There has been quite a lot of speak round constructing context for AI programs. In client software program, we now have seen startups being constructed round search, paperwork, and conferences. All of them wish to seize context from your digital life, present connections to different instruments, and allow you to question all that knowledge. Some instruments went additional. For occasion, Rewind (which turned Limitless and bought to Meta) and Microsoft Recall purpose to seize the whole lot occurring on your screen and aid you bear in mind all of it.
A brand new startup known as Littlebird is making an attempt an analogous factor with a barely totally different strategy. While apps like Rewind retailer screenshots or some form of visible knowledge, Littlebird is “reading” the screen and storing the context in textual content format.
The core thought behind the product is that since it’s studying your screen on a regular basis, you don’t want to supply further context for productiveness. The startup believes that whereas quite a lot of AI instruments are attempting to distract you, Littlebird can work within the background and might solely seem while you need it to.
When you arrange Littlebird on your computer, you may customise which apps you need the app to disregard and never seize any context. The startup stated that it robotically ignores password managers and delicate fields in net types like passwords and bank card particulars. You can choose to attach different apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Reminders with the app, as effectively.
The app helps you to ask questions on your knowledge, providing pre-generated prompts to get you began, reminiscent of “What have I been doing today?” or “What kind of emails are important to me?” In a few days of utilization, I seen that these prompts turned extra customized as time went on.
Littlebird additionally has an in-built Granola-like notetaker that makes use of system audio and runs within the background to seize transcription from conferences and create notes and motion gadgets based mostly on that. When you open a gathering within the detailed view, there’s an choice known as “Prep for meeting” that takes the context of previous conferences, emails, and firm historical past into consideration to offer you extra particulars in regards to the assembly. The characteristic additionally fetches data from sources like Reddit to tell you what customers are excited about a selected product or an organization.
Another tool known as Routines gives detailed prompts for Littlebird to run at a repeated interval, reminiscent of each day, weekly, or month-to-month. The firm lists some ready-to-use routines like each day briefing, weekly exercise abstract, and yesterday’s work abstract. Users can create their very own routines as effectively with customized directions.
Littlebird was based by Alap Shah, Naman Shah, and Alexander Green in 2024. Brothers Alap and Naman based Sentieo, a platform for institutional buyers, which was bought to market intelligence agency AlphaSense. They beforehand additionally co-founded a health-food firm known as Thistle. Alap was additionally a co-author of the viral Citrini paper on how AI brokers might destroy the financial system, which resulted in varied tech shares dipping. Green has constructed varied corporations in {hardware}, software program, and AI.
“We got started when Alap posed an interesting problem that AI is going to be about your [users’] data. Models don’t know anything about you, and that limits their utility. We were thinking about various UI and OS paradigms that were likely to be ripe for disruption with AI and that kicked off Littlebird as a project,” Green advised TechCrunch over a name.
Green famous that whereas Rewind was near what Littlebird is making an attempt to do, it relied on screenshots and didn’t have a fantastic search expertise. He stated that the startup is simply getting began and there are lots of extra issues to unravel, together with making giant language fashions (LLMs) perceive totally different sorts of context about customers.
With Littlebird, customers can take away their knowledge at any time, and their knowledge is saved within the cloud with encryption. Green stated that the rationale behind storing the information within the cloud was to run highly effective fashions for totally different AI workflows, which isn’t potential domestically.
“We don’t store any visual information. We only store text, which makes the data a lot lighter-weight. I think that was probably another reason that Recall and Rewind struggled, which is that taking a screenshot is a lot more data hungry. I also think it’s more invasive,” he stated.
Littlebird is free to obtain and use, however to get extra utilization limits and entry to options like picture technology, customers pays for plans ranging from $20 monthly.
The startup has raised $11 million in funding led by Lotus Studio, with participation from Lenny Rachitsky, Scott Belsky, Gokul Rajaram, Justin Rosenstein, Shawn Wang, and Russ Heddleston.
Several of those buyers are common customers of the product. Rajaram, who has labored at Google and Facebook on advert merchandise, stated that the product removes the friction of remembering, retrieving, and re-explaining your personal work. DocSend co-founder and CEO Heddleston stated that he rewrote the corporate’s advertising web site utilizing the tool, utilizing context from conferences, e mail, Notion, and extra.
Rachitsky, who runs his personal e-newsletter and podcast, stated that AI is pretty much as good because the context it has, and it misses a lot about your day. He stated he asks the tool about enhancing his productiveness workflows and being happier. He stated that for long-term success, the product might want to discover a killer use case.
“I think it’s all about finding that killer must-have use case. That’s all that matters to this product’s success right now. I know a lot of people already have found that for themselves, and the team is leaning into these experiences as they see these use cases emerge,” he famous.
“I’ve had a lot of AI product builders on the podcast, and the most consistent theme is that you don’t actually know how people will use your product until you put it out. The strategy is to put out early stuff, see how people use it, and double down on those use cases versus waiting for something totally figured out.”