Betaworks, a prominent technology investor and accelerator, is demonstrating a strong commitment to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) with its latest cohort of startups in its Camp accelerator program. Unlike the current fascination with chatbots, Betaworks is focusing on AI as a means of augmentation rather than a stand-alone product. Founder and CEO, John Borthwick, has expressed the firm’s enthusiasm for this approach, stating that they are “rabidly interested” in exploring how AI can enhance human workflows and behaviors.
The significant increase in applicants for this particular Camp indicates a growing interest in the field. Borthwick explains, “We believe that over the next two-three years, we’re going to see an incredible amount of companies building and using AI models to augment human workflows and behaviors.” With this in mind, Betaworks has carefully selected 12 startups for its cohort, each of which will receive $500,000 in funding, along with access to Betaworks’ expertise and resources.
Key Takeaway
Betaworks is heavily investing in the field of augmentative AI, focusing on how AI can enhance human workflows and behaviors. The increase in applicants for its Camp accelerator program reflects the growing interest in this area.
Selected Startups in the Betaworks Camp Cohort
Armilla Assurance
Armilla Assurance offers a service for assessing the quality and reliability of AI systems. They provide insurance against losses resulting from AI underperforming. The company uses both industry standards and proprietary testing methods to evaluate AI systems.
Bionic Health
Bionic Health uses an AI-driven model trained on real-world data from healthcare practices to provide preventative healthcare solutions. They have also developed an enhanced electronic health record system to improve search and insights.
Deftly
Deftly has created an ML platform that aggregates and synthesizes customer feedback to provide actionable insights for product improvement. By ingesting data from various sources, Deftly offers product teams a dashboard for easier interpretation.
Globe
Globe aims to assist teams in gathering, exchanging, and understanding complex information through the creation of large language models. These models can be consulted at different levels of detail, making it easier to access relevant information from comprehensive documents.
GroupLang
GroupLang is developing software that enables language models to interact with groups of people, raising questions around user preferences and privacy. The goal is to redefine how language models can engage with multiple users simultaneously.
Open Souls
Open Souls aims to create conversational AI models that behave like real people, incorporating feelings, personalities, and internal complexity. Their approach involves augmenting language models with non-visible processes to simulate rich inner monologues.
Pangaea
Pangaea uses AI and custom backend technology to expedite game development and handle time-consuming tasks. They are currently working on a rogue-lite battle royale game with procedurally-generated maps.
Plastic Labs
Plastic Labs seeks to enhance language model viability by securely managing the flow of intimate psychological data between users and models. Their framework offers portable personalization across different AI applications.
Shader
Shader is a social camera app that allows users to create augmented reality (AR) filters using a simple, no-code interface. These filters can be applied live and shared on various platforms, including Instagram and Snapchat.
Unakin
Unakin aims to reduce development time with AI code assistants. Their UI programming agent can build functioning game interfaces using text or visual prompts, with further capabilities in development.
Vera
Vera helps workplaces adopt AI by filtering inputs and outputs of AI models based on company-defined rules. This offers oversight and control over generative AI, addressing security, privacy, and consistency concerns.
Waverly
Waverly is a social network of ideas that utilizes AI to remix and curate content. Their AI model allows users to move blocks of text around like magnets and provides a conversational AI control method for customizing content feeds.
These startups represent a diverse range of applications that leverage AI to augment human capabilities and improve existing processes. Betaworks’ investment in these companies reflects its belief in the potential for AI to transform various industries and workflows.
