Jamix emerges with $3M pre-seed and model-agnostic AI assistant

Day by day within the yr 2024 is full of AI-related information. However Jamix, a brand new San Francisco-based enterprise AI startup based by former Instagram and Airbnb engineers, is hoping to chop by the noise by specializing in fixing a really specific, but widely-shared drawback: permitting corporations to make use of generative AI assistants with out compromising their information privateness and safety.

Jamix affords what it says is a safe, model-agnostic AI assistant designed to boost office productiveness.

Final week, it emerged from stealth with $3 million in pre-seed funding led by Audacious Ventures, with contributions from angel buyers together with Keith Peiris (CEO, Tome), Chris Prucha (Co-founder, Notion & Origin), Oleg Rogynskyy (CEO, Individuals.ai), Nate Smith (Founder, Lever), Bobby Lo (Founder, Vurb), Zac Altman (Founder, LoungeBuddy), Neha Sampat (CEO, Contentstack), Nishant Patel (Founder & CTO, Contentstack).

“Most corporations don’t actually have the sources to construct a complicated instrument like this,” stated co-founder and CEO Matt Zitzmann, in an unique video name interview with VentureBeat final week. “That’s the hole we’re striving to fill on this market, to assist corporations have their very own customized, inside model of ChatGPT or an AI assistant that protects folks’s information.”

Zitzmann and his co-founder Conglei Shi, who serves as Jamix’s Chief Know-how Officer (CTO), know the enterprise software program area nicely with resumes at a few of the largest names in tech: Zitzmann labored at Google, Instagram and its father or mother firm Meta, which acquired his former firm Kamcord. Shi labored at IBM on its Watson AI workforce and later at Airbnb.

Enhancing office productiveness whereas sustaining safety

Jamix’s philosophy is straightforward: “For AI to actually attain its full potential, it must be linked to your information, your apps, and your APIs,” Zitzmann advised VentureBeat.

He famous that whereas corporations could attempt to use AI instruments with out exposing their information with the great intention of preserving it safe and protected, this really severely limits the capabilities of AI to meaningfully enhance and develop their enterprise.

Zitzmann posed a hypothetical state of affairs about an organization hiring a human intern, however not giving them entry to any of the agency’s company data.

“That intern is just not going to be very efficient, proper?” Zitzmann requested rhetorically. “That’s successfully what AI is right now.”

As a substitute, Jamix’s strategy is to permit its AI assistant to be built-in right into a agency’s present, generally used office software program apps reminiscent of Google Workspace or Notion, and messaging apps together with Slack, and supply data again to the consumer on demand.

This enables Jamix to carry out three broad classes of duties for enterprises:

The primary is search throughout apps: as an alternative of getting the consumer toggle forwards and backwards for a chunk of data they’re on the lookout for, the Jamix search bar returns outcomes from throughout all of the totally different apps it’s linked to through API backends, be it an electronic mail software, Slack or Google Docs, permitting the consumer to see and entry that data extra rapidly and simply. Jamix refers to those because the enterprise’s “information sources.”

“For 20 years now, there’s been this concept of enterprise search, the place you might have on search bar that’s like Google for all of your company information,” Zitzmann defined. “This solves the ache level of ‘I do know it’s someplace, however I don’t know if it’s in my Gmail, Slack, or a Google Doc.’”

The second is “chat with apps and information,” based on Zitzmann. This takes the frequent early generative AI use case of importing a PDF and with the ability to interact in a dialog with an AI instrument reminiscent of ChatGPT to floor particular data or summarize it, however expands it to all of the paperwork that an organization desires its staff to have the ability to entry.

For instance, Zitzmann stated customers can ask its AI assistant hooked as much as a recruiting software “what number of candidates do we now have within the engineer pipeline, what number of affords have we made, what number of have been declined?” and obtain the solutions with out having to go hunt by the app itself to search out them.

Lastly, in arguably essentially the most bold a part of the providing, Jamix is permitting its AI assistant to “provoke actions” on the consumer’s behalf inside their office apps, basically appearing as an AI agent to file bug experiences or consider incoming resumes to a selected job itemizing primarily based on how nicely they match the job itemizing standards. One other operate is summarizing data from URLs.

All of those features intention to save lots of time and cut back the handbook effort required in each day duties.

Dedicated to consumer privateness and safety

But, by the identical token, Jamix retains a dedication to consumer privateness by encrypting all its prospects’ information and inking agreements with AI mannequin suppliers, together with OpenAI for ChatGPT and GPT-3.5/4, to not practice on Jamix consumer information.

In so doing, Jamix’s AI assistant goals to deal with key considerations surrounding information safety within the integration of AI into office operations.

“The contractual settlement we now have with these [AI model] suppliers is that they’re not allowed to coach on that [customer] information,” Zitzmann stated.

For patrons who’re nonetheless extra involved with closed mannequin suppliers, Zitzmann famous that Jamix works with open supply AI fashions as nicely, permitting its enterprise prospects to run the AI assistant on their very own personal clouds or on premises.

Jamix’s dedication to mannequin agnosticism permits it to adapt to the fast-paced evolution of AI know-how. This technique permits companies to leverage the best and cost-efficient AI fashions with out being constrained to a single supplier, facilitating simple adaptation to new applied sciences.

Notable backers

The $3M pre-seed funding, led by Audacious Ventures with participation from a number of notable angel buyers, signifies sturdy business assist for Jamix’s strategy to AI within the office.

Zitzmann, Co-founder and CEO, emphasised the importance of launching a product designed to combine deeply into firm operations whereas safeguarding information privateness and providing flexibility in AI mannequin utilization.

Nakul Mandan, Founder and Companion of Audacious Ventures, shared his assist for Jamix’s mission to supply AI assistants that cater to the precise wants of enterprises whereas prioritizing information safety and consumer permissions.

“We think about a future the place each data employee on this planet could have AI assistants at their disposal, however these should be constructed with enterprise wants in thoughts,” Mandan stated in a press release supplied to VentureBeat. “Jamix’s AI assistant helps customers search and work together with the data of their organizations and, moreover, automates duties for them. They accomplish all of this whereas preserving information safety and permissions in thoughts.”

With its current funding and product launch, Jamix goals to supply a brand new resolution within the AI assistant marketplace for corporations trying to improve productiveness whereas sustaining strict information safety requirements. The platform’s deep integration with office instruments and its model-agnostic strategy spotlight Jamix’s dedication to offering versatile and safe AI options for companies.