Artisan brings in $2.3M to create digital workers

Artisan, an AI startup focused on creating human-like digital workers known as Artisans, recently announced it raised $2.3 million in pre-seed funding led by Oliver Jung and Bayhouse Capital. The startup will also participate in the YCombinator Winter 2024 batch this January. Founded by Jaspar Carmichael-Jack and Rupert Dodkins, the company is looking to build "out-of-the-box AI digital workers that integrate seamlessly with human teams." Artisan's first product is "Ava, the Sales Rep". Ava is currently in beta but will launch on December 4.

Unlike AI agents designed to automate a specific task, Artisans are designed to integrate into a team, performing some tasks autonomously while asking for human assistance when necessary. Digital workers can take on more complex tasks than traditional AI agents, which may be expected to perform simple actions such as managing timesheets or routing customers' inquiries. Most importantly, the final goal of a digital worker is to take on a role within a team and perform the entire workflow associated with that job.

Ava, for instance, can perform the outbound sales representative role end-to-end. This means that, among other tasks, Ava can prospect leads by leveraging a database containing over 260 million contacts, ghostwrite personalized email sequences that she can send on the user's behalf, and automatically book meetings into a calendar. Moreover, users can interact with Ava via Slack just like they would do with any other coworker. Ava can also communicate with team members unprompted when she has a suggestion, notices areas needing improvement, or wants to share relevant data.

The startup has five more Artisans in the works, including "Liam, the Marketer" and "Noah, the Designer". To continue its mission of developing Ava and the rest of its digital workers, Artisan is currently looking to grow its team, particularly with R&D and Product talent.