This $4.4B AI Startup, Backed by Jeff Bezos, Focuses on Human Workers

While much of the AI sector focuses on replacing human labor, one new startup is centering its technology on people instead. Enter Humans&, a freshly launched AI lab that is already turning heads and wallets across Silicon Valley.

The San Francisco–based company has raised a staggering $480 million in seed funding, instantly valuing the startup at approximately $4.48 billion before a public product has even emerged. Backers include some of the most influential names in tech and venture capital, including Nvidia, Google Ventures, Jeff Bezos, SV Angel, and Emerson Collective.

Meeting the team

Founded by five AI experts, the team behind Humans& is already well-positioned to achieve its goals. The startup’s founders include:

• Andi Peng: Formerly a researcher with Anthropic, Andi played a vital role in the training of the Claude AI platform
• Georges Harik: Recognized as the seventh employee of Google, Georges played a key role in building the tech giant’s original advertising systems
• Eric Zelikman: A former xAI researcher who participated in the ongoing development of Grok
• Yuchen He: Another former xAI researcher who also participated in the ongoing development of Grok
• Noah Goodman: A psychology and computer science professor at Stanford University

According to Humans&, their team currently consists of more than 20 employees altogether. Other teammates include professionals from Meta, OpenAI, MIT, Reflection, and AI2. Some of the more prolific names include Alexis Ross, Charlie George, Jeremy Berman, Ray Ramadorai, Taylor Sorensen, Varuna Jayasiri, and Ziang Li.

The Humans& team has already released AI models and other products that have been used by billions of people to date. If their new AI lab is successful, there’s no telling how many more people they could reach within the next few years.

What makes Humans& unique?

Apart from their human-centric approach, the leaders at Humans& want to create an AI model that is more interactive than current AI systems.

Instead of creating an external chatbot that can be accessed as needed, the team at Humans& wants to build a chatbot that blends seamlessly into the average smartphone or PC user’s daily experience. This can be achieved in a variety of ways, such as automatically integrating their AI platform into text messages sent between friends, family, and colleagues.

We’ll likely receive more details about their upcoming projects within the coming months.

Will the human-centric approach work?

It will be interesting to see what comes out of Humans&’s new AI lab.

While their human-centric approach is certainly a novel idea, it’s tough to visualize how it might differ from current AI offerings until we see a functional product. In the meantime, we look forward to seeing exactly how Humans& will reinvent AI as we know it.

Also read: The AI employment paradox is creating millions of new roles while accelerating displacement in others.

The post This $4.4B AI Startup, Backed by Jeff Bezos, Focuses on Human Workers appeared first on eWEEK.