OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor announced the launch of the Sierra startup, which specializes in the development of chatbots based on artificial intelligence.
The main goal of the mentioned company is to create conversational machine intelligence agents. In this case, it means digital products intended for use in a business environment.
Bret Taylor, during a conversation with media representatives, said that the new startup operates on a different layer of the artificial intelligence stack compared to OpenAI ChatGPT. This means that there is no reason to be concerned about potential competition.
The media reports that Sierra has managed to raise funding for $110 million. The number of employees of the startup is 30 people.
Sierra co-founder Clay Bavor, who previously worked at Google, said that the capabilities of the new company’s conversational artificial intelligence go beyond traditional chatbots and have the potential to revolutionize the transformation of processes in the sphere of customer service and other areas of activity.
Sierra has already established partnerships with clients such as WeightWatchers, Sonos, and Sirius XM Holdings.
BretTaylor was co-CEO of Salesforce and was appointed chairman of the board of OpenAI as the company sought stability after the resignation and soon-to-return of CEO Sam Altman. The ChatGPT developer is faced with the problem of conflict of interest among the members of the board of directors.
Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, resigned from the board of directors of OpenAI, having made the appropriate decision, directing investments into other firms operating in the space of the artificial intelligence industry. Adam D’Angelo, another board member, continues to work for the company headed by Sam Altman, despite his involvement in Quora, a platform using machine intelligence-based chatbots.
Sierra managed to generate interest from investors. Benchmark led the early investment. Sequoia Capital is also expected to lead an investment of $85 million. According to preliminary information, obtaining this financing will increase the value of the startup to almost $1 billion.
Bret Taylor says that artificial intelligence can potentially disrupt spheres of activity such as customer service. It is worth clarifying that AI can replace humans in the mentioned area. Chatbots based on machine intelligence will act as virtual assistants, but will not destroy customer service as the sphere of activity.
At the same time, Bret Taylor is convinced that artificial intelligence will create new jobs as this technology develops. He did not specify which jobs it meant.
In January, Sierra came out of the so-called stealth mode. The startup already has a strong market position, albeit on a limited scale, which is more likely to be expanded as the firm’s activities intensify. Sierra is focused on corporate artificial intelligence. The company strives to use advanced technology as a tool for solving business problems.
Sierra’s launch was announced at the same time that Rasa, backed by PayPal, announced that it had managed to raise $30 million in a Series C funding round. This money will be spent on the development of a generative conversational AI platform for enterprises. Rasa is committed to rethinking how companies use artificial intelligence-based chat platforms on a large scale.
As we have reported earlier, OpenAI Gives ChatGPT Ability to Remember Facts From Chats.
