Humans&, a startup promoting AI that empowers rather than replaces humans, raised $480 million in a seed round at a $4.48 billion valuation, according to The New York Times. Investors include Nvidia, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, SV Angel, Google Ventures, and Emerson Collective.
The company was founded three months ago by former researchers from Anthropic, xAI, and Google, including Andi Peng, Georges Harik, Eric Zelikman, and Yuchen He, alongside Stanford professor Noah Goodman. Employees also hail from OpenAI, Meta, Reflection, AI2, and MIT.
Humans& is developing AI software designed to enhance collaboration, resembling an AI-driven instant messaging platform. Its approach includes techniques such as multi-agent reinforcement learning and memory integration to enable AI to request and retain information from users for later use.
The startup aims to rethink how models are trained at scale and how people interact with AI to strengthen organizational and community connections. Its team emphasizes a combination of scientific research and product development to support long-horizon user understanding and multi-agent AI capabilities.
