Zeta Labs, an AI research and product company that is developing autonomous agents capable of efficiently performing complex and multi-step tasks, announced the raising of its $2.9 million pre-seed round and the debut of its large language model (LLM)-based proprietary autonomous AI agent JACE. This funding round was led by Daniel Gross (former head of AI at Y Combinator) and Nat Friedman (former Github CEO), with participation from Earlybird VC and Kaya VC and AI Grant, Shawn (swyx) Wang, Bartek Pucekand Mati Staniszewski, founder of ElevenLabs.
Zeta Labs will use the funding round to expand its engineering team, host training models, and enhance JACE’s overall infrastructure, improving its speed and reliability. JACE represents the future of AI agents, going beyond traditional uses of current AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and their text-generation focus. JACE instead focuses on taking action in the digital world. It differs from existing AI-powered chatbots due to its complex cognitive architecture, enabling it to complete high-difficulty tasks.
Created by Zeta Labs, JACE can control and perform actions in the browser similarly to a human user, excelling in managing complex tasks that involve web automation, interaction, and direct communication. And this is due to the development and training of Zeta Labs’ proprietary web-interaction model, AWA-1 (Autonomous Web Agent-1), which enables JACE to reliably execute tasks over long periods, effectively handling the challenges and inconsistencies commonly found in web interfaces.
By learning through extensive simulated interactions and utilizing synthetic data for rapid self-improvement, JACE has developed the ability to navigate and use digital tools effectively. And it is able to provide tangible assistance in a wide array of tasks from simple to-dos like making a restaurant reservation to more complex projects like setting up a recruitment pipeline or starting a business. The result is a modern AI agent capable of assisting in a broad spectrum of tasks previously beyond the scope of chat-optimized AI models.
By teaching JACE to control a browser, Zeta Labs created a system capable of emulating a substantial portion of day-to-day office work. To prove JACE’s efficacy and ability to go beyond the traditional AI-assistant role, the Zeta Labs team tested the autonomous agent by asking it to create a company independently.
Starting with a simple prompt, JACE has led the user through creating a business plan, registering the business (a math tutoring company), finding the first client, and making its first revenue, all within two weeks. For the latest internal benchmark test conducted by Zeta Labs, which focused on the most common web-based tasks, like navigating the ordering process for a pizza delivery or finding two flats in London that meet specific criteria from the past week’s listings, JACE showed impressive performance. JACE also performed the best when using Zeta Labs’ AWA-1 model, delivering an 89% task completion success rate, compared to when it used GPT-4o (68% success rate) and an open-source web agent using GPT-4o (25% success rate).
Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert co-founded Zeta Labs in August 2023. Albert (who launched his first e-commerce business eight years ago) noticed the extensive amount of office time spent on mundane tasks as he looked to fill operational roles. He wanted to create an environment where his team could focus on the exciting work that mattered while simultaneously being more efficient and effective. This vision led to the foundation for Zeta Labs, and after connecting with Wiatrowski during their time at Meta, where Albert was part of the core team behind Llama 2, the two decided to join forces.
KEY QUOTES:
“At Zeta Labs, we aim to enable AI models to interact with the digital world around them. The development of our AWA-1 model allows JACE the ability to control a browser, essentially giving the AI assistant the digital equivalent of arms and legs. You can’t ask any current chatbot on the market to book a trip, pay an invoice or set up a job post. With JACE, you can.”
- Peter Albert, co-founder of Zeta Labs
“In its current form, I see JACE as a meta-aggregator for web interfaces. Why learn to navigate all the different user interfaces when you can have a universal UI for everything? With JACE, you simply say what you need, and if you forget, it will ask you all the necessary questions up front. Imagine a universal service desk with a consultant who knows you personally and never needs to sleep. JACE will be that for you, just sitting there, ready to serve you at all times.”
- Fryderyk Wiatrowski, co-founder of Zeta Labs
“Web browsing was invented 34 years ago and forever changed the global economy, yet AI models don’t understand how to use it. The next paradigm shift in AI is unlocking that behavior, and Zeta Labs is poised to make that happen. I am pleased to be an investor in this grand mission!”
- Daniel Gross, Zeta Labs investor and entrepreneur known for founding Cue and Pioneer
