Describe your goal
Tell PET what you want to work on, in plain language, and pick an art style. Any self-directed goal works — there is no fixed list of categories.
How It Works
PET turns a goal you describe in your own words into a companion generated for that goal, then keeps you company while you pursue it.
Meet your generated pet
Generation agents build a persona, a plan of concrete actions, and a one-of-a-kind animated companion from your goal and style choice.
Care for it daily
The CareTaker agent chats with you, logs what you did, and turns your progress into your pet’s health, experience, and level.
Motivation
PET studies how an AI pet can help people set meaningful goals, stay motivated, and turn intentions into sustainable actions.
Addressing App Abandonment
How can digital systems prevent users from quickly abandoning self-directed goal trackers after initial setup?
Overcoming Single-Domain Constraints
How can generative AI convert open-ended, user-defined goals into personalized virtual pets rather than relying on fixed, single-domain characters?
Companion Attachment and Identification
How does generating a companion directly from a user’s self-described goals shape their emotional attachment, sense of ownership, and companion identity?
Research Questions
PET investigates how a personalized AI companion affects goal pursuit, daily engagement, and users’ relationships with their pets.
Goal-Pursuit Outcomes
What are the effects of a personalized virtual pet, combined with an AI-supported goal-planning system, on self-directed goal pursuit?
Companion Experience
What are participants’ experiences with the pet as an AI-generated personal companion during goal support?
Sustained Daily Engagement
How does PET’s care-loop mechanic sustain daily engagement beyond initial conversational novelty?
Identification, Ownership & Attachment
How does generative personalization shape users’ identification with, ownership of, and attachment to their companion?
Publications
Research papers, posters, demonstrations, and project reports related to PET.
Sun, Q. & Hsiao, I. H. (2026, Sept). Hyper-Personalized Virtual Companion: Generative Tamagotchi to Cultivate Personal Goals. In Proceedings of the 37th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (pp. 46–50)
DOI Best Paper Nominee
Sun, Q., Chien, S-Y. & Hsiao, I. H. (2026, Nov). PET: A Personalized gEnerative Tamagotchi-Style Companion for Self-Directed Goal Support. In Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Human Agent Interaction
DOI Forthcoming
Sun, Q., Chien, S-Y., Chung, CF. & Hsiao, I. H. (2027, Jan). A Pet for Every Goal: Personalized gEnerative Tamagotchi-Style Companions for Self-Directed Goal Support. In Proceedings of the 60th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2027
Forthcoming
What’s Next
Research Directions
- Expanded social interaction: Introduce shared spaces, such as a virtual park, where users can “walk” their PETs, discover goals, meet other users, and showcase their personalized companions.
- Post-goal companion lifecycle: Create meaningful experiences after a user completes a goal, such as holding a commemorative farewell ceremony or allowing the PET to evolve into a ghost-like form inspired by Obaketchi.
- Immersive PET: Imagine your AI companion is not just a companion, but also your travel guide, your workout buddy and so much more…so they go wherever you go in the immersive setting.
About
Personalized gEnerative Tamagotchi (PET) project builds novel multi-agentic AI architecture to create personalized AI pets designed to support users to pursue any of their self-directed goals. PET explores how personalization, companionship, and generative AI can make behavior interventions more engaging and supportive.
This website documents the motivation, research questions, development process, and outcomes of the project.
Team
Qiming Sun
Lead Developer & Researcher
PhD Candidate
Santa Clara University
Currently on the job market
Toby Chen
Undergraduate Research Assistant
Santa Clara University
Dr. Sharon Hsiao
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor
Santa Clara University
ihsiao (at) scu (dot) edu
Collaborators
Dr. Shih-Yi Chien
Associate Professor
National Chengchi University (NCCU)
Dr. Christina Chung
Associate Professor
University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)