It’s been no secret that Mat Ellis — the founder of Portland startup success story Cloudability — was hard at work on something new. And those closest to the project knew that it was going to be something that used Artificial Intelligence to help people become more effective with time and contact management. But no one outside of the startup team really knew what it was eventually going to be until today. Meet Sixty AI.
“Software has eaten the world and we, as humans, are on the menu,” said Mat. “Digital communications have taken over our lives as our social networks have exploded and reached a scale that can’t be managed by human hands. To try and keep up, we’ve simply worked harder but this does have a limit. Although we’ve reduced the time for each interaction, that’s also lowered the quality of our work, our relationships and ultimately, of our whole life. The result is burn-out, poor productivity and lack of satisfaction. At Sixty AI, we’re re-defining what ‘productive’ means in two ways. First, we’re doing everything we can to reduce your use of productivity apps with no real life-adverse effects. Our AI can do it so you don’t have to. And secondly, we’re supercharging your interactions with humans, helping you to get top marks in personal relationship management. We believe this is how to get flow and joy back into your life. It’s about time.”
So what does Sixty do? According to the Portland Business Journal:
With Sixty AI, Ellis wants to help people manage the growing number of relationships and responsibilities they might have. He also wants to bring the benefits of an executive assistant to people who may have never thought about having an EA. When the company was coming up with a name Ellis said the team wanted it to be gender neutral to appeal to the most people.
Like a human EA, Sixty will watch how people respond to different requests and learn based on those interactions. If an email for a specific person is always answered as a priority the system will learn that this is an important person. Similarly, if something is moved into a read later folder the system can learn what items are for later reading.
Given the success of Cloudability, it comes as little surprise that Sixty AI also announced $3.5 million in Seed led by 468 Capital.
“Relationships in any capacity are messy and complex at times, and it’s been impossible to deliver this kind of nuance until now, so we’re inspired by Sixty AI’s efforts to enable this reality,” said Florian Leibert, Managing Director of 468 Capital. “The company was not only founded by a group of successful entrepreneurs and tech experts – but those who also believe in and are evangelists of personal relationships as the next cultural movement of our time, so we’re excited to back them and advance their mission.”
The free-to-use product currently has a waitlist. Users will be added to the platform gradually.
For more information or to sign up, visit Sixty AI.
[Full disclosure: I was an early beta user of FasterBetter.]
