Over the past year, the Internet has been buzzing with news about machine learning and artificial intelligence; terms such as OpenAI, ChatGPT, deepfake, AI-generated art, and more have become popular topics and new additions to all of our vocabularies.

Technology is changing and evolving over time. While there are certainly risks, there are also exciting opportunities to explore.

A few months back, we decided that it was time for us to dig into how we could use AI to help support and benefit our users. How feasible was it for us to build our very own artificial Bear that could help troubleshoot common issues, answer questions about TunnelBear, or even provide bear facts on request?

Turns out, it's actually pretty feasible.

Introducing RoboCub

We're incredibly excited to introduce RoboCub, which can now be accessed on select pages on the TunnelBear website.

RoboCub is TunnelBear's very own AI chat tool meant to help you (more quickly) get answers to all of your TunnelBear questions. Consider it your personal AI assistant.

Built using OpenAI as a framework, RoboCub pulls information about TunnelBear from a database we manage ourselves. Of course, we can't predict the scope of every question folks may ask, so RoboCub will also search the Internet to help fill in knowledge gaps where appropriate.

What can RoboCub do?

  1. Share information pulled directly from our FAQs
  2. Help troubleshoot common VPN issues
  3. Fill in knowledge gaps with information from the Internet
  4. Answer questions about VPN features and technology
  5. Send links to online resources to help answer questions
  6. Share bear facts and even write bear haikus
  7. Speak in many languages (though it's still learning)

RoboCub will not...

  1. Provide opinions or recommendations on other services
  2. Rate services, apps, or tools
  3. Generate or share graphical/digital content (text only)
  4. Help you perform illegal activities
  5. Help you access inappropriate content

While RoboCub does represent TunnelBear, we've done our best to ensure that it's a Bear you can trust - the information it provides is as unbiased as possible.

Why AI?

RoboCub provides us with a unique opportunity to make it even easier for users to understand what we offer and how TunnelBear works. It has a lot of potential in helping people navigate our app, and we intend to use it to make TunnelBear even more accessible than before.

That said, there is still some uncharted territory when it comes to relying on AI, so we do recommend that users be mindful of the following:

  1. Since RoboCub will fill some knowledge gaps from the Internet, information can sometimes be inaccurate or missing context.
  2. It's difficult to train branding, tone, and emotion. It doesn't quite feel like a real Bear yet.
  3. It's not meant to be a replacement for Support. If you need assistance from a real life support Bear, please contact us directly.

TunnelBear has always had a focus on being innovative while keeping our apps as simple and easy-to-use as possible. While it's been a challenge to maintain that purpose as we grow our service; it's also been exciting to add new features that make TunnelBear a more robust, secure, and competitive VPN.

RoboCub is ready to serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the claw.

the TunnelBear Team