Zeta Labs, a London-based startup founded by former Meta engineers Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert, has recently launched Jace, an AI agent powered by LLM (Language Model) technology. This AI agent is capable of executing tasks in-browser based on user commands. In addition to the launch of Jace, the company has also raised $2.9 million in a pre-seed round of funding.
Unlike other AI agents in the market, Zeta claims that Jace doesn’t require any guidance and can save users from sitting in front of their computers. Users simply need to tell Jace what needs to be done, and it will handle the task. The startup plans to use the funding to further enhance Jace’s capabilities, making it more reliable and faster for handling complex tasks.
Jace is designed to be a web agent, similar to ChatGPT. Users interact with Jace through a chatbox, where they can describe the task they need to be done. Once all the instructions are provided, Jace’s underlying models create a plan of action and execute it in the browser. For example, if a user wants to book a hotel in Paris, Jace will search the web for information about the hotel and even visit the hotel’s website to make a booking with payment.
To achieve its capabilities, Jace combines multiple models. One is a regular LLM that handles chat-based interaction and creates a plan of action. The other is Zeta Labs’ proprietary web-interaction model AWA-1 (Autonomous Web Agent-1), which converts the plan into browser actions. This combination allows Jace to handle the challenges and inconsistencies commonly found in web interfaces.
Jace also utilizes reasoning systems to avoid getting stuck in loops when handling tasks with multiple steps. It verifies whether the plan has been executed or not. Additionally, Jace includes guardrails to ensure user credentials are stored securely.
While Jace is currently capable of handling various tasks, Zeta Labs has not monetized the product yet. The company is working with design partners to refine the AI agent and prepare it for general release. They are also working on the second iteration of the AWA model to improve performance and handle longer, more complex tasks.
Zeta Labs aims to package Jace as an AI sidekick for consumers and small businesses, automating repetitive browser-based tasks in sectors such as recruiting, ecommerce, marketing, and sales. They plan to offer a free plan with limitations on the number of messages, with a fixed subscription price of $45 per month once the limit is reached.
The demand for Jace is expected to be high among small businesses, especially recruiters who want to automate tasks like sourcing from LinkedIn and moving data to platforms like Airtable. By automating these processes, Jace can save time and effort for users in various industries.