Sierra is building the AI agents for customers, using a mix of proprietary and open-source large language models, including models from OpenAI and Microsoft. The company trains its AI models to reason and make decisions by giving them specific goals and guidelines. This approach allows Sierra to onboard new customers quickly without needing a lot of their data and adapt to new policies or changes in a customer's needs faster than traditional AI models.
Key takeaways:
- Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor, both former Google executives, have co-founded a new conversational AI startup named Sierra, which is already engaged in hundreds of thousands of customer conversations every month for clients including Weight Watchers, SiriusXM, Sonos, and OluKai.
- Sierra has already received a total of $110 million in funding from blue-chip Silicon Valley investors led by Sequoia Capital and Benchmark, and is valued at nearly $1 billion.
- Unlike other AI companies, Sierra is building the AI agents for customers, rather than just selling the tools for customers to do it themselves, betting on its expertise and experience to carry a lot of weight.
- Taylor, who is also the chairman of OpenAI, does not view Sierra as directly competing with OpenAI initiatives and can recuse himself from the decision-making process in instances where there might be perceived overlap.