Artisan AI secured $7.3M to build autonomous AI employees
Artisan AI raised $7.3 million to build fully autonomous AI employees and a unified software platform to replace the enterprise SaaS stack. With ambitious goals like achieving Level 5 autonomy where AI can outperform humans, Artisan AI aims to redefine human-AI collaboration in the enterprise.
Y Combinator-backed Artisan AI recently raised $7.3 million in funding to revolutionize the workplace by developing fully autonomous "Artisans", AI-powered employees designed to automate most of the work associated with a given role. Ava the Business Development Representative (BDR), the company's first Artisan, was introduced in February 2023, and it can automate 80% of the tasks associated with the BDR position by replacing many outbound sales tools with Artisan AI's SaaS platform. In the long term, Artisan AI's platform will enable Artisans and humans to collaborate seamlessly in streamlined workflows that will not require an existing software stack in addition to Artisan's SaaS platform.
Building on the success of Ava, Artisan AI is working on additional Artisans, including Liam, the Marketing Artisan, and James, the Customer Success Artisan. The company introduced the most recent version of its platform in April, a release introducing Level 2 Artisans, which, unlike their predecessors, can operate on autopilot. This means that Level 2 Artisans can, for instance, autonomously write emails in several different styles. Autonomy levels go from 1 to 5, with Level 1 meaning that the Artisan requires manual human oversight for all tasks. Level 5 means the worker is fully autonomous and can even outperform humans. The current version of Ava operates at Level 2, meaning it can automate simple tasks. Artisan AI is also working on Level 3 Artisans which can face complex decision-making tasks in some specific contexts.
Artisan AI was accepted into the Winter 2024 Y Combinator cohort six months ago with a three-person team. Since then, the company has grown to a team of 13, onboarded over 100 customers, and launched the improved V2 platform. The new funds will undoubtedly boost Artisan AI's growth, empowering the company to usher in a new era of collaboration between AI and humans in the workplace.
