Writing a thank you note may be one of the jobs that many people are willing to pass on to AI and robots.
After all, they are already.
The company deploys Handwrytten to help customers whip up notes and writes using an army of robotic scribes holding ballpoint pens.
“A huge number, most of them, will never have the idea that it is written by a machine,” David Wax, founder and CEO of Tempe, Arizona, told Business Insider.
After all, we are in the moment when tech boosters say our digital counterparts will quickly free us from work, clean our to-do list and delve deeper into our personal lives.
Using technology to recreate the intimacy of handwritten notes also raises questions about credibility, etiquette, and breaking through the everyday onslaught of email, DM, and texting.
“Everyone gets so much electronic communication, and it really stands out as old fashioned communication,” Wax said.
He founded Handwrytten in 2014 after leaving the text messaging startup that he started 10 years ago. He had left the company and wanted an easy way to send handwritten goodbye notes he had been drafting for his employees and key clients, as he carried more weight than digital messages.
Avoid the “creepy valley”
To make the letters less visible, Wachs said the robots change the shape of the letters, the spacing of the lines, the left margin, and the strokes connecting the letters.
Handwrytten tries to make the letter look good, but it's not too perfect. Courtesy Handwrytten
“We do all this and try to create the most accurate human writing without falling into that creepy valley,” Wachs said.
It uses a robot that can write in almost three dozen styles of penmanship. Some of them have alliance names like the enthusiastic Erin and Slanti Steve.
While most of Handwrytten's customers are businesses, about 20% to 30% are individual consumers, Wachs said. Clients include businesses that want to engage with customers, recruiters who want to ease executive prospects, and nonprofits who want to stay close to donors. Sales increased by about 30% in 2024, Wax said.
In recent years, the company has given users the option to write all or part of the message to AI.
Related Stories
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
Business Insider tells the innovative stories you want to know
“Our slogan has always been “Your words in pen and ink,” but now half the time is chatting, not your words,” he said.
David Wachs is the founder and CEO of Handwrytten. Courtesy Handwrytten
The key is that the resulting notes look real to the recipient. He said many people assume that custom digital messages, such as emails and text, are written in AI, but that discounts their effectiveness, Wachs said.
Is that important?
As a tactile throwback, letters written by the robot are realistic enough for many Handwrytten customers, Wachs said.
The letter's intention, intended to look like a handwritten note, may be authentic, but Lizzie Post, great grandson of the Protocol Maven Emily Post and co-author of the book “Business Etiquette of Emily Post,” told BI that she believes something is lost using robots.
Posts say that it is special that someone actually writes by hand is special, not because it shows an effort on the part of the sender, but because a person's criminal position, even if it is incomplete, is inherent and instantaneous.
“It makes that handwritten version more valuable and surprisingly special,” Post said.
Wachs said that when he says that part of writing a letter to critics is showing that someone took the time to do it, critics have a point. But he said many people were simply too busy.
“In many cases, the choice is not a manual note or an actual handwritten note. The choice is either a manual note or nothing,” he said.
With business relying on 55 workers and 185 robots, Wachs said the results were compelling enough to help job seekers, business owners, marketers and others distinguish themselves.
“My wife receives notes from friends who use our services,” Wachs said. “And she said, 'Wow, they have beautiful handwriting.'
