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

Daily within the yr 2024 is crammed with 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 way of the noise by specializing in fixing a really specific, but widely-shared downside: permitting firms 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 traders 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 firms don’t actually have the sources to construct a complicated device 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 firms have their very own customized, inside model of ChatGPT or an AI assistant that protects individuals’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 properly 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 staff 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 firms might attempt to use AI instruments with out exposing their information with the great intention of conserving it safe and secure, this truly severely limits the capabilities of AI to meaningfully enhance and develop their enterprise.

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

“That intern isn’t going to be very efficient, proper?” Zitzmann requested rhetorically. “That’s successfully what AI is in the present day.”

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 info again to the person 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 person toggle forwards and backwards for a chunk of knowledge 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 e mail utility, Slack or Google Docs, permitting the person to see and entry that info extra shortly 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 will 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,” in line with Zitzmann. This takes the widespread early generative AI use case of importing a PDF and with the ability to have interaction in a dialog with an AI device reminiscent of ChatGPT to floor particular info or summarize it, however expands it to all of the paperwork that an organization needs its workers to have the ability to entry.

For example, Zitzmann stated customers can ask its AI assistant hooked as much as a recruiting utility “what number of candidates do we have now 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 way of the app itself to search out them.

Lastly, in arguably essentially the most formidable a part of the providing, Jamix is permitting its AI assistant to “provoke actions” on the person’s behalf inside their office apps, basically appearing as an AI agent to file bug studies or consider incoming resumes to a specific job itemizing primarily based on how properly they match the job itemizing standards. One other perform is summarizing info from URLs.

All of those capabilities purpose to save lots of time and cut back the handbook effort required in every day duties.

Dedicated to person privateness and safety

But, by the identical token, Jamix retains a dedication to person 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 prepare on Jamix person 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 have now 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 properly, permitting its enterprise prospects to run the AI assistant on their very own non-public 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 allows companies to leverage the simplest and cost-efficient AI fashions with out being constrained to a single supplier, facilitating straightforward adaptation to new applied sciences.

Notable backers

The $3M pre-seed funding, led by Audacious Ventures with participation from a number of notable angel traders, signifies robust trade 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 Associate of Audacious Ventures, shared his assist for Jamix’s mission to offer AI assistants that cater to the precise wants of enterprises whereas prioritizing information safety and person permissions.

“We think about a future the place each data employee on the planet can have AI assistants at their disposal, however these must be constructed with enterprise wants in thoughts,” Mandan stated in an announcement 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 conserving information safety and permissions in thoughts.”

With its current funding and product launch, Jamix goals to supply a brand new answer within the AI assistant marketplace for firms 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.