The CEO of startup Superhuman explains how generative AI will change ‘everything’ about email
With OpenAI’s revenue reportedly on track to hit $1.3 billion a year, it’s clear a lot of people (and companies) are giving ChatGPT a whirl these days.
But how are people using it in their day-to-day workflow? Here at Fortune, widespread hallucinations have made it hard for me to rely on GPT for anything other than research for stories and interviews. In my line of work, accuracy is paramount, so until GPT becomes a bit more reliable, I find it unlikely it will be part of my day-to-day.
But I recognize I am a bit of an outlier in the tech world, as people tell me they are using GPT for everything from practicing new languages, brainstorming ideas, or developing source code.
For me personally, one of the most fundamental use cases for generative AI thus far seems to be email. Which is why I pinged Rahul Vohra, the CEO of Superhuman, a few weeks ago. I’m a Superhuman user myself, so I was curious how many people were using the AI features I had seen the company roll out into my inbox earlier this year.
“Email is such a text-native medium. Everything is about reading and writing text,” Vohra told me. That’s what made it pretty obvious to him and his team towards the end of last year that, with large language models, “everything was going to change.”
So in February, Superhuman and its approximately 100 staffers started working on a few new AI features, built on top of GPT. In July, the company started rolling out Superhuman AI for users to compose emails, summarize long email chains, write emails in other languages, or tweak pre-written emails by asking the AI to shorten or lengthen the text or correct your spelling and grammar.
How many people were actually using it? I asked.
About four in 10 of the people who use Superhuman have activated the AI features in their inbox to try it out, Vohra told me—and Superhuman says that about 25% of those people are using AI features every week. If you do the math, that means that about 10% of all Superhuman users are using AI at least once a week to help them write emails in some fashion. The average Superhuman AI user is doing more than 25 prompts a week—up 55% from when Superhuman first released its beta in July. Vohra says his team was “pleasantly surprised” by the stickiness of the feature.
So what next? Vohra says that Superhuman is “in the early phases right now” of what will eventually become possible. Right now, his team is building an “automatic summarization” feature, which will be a one-line summary thread near the subject of the email that will briefly summarize its contents. In the more distant future, Vohra says he thinks AI will be able to pinpoint the most important email of the day or the last week—or suggest you send an email to someone you maybe haven’t yet.
Vohra remained elusive around any of Superhuman’s data points. It’s still unclear exactly how many people are willing to pay $30 a month to manage their inbox, nor what Superhuman’s growth rate or revenue figures look like. When I asked about profitability, Vohra would only share that “there’s definitely a path to getting there next year or the year after if we wanted to.” He added: “I suspect that when that becomes a choice, we’ll choose not to.”
He added that Superhuman has some four to five years of runway, and he isn’t looking to fundraise in the near future.
ICYMI…
—Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave resigned this weekend after the comments he made about the Israel-Hamas War came under fire from the tech industry. The Web Summit conference is still slated to proceed next month in Lisbon.
—Convoy, the truck logistics unicorn backed by Jeff Bezos that was last valued at $3.8 billion, shut down last week after being unable to find an acquirer. Convoy had raised more than $1 billion from investors.
—Peter Thiel was reportedly an FBI informant, starting in 2021, according to Business Insider.
See you tomorrow,
Jessica Mathews
Twitter: @jessicakmathews
Email: jessica.mathews@fortune.com
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Joe Abrams curated the deals section of today’s newsletter.
VENTURE DEALS
– Island, a Dallas, Texas-based browser designed specifically for employees, raised $100 million in Series C funding. Prysm Capital led the round and was joined by Canapi Ventures, Insight Partners, Stripes, Sequoia, Cyberstarts, and Georgian.
– Signos, a San Francisco-based health data and weight management platform, raised $20 million in Series B funding. Cheyenne Ventures and Google Ventures led the round and were joined by Dexcom Ventures and Samsung Next.
– Noodle Cat Games, a remote-based game development studio, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Hiro Capital led the round and was joined by Makers Fund, KRAFTON, and Sony Innovation Fund.
– Ternary, a San Francisco-based platform designed to help companies manage their cloud spending, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Jump Capital led the round and was joined by Fin Capital, RiverPark Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, and Gaingels.
– Cube.Exchange, a Melbourne, Australia-based digital asset trading platform, raised $9 million in seed funding from Asymmetric Technologies, WW Ventures, Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, LLLP, Everstake, Foundation Capital, and others.
– Flash Pack, a London, U.K.-based group adventure provider for solo travelers in their 30s and 40s, raised $6.2 million in new funding. JamJar Investments led the round and was joined by others.
– Prism Data, a New York City-based B2B data analytics platform, raised $5 million in seed funding. Obvious Ventures led the round and was joined by Citi Impact Fund and Core Innovation Capital.
– Tofu, a San Mateo, Calif.-based AI platform for creating marketing campaigns, raised $5 million in new funding. Index Ventures led the round and was joined by SignalFire, Stage 2 Capital, and Liquid 2 Ventures.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Stonepeak agreed to take Textainer, a Hamilton, Bermuda-based lessor of storage and transportation containers, private for $7.4 billion.
– Vista Equity Partners agreed to take EngageSmart, a Braintree, Mass.-based provider of customer engagement software and integrated payments solutions, private for $4 billion.
EXITS
– General Atlantic agreed to acquire a minority stake in TBO, a Gurgaon, India-based travel platform for both suppliers and travelers, from Affirma Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
– Oji Holdings Corporation agreed to acquire Walki Holding Oy, an Espoo, Finland-based supplier of sustainable and high-performing packaging and engineered materials solutions, from One Equity Partners. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHER
– Chevron agreed to acquire Hess, a New York City-based oil and natural gas company, for $53 billion.
FUNDS + FUNDS OF FUNDS
– 1315 Capital, a Philadelphia, Penn.-based investment firm, raised $350 million for its third fund focused on health care companies and $150 million for another focused on health care companies.
PEOPLE
– HCI Equity Partners, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm, hired Nick Baltz as an associate. Formerly, he was with Jefferies.
