The co-founders of Google DeepMind and LinkedIn have launched an artificial intelligence chatbot called Pi, adding to the flood of similar products rolled out publicly this year by the likes of OpenAI, Google and Snap.
The first product from the year-old AI start-up behind Pi, Inflection AI, comes as the growing hype around generative AI drives a surge of investor and consumer interest.
Users of Pi can have personal conversations with the chatbot, either directly via an app, or through text, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.
Inflection AI chief executive Mustafa Suleyman described the chatbot as having the persona of a sympathetic sounding board, rather than trying to provide information. The product, which has been beta-tested by users for several months, has a narrow use case, which makes it safer and easier to control, Suleyman said.
“There’s lots of things Pi cannot do. It doesn’t do lists, or coding, it doesn’t do travel plans, it won’t write your marketing strategy, or your essay for school,” Suleyman said in an interview with the Financial Times. “It’s purely designed for relaxed, supportive, informative conversation.”
Eventually, the personal AI tool would also provide assistance such as helping users perform online tasks, but was currently more for “mundane, trivial and banal” conversations, according to Suleyman.
In a live demo of the chatbot, Pi appeared distinct from others such as ChatGPT or Bard in that it often ended its responses with a question for the user, encouraging dialogue.
“That’s what Pi does really well, it helps facilitate your own line of inquiry,” Suleyman said. However, it does not provide citations or references, although Suleyman said that will change. It also sometimes fabricates facts, as is the case with all large language models — the technology underlying the new generation of chatbots, he added.
Inflection AI — founded by Suleyman, Karén Simonyan and LinkedIn creator Reid Hoffman — is one of a group of consumer AI start-ups that are racing to build sophisticated computer programs that can write scripts and create art in seconds.
California-based Anthropic recently raised $300mn from Google and has launched its own chatbot Claude. Character.ai, a start-up founded by former Google employees that creates AI chatbots in different characters, is seeking to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
To keep up with its well-funded rivals, Inflection has hired AI experts from several competitors, including OpenAI, DeepMind and Google, who have previously helped build some of the world’s most powerful language models. Earlier this year, the company was in discussions to raise up to $675mn from investors. It has previously raised money from venture capital firms including Greylock Partners, where Suleyman and Hoffman remain investors.
Suleyman was one of three founders of DeepMind, which was set up in the UK in 2010 and was bought by Google for £400mn in 2014.