Reading today about the notion of everyone having an AI personal assistant evoked the 1994 movie Swimming with the Sharks. This nerve-wracking movie made a credible case that the worst-ever case of PTSD belonged to Kevin Spacey’s personal assistant.
Were that movie made today, perhaps Spacey’s character would be flinging his incorrectly sweetened coffee at an AI bot rather than at the hapless Frank Whaley. So here’s another job category that may be disrupted by generative AI. The put-upon PA.
Not sure that is the vision Ario has in mind. But the startup has raised $16 million to help bring a vision of AI assistants for everyone to fruition. The investors include Wing Venture Capital, Floodgate, Bain Capital Ventures, Moxxie, as well as individual investors.
So Ario’s vision appears to be something called “universal basic AI”. That sounds like a combination of artificial general intelligence and universal basic income.
According to Ario, what this really means is just an AI personal assistant for everyone. PA’s are no longer a perk exclusively for irascible Hollywood executives.
One of Ario’s selling points is that genAI can now do for very little what a human PA might do for $100,000 or more per year.
Taking on a Crowded Field
According to VentureBeat, “ Ario is taking an unconventional approach in an increasingly crowded field of AI assistants. The company connects to apps like Amazon, DoorDash, and Google Calendar to reduce time spent on household tasks and provide personalized recommendations. For instance, users can take a photo of their child’s school schedule, and Ario will automatically add each event to their Google Calendar.”
Sounds cool. According to its website, Ario is “building consumer-grade, general-purpose AI assistants for everyone. This is a huge task and will take many years to accomplish.”
Palo Alto-based Ario was founded by a team of cybersecurity veterans led by CEO Sumit Agarwal.
Ario describes itself on LinkedIn as an LLM. One built on your data.
“Ario is building a product that enables you to gather up all of your digital context – your Twitter likes, calendar entries, Kindle highlights etc. – with the click of a button. Within 60 seconds, you can talk to Ario’s bot, who knows your past, your present, and even bits of your future.”
Now it has $16 million to make this vision a reality. It will likely need more. But if each of us really can throw coffee at our very own AI Frank Whaley, the money should be there.
