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In early 2023, David Petrou, a distinguished engineer and founding member of each Google Goggles and Google Glass, made a shocking transfer. After greater than 17 years on the firm, he departed to launch his personal startup.
“I used to be seeing how briskly know-how was altering, and I felt there are particular concepts which are finest explored within the context of a startup,” Petrou informed Trendster.
His final concept was to construct Continua, a consumer-facing firm that makes use of AI brokers to reinforce collaboration and interplay in group chats on SMS, iMessage, and Discord.
“The easy approach to consider it’s that we’re bringing the ability of LLMs to group chats,” Petrou stated.
Continua introduced on Tuesday that it has raised an $8 million seed spherical. The funding was led by GV, with further participation from Bessemer Ventures Companions and a bunch of angel traders.
When growing Continua, Petrou seen that individuals would work together with ChatGPT or one other LLM, after which would copy and paste what they discovered into their group dialog.
“When you and I are planning a visit, or if we’re attempting to determine what to have for dinner, or what film to look at, all of these items might be facilitated by an LLM taking part in a bunch chat with us,” Petrou stated.
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Continua claims its AI brokers can scale back group chat chaos by becoming a member of conversations and providing useful info solely when it’s wanted.
Because the group discusses initiatives and customary plans, Continua can mechanically set reminders, launch polls, add calendar invites, or generate Google paperwork with checklists and to-do lists.
If a person forgets particulars from the group chat, such because the assembly time or location, they’ll merely direct message Continua to privately ask for the knowledge.
At first look, Continua could seem to be a simple utility of AI, however Petrou says that getting LLMs to take part in a dialog with a number of people is a relatively complicated technical drawback. Since most AI fashions are designed for conversations between a single particular person and a single assistant, Continua needed to fine-tune LLMs to know the dynamics of group chat discussions.
As an example, group members don’t want Continua to reply to all the pieces they write.
“You need the agent to have social intelligence,” Petrou stated. He added that they needed to “break the LLM’s mind” to naturally combine the AI into conversations.
Customers can invoke Continua once they want its assist or inform the agent to “dangle again” if it’s chiming in too usually.
Customers can get began with Continua by including its telephone quantity to a bunch SMS or its username to a Discord chat.
Whereas a number of corporations, together with Meta and the startup Hey Umai, supply AI brokers for conversations, Petrou insists that Continua is most fitted for group interactions.
Erik Nordlander, a basic companion at GV, stated his agency invested in Petrou even earlier than the idea of Continua’s group chat AI had absolutely taken form. “David is a very sensible engineer, somebody who’s been working with AI since earlier than it was the new factor.”
In accordance with Nordlander, Continua has a number of potential paths to profitability. The agent is already helping with occasion planning and journey reserving, which he recommended they may cost for sooner or later.
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