New Digital Family Calendar App Jam Takes Aim at the Mental Load
Los Angeles, Feb. 29, 2024
Jam, an AI-enabled all-in-one shared family calendar and organization app, makes its debut today, offering a solution aimed at alleviating the mental load burden faced by busy families. Available on iOS, Android, and web platforms, Jam seeks to streamline household logistics, particularly for female partners who often bear the brunt of organizational responsibilities.
Veteran product director Amanda Roessler and Jessica Koosed Etting, a seasoned writer and marketer, teamed up to create Jam after feeling the pain point of the mental load themselves as working mothers.
"89% of working mothers say they carry the majority of the mental load in their households, and this work costs parents over 150 billion hours of precious time every year,"
says Koosed Etting, CEO and co-founder of Jam. "We knew there had to be a better way and wanted to use the advances with OpenSource AI to harness a solution that created visibility and shared responsibility among the family, while also adding key automated efficiencies to make the process seamless."
Jam's proprietary calendar system is specifically engineered to work with family structures, and provides proactive AI suggestions to families about upcoming events, such as reminding them of what to bring or what may need to get done ahead of time. In addition, the "Jam On It" feature allows users to forward emails they receive to Jam and have all the relevant events auto-populate on the calendar within seconds.
Children in the family, especially teens, can play an active role with Jam, as well. "Our goal was to create the best family calendar app so that everyone in the house could use it, including kids," says Roessler, co-founder and COO. "When the entire family has access to the calendar, everyone knows where they are going and what their responsibilities are each day. By offering family-friendly permissions that range for kids' ages as well as caretakers, we're able to create an inclusive system that works for many types of families."
In addition to the shared family calendar system, Jam offers integrated To-Do and Shopping lists, providing families with a comprehensive toolset for household management that can be delegated across family members.
"We are excited to introduce Jam into the world today as a first step toward alleviating the mental load for families everywhere," concludes Koosed Etting.