their preferences.

For content creators and marketers, the implications are equally significant. If users begin curating their own feeds, the logic of "beating the algorithm" changes. Instead of optimizing for engagement signals that a platform's black-box AI favors, creators may need to optimize for inclusion in user-constructed feeds. This shifts the focus back to content quality and relevance, as measured by explicit user preference rather than proxy metrics.

For brands, Attie introduces a new challenge: how do you ensure your content appears in custom feeds that users define? The answer may involve creating better, more specialized content rather than relying on paid distribution. Bluesky has not announced advertising products for Attie, and its funding round suggests it may explore alternative monetization models.

Privacy and the AT Protocol

Any platform that offers AI-powered feed customization must also address privacy. Bluesky has been working on formalizing how private data works within the AT Protocol.

The AT Protocol Permissioned Data Proposal, currently in draft form, outlines a system where users can grant granular permission for different applications to access different types of data. This is particularly relevant for Attie: if a user builds a feed that draws on their follows, likes, and reposts, that data should not be automatically available to every other application on the protocol.

The proposal is still being debated within the Bluesky developer community, as seen in the pull request on GitHub. The outcome will shape how Attie handles user data and how much control users retain over their information.

Community Experiments: From Wikipedia Bots to Vinyl Records

Bluesky has also become a platform for creative community-built tools. A popular example is the HN Wiki bot, a Bluesky bot that shares Wikipedia links from the Hacker News front page. Such bots demonstrate the flexibility of the AT Protocol for lightweight, single-purpose social experiences.

Other experiments include ATRadio.fm, a social internet radio platform built entirely on Bluesky's AT Protocol, and Wax Spinner, a "now playing" social app for vinyl record collectors. These projects show that Bluesky's ecosystem is evolving beyond a simple Twitter replacement into a platform for niche, interest-based social experiences.

The Touchgrass project, meanwhile, bills itself as a "non-addictive social network" that is compatible with both the Fediverse and Bluesky, highlighting a growing demand for social media experiences that prioritize well-being over engagement.

The Competitive Landscape: Is Bluesky Still a 'Twitter Rival'?

Bluesky was originally launched as a Twitter rival, but its trajectory in 2026 suggests a broader ambition. A CNBC report from June 2026 noted that while Bluesky is less popular than X (formerly Twitter), it has carved out a distinct identity around user control and transparent algorithms.

That identity is now being supercharged by Attie. If Bluesky succeeds in making custom algorithmic feeds mainstream, it will have created something that no major social platform currently offers: a genuinely user-controlled recommendation system. That could be the differentiation that allows it to grow beyond its current user base.

However, the path is not without challenges. Building a custom feed requires effort from the user, which may limit adoption to power users and early adopters. The success of Attie will depend on whether Bluesky can make the process so simple and rewarding that mainstream users are willing to invest the time.

Summary

Bluesky's launch of Attie, backed by $100 million in funding and new CEO Toni Schneider, represents the most ambitious attempt yet to give social media users control over their own algorithmic feeds. Powered by Anthropic's Claude and built on the AT Protocol, Attie lets anyone create a custom content discovery experience using natural language. Combined with projects like MySky's constructive feed, this signals a broader shift away from opaque, engagement-maximizing algorithms toward transparent, user-directed recommendation systems.