At the beginning of 2023, David Petrou, a distinguished engineer and founding member of both Google Goggles And Google Glass made a stunning move. After more than 17 years in the company, he left to start his own start.
“I see how quickly technology changed and I felt there were some ideas that are best explored in the context of a start,” Petrou told TechCrunch.
His final idea was to build ContinuityA company that sees consumers using AI agents to enhance cooperation and interaction in group talks in SMS, IMessage and Discord.
“The simple way to think is that we bring the power of LLMS to group talks,” Petrou said.
Continua announced on Tuesday that it has garnered a round of $ 8 million. The funding was led by GV, with additional participation by Bessemer Ventures partners and a group of angel investors.
During the development of Continua, Petrou noticed that people would interact with chatgpt or other LLM and then copy and paste what they have learned in their group conversation.
“If you and I are planning a trip or if we try to understand what to have for dinner or what movie we will watch, all these things can be facilitated by a LLM involved in a group conversation with us,” Petrou said.
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Continua claims that AI agents can reduce the chaos of the group conversation by participating in conversations and providing useful information only when needed.
As the team discusses projects and joint plans, Continua can automatically set reminders, start polls, add calendar invitations, or create Google documents with control lists and lists of liability.
If a user forgets details of group conversation, such as time or location, they can simply direct the message to constantly request the information privately.
At first glance, Continua may seem like a simple AI application, but Petrou says that taking LLMS to participate in a conversation with many people is a fairly complex technical problem. Since most AI models are designed for conversations between a person and an assistant, Continua had to refine LLMS to understand the dynamics of group conversations.
For example, team members do not need to continue to respond to what they write.
“You want the agent to have social intelligence,” Petrou said. He added that they had to “break the LLM brain” to naturally integrate the AI into talks.
Users can rely on Continua when they need their help or inform the agent to “hang back” if they are too often.
Users can start with Continua by adding their phone number to an SMS group or username in a discord conversation.
While several companies, including META and Hey Umai start, offer AI talks for talks, Petrou insists that Continua is more suitable for group interactions.
Erik Nordlander, a GV associate, said his company had invested in Petrou even before the concept of the Continua Chat AI team had been fully acquired. “David is a truly brilliant engineer, someone who has been working with AI since it was the hot thing.”
According to Nordlander, Continua has several possible routes to profitability. The agent is already helping with events planning and traveling booking, which he suggested that they could charge in the future.
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