A former Plaud executive is building an artificial intelligence app designed to listen in the background and provide real-time intelligence through the day — and investors have put $26 million behind it.
Peter Mo's startup, Ambi, said Monday it has raised $26 million across multiple rounds led by Luminous Ventures, with original design manufacturer Huaqin also participating. The company is releasing apps for iPhone, Mac and Apple Watch that work like meeting note-takers, with an agent intended to surface suggestions and knowledge during a meeting — drawing on calendar, meetings, knowledge base and web data — and to hand tasks off across devices.
A planned desktop app would observe work on screen to build memory for personalised suggestions, and Ambi plans its own hardware device with a screen, speaker, camera and microphones. The company has more than 50 staff across San Francisco, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.
Privacy is the central tension. Mo said ambient capture is off by default and can be turned off, the company says it does not store recordings and encrypts data, and disclosure to other people in a conversation remains the user's responsibility, TechCrunch reported.
