Turner and Pasternak aren't just your average teens with an idea. You didn't meet people you had a lot of in common with." "We didn't want to create anything like that. "Chatroulette wasn't a very inspiring place," said Turner. Soon after, Pasternak was calling Turner with the idea for Monkey, a way to create a community of teens where they could meet people or find others with shared interests. They finally met in person at Apple's app developer conference, WWDC, in 2015. The two met years ago as most kids these days do: on the Internet. Monkey is the brainchild of Turner and co-founder Ben Pasternak. (Monkey says that the average age of its users is only 17.) The average user is 23, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower, and it's pretty evenly split between female and male users - 48 to 52 percent. Currently, it's the ninth most popular app among that age group. According to App Annie, Monkey was the number-one app downloaded by 13-to-24 year-olds in April, and has remained in the top 10 ever since. It's particularly popular among teens and young adults. (Monkey claims its actual usage is much higher, in the millions.) Monkey has been downloaded almost three million times since it launched in November 2016, according to mobile app analytics company App Annie, and averaged 300,000 monthly active users during Q2 of 2017. Topics you can chat about on Monkey It started with a couple of teen hackers Monkey is taking this seriously and being proactive to solve it." In the version of Monkey that will launch with iOS11, the machine learning will kick in before the user is even reported. The activity is monitored and then if the inappropriate content is confirmed, the user is banned. "To clarify, however, the machine learning and human monitoring kicks in when a user is reported. "I'm sorry that you experienced explicit content," Turner said. Among the 25 users CNBC chatted with, one was engaging in a sexually explicit act while another was showing off his genitals. Turner and his team developed artificial intelligence technology that would help detect inappropriate content, along with tools to allow users to report it.īut a brief time on the app revealed the same issues that brought down Chatroulette after a brief period of massive popularity in 2010. The app was meant to be an updated version of random video-chat site Chatroulette for today's teens, but without the sexually explicit content. That may be one reason why the app has taken off among the younger set: In April, it was the top iOS app downloaded, according to analytics firm App Annie. "I think people, adults especially, there's a real disconnect realizing Internet friends are just as important to teens as real world friends," Monkey co-founder Isaiah Turner said.