'Non-techy' Lexington mom builds AI app for other busy moms

LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — A Lexington mom - with zero tech background - is now the founder of an artificial intelligence app she created after her two young boys' bedtime.

Kasandra Botkin says her curiosity surrounding AI led her to develop Kin: AI Assistance for Moms.

"Let's see what it comes up with," Botkin said as she showed us how the app works in her kitchen.

She snapped a photo of the inside of her fridge so Kin can help decide what's for dinner.

"So it's telling us what it sees," she said. "You can make taco salad bowls, cheesy scrambled eggs, quick smoothie, and leftover remix. Dig into the takeout boxes for a real meal instead of letting them go to waste. OK, that's fair."

Botkin used the AI assistant Claude to "vibe code" the app after her sons went to bed. A full-time pharmacist, she describes herself as "non-techy."

"It's been a huge learning curve because I mean, I struggle with Excel, and like PowerPoint, like I have no tech background at all," she said. "So the fact that I've been able to do this is pretty insane."

Botkin officially launched the app earlier this year. Since then she's added prompts that can help parents with a wide variety of tasks, from planning holidays to creating budgets and even figuring out their best makeup shades.

"Everything that I want AI to do, I've kind of put into it," she told LEX News.

Botkin says she understands why people are skeptical of AI; with Kin, she considered her own security concerns.

"Part of the reason I built Kin too was it has its own secure backend," she said. "It's not using my data or anyone else's data to train AI models."

And Botkin says she's now harnessing some of that unease to help other moms understand how AI can take tasks off their plate. Since its launch on the Apple App store and Google play, the app has been downloaded around 300 times.

And it's racking up awards. Kin won Crowd Favorite at Awesome Inc's Five Across pitch night in October and another award at a regional pitch competition in Tennessee.

For Botkin, it's exciting to see her idea come to life, with some AI assistance.

"It's just been like really fun that one, it's helping me and then it's also now helping other moms too," she said.

Botkin is also headed to New York in just a few days. She's a finalist for a Stevie Award for Women in Business, in the AI Rising Star of the Year category.