Vasco Pedro, former founder of machine-assisted automatic translation company Unbabel, has developed a platform for entrepreneurs to create AI agents that they can “hire.”
The idea is that it can help companies grow their businesses and hire “AI workers” who “feel” like team workers, follow slack, respond to customers, reply in threads, communicate with customers, keep tools up to date, manage calendars, create roadmaps, research industries, and understand spreadsheets.
Basically, it’s a human-like AI that can do the same things humans do, but many times faster, and even has a personality.
Vasco Pedro was the face of Unbabel for 10 years before selling it to American translation company TransPerfect.
Now, the entrepreneur is back in Portugal, where this week he will launch a new startup, Spinnable, which allows businesses to hire AI staff.
“Large companies are now allocating more resources to artificial intelligence, but smaller companies are being left behind because it’s difficult for companies with five or six employees.
“Real estate renovation companies are so focused on their own business that they don’t have a lot of resources to hire AI-skilled staff to create AI agents, which makes them less competitive,” says Vasco Pedro.
“We can help[such]companies expand their business, which is small at the moment but doesn’t have to be, which is an issue of staff shortages.
“What we’re saying is that business success shouldn’t depend on the number of people you can employ,” he explains.
The startup, which wants to use AI to change the way people work, has a staff of 15 people, 10 of whom are non-human.
Among the humans are Gil Coelho (former head of product at Unbabel) and Fábio Kepler (former director of AI research at Unbabel).
The idea is to humanize the conversation between humans and technology, and the startup has already managed to raise around €2 million in a pre-seed round led by HeartCore, Florent.vc and Alphagraph.
