The competition in the personal agency sector has become increasingly fierce in recent weeks. Meta's Muse, OpenAI's Dot, and Instinct are in the leading positions, and almost every week more competitors emerge. However, Vinod Khosla (Vinod Khosla) is betting on Wajo, which was founded by former Google and DeepMind engineers Shivani Podar (Shivani Poddar). The reason is simple: trust.
Kosala said on the phone to TechCrunch: "I believe that the most important aspect of an agent is that since it is acting on your behalf, trust is crucial. You must trust this agent. Compared to Muse or Instinct, I think Wajo is the most trustworthy, as its architectural design focuses primarily on trust and security, which is not the case with some other products."
He added, "What I mean is, who would be willing to hand over all their data to Facebook ( Meta )? I wouldn't. If I hand over my data to Facebook, then I become a product, rather than the product I purchased, because what they do is advertising business. So trust is very important, and most people don't trust large companies like Facebook."
Generally speaking, the working mechanism of the Fo agent of Wajo is very similar to that of Muse or Instinct. This agent can run on iMessage and WhatsApp, and it also provides a web interface with potential task cards. To-dos are organized into categories such as "Schedule", "Gifting", and "Life Management". It can also represent users in making reservations or canceling services with merchants or other individuals as needed.
In several early tests, I had it call an airline to inquire about upgrade opportunities, and it successfully completed that task. However, when I asked it to call my partner to remind her to feed the cat, the call didn’t go as smoothly, and the communication wasn’t clear enough. As competitors such as Instinct and Muse are also gradually introducing calling capabilities, we may see more discussions about how AI should identify itself when making calls on behalf of others. One unique feature of this tool is that it can employ human operators to complete tasks when necessary.
In addition, Fo can also create a virtual credit card to make payments on behalf of the user without disclosing detailed user information. This agent also has its own email address, which allows it to communicate with individuals and businesses. When websites or services block the AI agent, Fo can notify the user to take action, or create a group that includes both the user and the merchant for verification purposes.
In addition to KOSLA, this startup has also received support from Jeff Dean and Gokul Rajaram, although the amount of financing was not disclosed. Wajo did not provide data on the number of users, but stated that its product has been used in 107 countries and has grown tenfold since its launch at the end of September.
Founder's Story
Before founding Wajo, Podar held multiple engineering positions at Meta, Google, and DeepMind, and was also involved in creating the first Facebook assistant. She stated that she wants to build products that are truly useful to people.
In the phone call, Boudal said to TechCrunch: "The entire process of bringing Gemini to the world and building a security mechanism for it made me realize how much technical expertise is required to accomplish this. Google has very strong technical capabilities, but sometimes this can lead to them falling behind in product development. I think I need to do something that takes both technology and product into consideration. It must be different, and it must truly be based on user needs."
This former Google project manager echoed Kostela's views on "trust" and emphasized that it is one of the core principles of Wajo.
She said, "Trust must be established from the very beginning, because one of the technical issues that have not yet been resolved is how to teach agents to 'forget.' If they obtain your personal data on the first day, then they will always have that data in the future. I believe that trust must be built from the first day, not only in the architecture but also in the choice of products."
The company is working on multiple aspects related to trust and security. It has applied for a patent for its virtual card system, which can hide user information from websites. Regarding the call function, the company states that it will add users to a list of “trusted contacts,” and only agents will be able to call these people. When you receive a call, you can also tell the agent not to call you again, and Wajo will record this preference.
The challenge faced by this startup is to avoid arousing privacy concerns like other agents, especially since it markets itself by emphasizing security as a core value. The company also claims that, despite tools such as Muse being blocked by Amazon, its architecture complies with the service terms of this e-commerce platform.
