Likewise, the Seattle-area content recommendation startup that spun out of Bill Gates’ private office five years ago, launched a free AI assistant called Pix to help users find TV shows, movies, books and podcasts using a combination of the company’s own data and OpenAI’s natural language processing technology.
The idea is to go beyond generic AI chatbots to create a true personal agent that leverages the company’s unique data set and the inferred preferences of individual users, said Ian Morris, the Likewise CEO, in an interview Thursday morning.
For example, if someone uses Pix to search for horror movies on Hulu, the service will send notifications when new movies arrive in the future that match their prior searches. Although not available at launch, Pix in the near future will also be able to take into account the content that Likewise users have favorited in their accounts, he said.
Also important are widespread availability of the AI tool and access to real-time data, Morris said. Pix features available at launch include the ability to query Pix via email and text, in addition to the Likewise web, mobile and connected TV apps.
“We believe, philosophically, that personal agents are going to be a core part of taking AI and making it a practical use case for consumers,” Morris said.
Keys to success include “really personalizing based on your history, based on the type of things you like, and then being proactive,” he added.
Likewise earlier this year launched a ChatGPT plugin that integrates directly with the OpenAI chatbot.
Based in Bellevue, Wash., Likewise has 25 employees. It launched in October 2018 as the brainchild of Larry Cohen, the former Microsoft communications chief. Cohen is chairman of Likewise and the CEO of Gates Ventures.
Gates, who earlier this year called generative AI “the most important advance in technology since the graphical user interface,” is the primary financial backer, investing $15 million in Likewise at the end of 2021.
