Every day in 2024 is filled with AI-related news. But Jamix, a new San Francisco-based enterprise AI startup founded by former Instagram and Airbnb engineers, is hoping to cut through the noise by focusing on solving a very special yet widely shared problem. Data privacy and security.
Jamix provides secure, model-agnostic AI assistants designed to improve workplace productivity.
It emerged from stealth last week with $3 million in pre-seed funding led by Audacious Ventures, with contributions from angel investors including Keith Peiris (CEO, Tome), Chris Prucha (co-founder of Notion & Origin), and Oleg Rogynskyy (CEO). , People.ai), Nate Smith (founder of Lever), Bobby Lo (founder of Vurb), Zac Altman (founder of LoungeBuddy), Neha Sampat (CEO, Contentstack), Nishant Patel (founder and CTO of Contentstack).
“Most companies don’t really have the resources to build sophisticated tools like this,” co-founder and CEO Matt Zitzmann told VentureBeat in an exclusive video call interview last week. “This is the gap we are trying to fill in this market, helping businesses have their own custom internal version of ChatGPT or an AI assistant that protects people’s data.”
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Zitzmann and his co-founder Conglei Shi, who serves as Jamix's chief technology officer (CTO), are familiar with the enterprise software world, with resumes from some of the biggest names in technology. Zitzmann has worked at Google, Instagram, and its parent company Meta. He acquired his previous company, Kamcord. Shi worked on IBM's Watson AI team and later at Airbnb.
Increase workplace productivity while maintaining security
Jamix's philosophy is simple. “For AI to really reach its full potential, it needs to be connected to data, apps, and APIs,” Zitzmann told VentureBeat.
He pointed out that while businesses may attempt to use AI tools without exposing data with the good intentions of maintaining security and security, this seriously limits AI's ability to actually meaningfully improve and grow their business.
Zitzmann presented a hypothetical situation of a company hiring human interns but not giving them access to the company's corporate information.
“That intern won’t be very effective, right?” Zitzman asked rhetorically. “This is what AI looks like today.”
Instead, Jamix's approach is to integrate the AI assistant into the company's existing workplace software apps, such as Google Workspace or Notion, and messaging apps, including Slack, and provide information back to users when requested.
This allows Jamix to perform three broad categories of tasks for businesses:
The first is cross-app search. Instead of users switching back and forth between the information they're looking for, the Jamix search bar returns results from all other apps connected via an API backend. Email applications, Slack, or Google Docs allow users to view and access that information faster and easier. Jamix calls these the “sources of data” for the enterprise.
![](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Search.png?resize=717%2C805&strip=all)
“For 20 years, the idea of enterprise search has been around to provide a Google-like search box for all of your enterprise data,” Zitzmann explained. “This solves the ‘I know where it is, but I don’t know if it’s in my Gmail, Slack, or Google Docs’ problem.”
The second, according to Zitzmann, is “chat with apps and data.” This takes the typical initial creation AI use case of uploading a PDF and talking to an AI tool like ChatGPT to surface or summarize specific information, but extends it to any document a company wants from its employees. You can access it.
![](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Chat-with-your-Data.png?resize=630%2C569&strip=all)
For example, Zitzmann said, users can ask an AI assistant connected to a recruiting application “how many applicants are in the engineering pipeline, how many have been offered, how many have been rejected.” You'll get answers without having to dig through the app itself to find them.
Finally, Jamix, the most ambitious part of the product, allows an AI assistant to “take on the task” on behalf of the user. within Work apps essentially act as AI agents, filing bug reports or evaluating resumes coming into a particular job listing based on how well they match the job listing criteria. Another function is to summarize information in a URL.
![](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Action.png?resize=622%2C750&strip=all)
All these features aim to save time and reduce the manual effort required for everyday tasks.
We do our best to protect user privacy and security.
However, by the same token, Jamix encrypts all of its customers' data and has signed agreements with AI model providers, including ChatGPT and OpenAI for GPT-3.5/4, to ensure its commitment to user privacy by not training Jamix user data. Maintain.
In doing so, Jamix's AI assistant aims to address key issues related to data security when integrating AI into workplace operations.
“The contractual agreement we had with those people was [AI model] The problem is that suppliers are not allowed to train on it [customer] It’s data,” Zitzmann said.
For customers more interested in closed model providers, Zitzmann noted that Jamix also works with open source AI models, allowing enterprise customers to run AI assistants in their own private cloud or on-premises.
Jamix's commitment to model agnosticism allows it to adapt to the rapidly evolving pace of AI technology. This strategy allows companies to easily adapt to new technologies by leveraging the most effective and cost-effective AI models without being limited to a single provider.
Notable Sponsors
The $3 million pre-seed funding led by Audacious Ventures with participation from several high-profile angel investors represents strong industry support for Jamix's approach to AI in the workplace.
Co-founder and CEO Zitzmann emphasized the importance of launching a product designed to deeply integrate into the company's operations while protecting data privacy and providing flexibility in the use of AI models.
Nakul Mandan, founder and partner at Audacious Ventures, shared his support for Jamix's mission to provide AI assistants that meet the specific needs of enterprises while prioritizing data security and user rights.
“We envision a future where AI assistants are freely available to every knowledge worker on the planet, but they must be built with the needs of the enterprise in mind,” Mandan said in a statement provided to VentureBeat. “Jamix’s AI assistant helps users discover and interact with their organization’s knowledge and even automates tasks. They do all of this with data security and permissions in mind.”
With its recent funding round and product launch, Jamix aims to bring new solutions to the AI assistance market for businesses looking to improve productivity while maintaining rigorous data security standards. Tight integration of workplace tools and platforms and a model-agnostic approach highlight Jamix’s commitment to providing flexible and secure AI solutions for businesses.
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