In early 2023, David Petro, a reputed engineer and founding member of both Google Goggles And Google Glass took a stunning step. After more than 17 years in the company, he left to launch his startup.
“I was seeing how fast the technology was changing, and I thought there are some ideas that were best discovered in the context of a startup,” Petro told Techcrunch.
Their final view was to build ContinueA consumer-consumer company that uses AI agents to enhance cooperation and interaction in group chats on SMS, IMessage and Discord.
“The simple way to think about it is that we are bringing LLM power into group chat,” Petro said.
Contua announced on Tuesday that it had raised a $ 8 million seed round. The funding was led by GV, with additional participation from Besmer Ventures Partners and a group of fairy investors.
While developing the content, Petro saw that people would interact with chat or any other LLM, and then copy and paste what they learned in their group conversation.
“If you and I are planning a trip, or if we are trying to find out what is for dinner, or which film to watch, all these things can be allowed to participate in a group chat with us by an LLM,” Petro said.
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Contua claims that its AI agent can reduce group chat chaos by joining conversations and providing useful information only when needed.
As the group discusses projects and general plans, the content can automatically set the reminder, launch the election, add calendar invitation, or generate Google documents with a checklist and two-do lists.
If a user forgets the details from the group chat, such as the meeting time or location, they can only ask the message for personal information.
At first glance, the contua may look like a straight application of AI, but Petro says that getting LLM to participate in interaction with many humans is a complex technical problem. Since most AI models are designed for interaction between a single person and single assistant, content had to fix its technique to understand the dynamics of group chat discussions.
For example, the members of the group do not require a contua to answer everything he wrote.
“You want the agent to be social intelligence,” said Petro. He said that he had to “break the brain of LLM” to integrate AI in conversation.
Users can come to the continent when they need its help or the agent is asked to “hang” back, if it is chimping too often.
Users can start with contua by adding their phone number to a group SMS or its user name into a discord chat.
While many companies, including Meta and Startup O Umai, offer AI agents for interaction, Petro insisted that the contua group is best suited for interaction.
Eric Nordlander, a general partner of GV, said that his firm had invested in Petro, before the concept of the group AI had completely shaped the concept of Contua. “David is actually a great engineer, someone who is working with AI, because it was a hot thing.”
According to the Nordlander, the contua has many potential avenues of profitability. The agent is already assisting with event planning and trip booking, which he suggested that they may charge in future.
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