For two straight quarters, deal activity in artificial intelligence has hit record highs. Dennis Mortensen is one of the biggest winners in all the craze.
His startup x.ai is the creator of Amy Ingram, an AI-driven personal assistant that can schedule meetings for you. After testing Amy in beta for two years, Mortensen announced last week $23 million in Series B funding to bring Amy to market. In an interview, I chatted with Mortensen about the differences between Amy and Siri, the fundraising market right now and the future of AI.
Edited excerpts:
Caroline Fairchild: Why all the AI hype right now?
Dennis Mortensen: AI used to be for academia only and decades-long research. We thought one day we might wake up and have this oracle or human-level AI which we could converse with. We have realized this might not happen, but we might be able to create these specialized or "verticalized" AI tools where we can build AI to do one thing really well. It could be Amy scheduling a meeting or Facebook finding all your friends in your image. That wasn’t the fact half a decade ago. We realized we could turn those little jobs into potentially big companies and now everyone is working on their little aspect of that.
CF: How do x.ai’s offerings stand out?
DM: There is a distinction between asking Siri what the time is in Singapore and Amy setting up a meeting for me tomorrow afternoon. Amy needs to understand what you asked her to do, what the constraints are, who the people are that are involved with the task and what her next step is. That is not to say we are better or smarter than the tech at Siri, but I like the idea that we have the piece of software where you are not being assisted. I like this shift from doing something a little faster or more accurately to handing over the full job and walking away. That is our bet. That is where we are slightly different than some of the other players.
CF: Given the slowdown in VC funding overall, it’s an interesting time to be in a hot market. What did the funding process feel like on the ground?
DM: It’s always difficult to raise money unless you are Snapchat or Instagram. It is hard work. They have these wonderful websites and conferences where investors tell people how their goal in life is to invest in the future. But once you sit in the room and ask for $25 million, it is not about bold ideas; it is about spreadsheets. They want their money back. It is getting even harder because for these initial machine-learning startups, the amount of effort you need to apply is a little bit more than your traditional startup. It is not a weekend hackathon. It is not three months in Palo Alto with Paul Graham. It is a year-long endeavor and you have to accept that as an investor. Our lead investor has 150 PhDs on staff, so they appreciate what we do and they are not confused with the direction we are taking here.
CF: Do you feel like it was more challenging raising from the East Coast?
DM: If you look at what we do, the ambitions that we have and the amount of money raised, all those variables are West Coast variables. We should have been a Palo Alto-type company, but we are not. We raised capital in our A round and B round above the West Coast average. Most of our investors are from the East Coast. That is a signal of times changing a little bit in the regard that if you want to do something this big, you don't have to go West. People think there is no other way than heading West. We have been able to set up, attract and grow the company on Wall Street.
CF: What is the state of artificial intelligence right now?
DM: The current state is one where I am personally optimistic and I think that the velocity of that optimism is increasing.
CF: What will the state of artificial intelligence be in five years?
DM: We will see a rather dramatic shift in how software is delivered because of AI. If you right now take a screenshot on your iPhone, my guess is that you have 100 apps. That count will be less in five years, maybe even half. Instead you will have a set of intelligent agents that assist you in all these jobs that you have. Friction will be reduced with what people are calling conversation AI or chat bots. This whole app economy that we know right now has hit a peak.
Featured In Entrepreneurship, Technology, VC & Private Equity
Source : Pulse Chanell
His startup x.ai is the creator of Amy Ingram, an AI-driven personal assistant that can schedule meetings for you. After testing Amy in beta for two years, Mortensen announced last week $23 million in Series B funding to bring Amy to market. In an interview, I chatted with Mortensen about the differences between Amy and Siri, the fundraising market right now and the future of AI.
Edited excerpts:
Caroline Fairchild: Why all the AI hype right now?
Dennis Mortensen: AI used to be for academia only and decades-long research. We thought one day we might wake up and have this oracle or human-level AI which we could converse with. We have realized this might not happen, but we might be able to create these specialized or "verticalized" AI tools where we can build AI to do one thing really well. It could be Amy scheduling a meeting or Facebook finding all your friends in your image. That wasn’t the fact half a decade ago. We realized we could turn those little jobs into potentially big companies and now everyone is working on their little aspect of that.
CF: How do x.ai’s offerings stand out?
DM: There is a distinction between asking Siri what the time is in Singapore and Amy setting up a meeting for me tomorrow afternoon. Amy needs to understand what you asked her to do, what the constraints are, who the people are that are involved with the task and what her next step is. That is not to say we are better or smarter than the tech at Siri, but I like the idea that we have the piece of software where you are not being assisted. I like this shift from doing something a little faster or more accurately to handing over the full job and walking away. That is our bet. That is where we are slightly different than some of the other players.
CF: Given the slowdown in VC funding overall, it’s an interesting time to be in a hot market. What did the funding process feel like on the ground?
DM: It’s always difficult to raise money unless you are Snapchat or Instagram. It is hard work. They have these wonderful websites and conferences where investors tell people how their goal in life is to invest in the future. But once you sit in the room and ask for $25 million, it is not about bold ideas; it is about spreadsheets. They want their money back. It is getting even harder because for these initial machine-learning startups, the amount of effort you need to apply is a little bit more than your traditional startup. It is not a weekend hackathon. It is not three months in Palo Alto with Paul Graham. It is a year-long endeavor and you have to accept that as an investor. Our lead investor has 150 PhDs on staff, so they appreciate what we do and they are not confused with the direction we are taking here.
CF: Do you feel like it was more challenging raising from the East Coast?
DM: If you look at what we do, the ambitions that we have and the amount of money raised, all those variables are West Coast variables. We should have been a Palo Alto-type company, but we are not. We raised capital in our A round and B round above the West Coast average. Most of our investors are from the East Coast. That is a signal of times changing a little bit in the regard that if you want to do something this big, you don't have to go West. People think there is no other way than heading West. We have been able to set up, attract and grow the company on Wall Street.
CF: What is the state of artificial intelligence right now?
DM: The current state is one where I am personally optimistic and I think that the velocity of that optimism is increasing.
CF: What will the state of artificial intelligence be in five years?
DM: We will see a rather dramatic shift in how software is delivered because of AI. If you right now take a screenshot on your iPhone, my guess is that you have 100 apps. That count will be less in five years, maybe even half. Instead you will have a set of intelligent agents that assist you in all these jobs that you have. Friction will be reduced with what people are calling conversation AI or chat bots. This whole app economy that we know right now has hit a peak.
Featured In Entrepreneurship, Technology, VC & Private Equity
Source : Pulse Chanell
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