Redefining emotional wellness with AI; ABC programme for street dogs
With over three million app downloads on the AppStore and Google Playstore, Coto continues to be rooted in its core philosophy of being a safe space for women to be able to have conversations typically not present on social media.
Hello,
Fireflies, an AI note-taking startup, recently made headlines by announcing a $1 billion valuation, saying that 75% of Fortune 500 companies were using its services to transcribe corporate meetings.
But how did its journey start? According to Sam Udotong, one of the founders, the company initially had only two people pretending to be AI! “We told our customers there's an "AI that'll join a meeting.” In reality it was just me and my co-founder calling in to the meeting sitting there silently and taking notes by hand,” Udotong wrote in a recent LinkedIn post.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT has finally fixed its em dash problem.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X last week that ChatGPT has started following custom instructions to avoid using em dashes. “Small-but-happy win: If you tell ChatGPT not to use em-dashes in your custom instructions, it finally does what it’s supposed to do!” he wrote.
In other news, a scientist in Japan has developed a technique that uses brain scans and AI to turn a person’s mental images into accurate, descriptive sentences, CNN reports. Interestingly, the AI model generated text in English, even though the participants were not native English speakers.
In today’s newsletter, we will talk about
- Redefining emotional wellness with AI
- ABC programme for street dogs
Here’s your trivia for today: What novella was the inspiration for the film Apocalypse Now?
Startup
Redefining emotional wellness with AI
What happens when technology is designed not just to connect people but also to comfort them? That’s the idea behind Coto, an emotional wellness platform that started as a women-first community space and is now evolving into a gender-neutral hub for 24/7 expert support.
Former Zee5 CEO Tarun Katial, who founded the startup in 2021, says the pivot was a necessary step in the platform’s evolution.
Connection:
- With over three million app downloads on the AppStore and Google Playstore, Coto continues to be rooted in its core philosophy of being a safe space for women to be able to have conversations typically not present on social media.
- On the consultation side, the emotional wellness platform offers sessions across text, audio, and video with experts in multiple modalities—mental health, relationship coaching, astrology, tarot, and Reiki.
- Coto currently hosts around 300 consultants on its platform, most of whom are vetted earlier to maintain quality standards.
Insight
ABC programme for street dogs
A new study by Esya Centre, a Delhi-based policy research think tank, shows that when sterilisation and vaccination programmes are implemented well, they can reduce both dog population growth and rabies risks. The findings cut through a confusing narrative shaped by rising bite numbers, patchy municipal responses and fragmented data.
Key takeaways:
- According to the Animal Welfare Board of India’s Revised Module for Street Dog Population Management, Animal Birth Control (ABC) works only at scale, which means sterilising at least 70% of the dog population in each area.
- This must be paired with vaccination and release back into the same territory, preventing unsterilised dogs from moving in. This 70% threshold underpins national policy.
- Peer-reviewed studies and field evaluations show the benefits of well-run ABC programmes: fewer puppies, healthier dog populations, and reduced nuisance behaviour.
News & updates
- Patent dispute: The U.S. International Trade Commission decided last week to hold a new proceeding to determine whether imports of Apple's updated Apple Watches should be banned as part of a patent dispute with medical monitoring technology company Masimo.
- US tariffs: Indian agricultural exporters are among the winners from US President Donald Trump’s exemption of dozens of food items from his reciprocal tariffs regime, which some analysts say could help to revive lost demand.
What you should watch out for
- PhysicsWallah's IPO listing date is scheduled for Tuesday, November 18. The IPO, which concluded last week, received a 1.92 times overall subscription.
- The markets will closely watch the India-US trade deal negotiations as it is an important factor for the equity market. Experts expect to see some relief on the additional 25% tariff that the US imposed on India due to Russian oil imports.
What novella was the inspiration for the film Apocalypse Now?
Answer: Heart of Darkness
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