Exclusive: These tech executives want to support AI agents with more AI
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Clay Bavor and Bret Taylor speak to Ina Fried at Axios' AI+ Summit in San Francisco on Dec. 17. Photo credits: Chris Constantine on behalf of Axios
Autonomous agents are hot. Supervisor agents could be next.
The big picture: Sierra, a startup from former Salesforce executive and OpenAI chair Bret Taylor and ex-Google exec Clay Bavor, has been focused on AI agents from the start. Now, they're building on that technology with "supervisor agents."
- "The solution to many problems with AI is more AI," Bavor told Axios' Ina Fried at the AI+ Summit in San Francisco alongside Taylor.
- The company has introduced "supervisor agents" that are tasked with enforcing company policy and enhancing customer experiences, the co-founders told Axios' Ina Fried.
Zoom in: Sierra, which builds custom AI agents for enterprise customer service, focuses on three types of agents: personal, role-based and customer-facing, the co-founders said.
- "At Sierra, we help primarily consumer brands build customer-facing AI agents that don't just answer questions, but actually can take action on your behalf," Taylor said.
- For example, if you have ADT home security and you're having a problem with your alarm, you'll now chat with the ADT AI, which is powered by Sierra's technology, he said.
Between the lines: Giving autonomy to generative AI tools opens up a range of tantalizing possibilities for increased productivity — but also vastly increases the potential of catastrophic risk, Fried reports.
- Consider AirCanada's chatbot that offered a false (and more generous) bereavement fare to a customer earlier this year than company policy allowed. A Canadian tribunal ruled the money was still owed.
- "You obviously don't want an AI that is representing your company, your brand, to your customers making stuff up," Bavor said. "It's a problem area that we at Sierra have really run towards, and there's no silver bullet."
The "supervisor agents" are among their solutions.
- These agents would oversee the primary agent and ensure they're providing factual information aligned with company policy.
- "Think of them almost as like Jiminy Cricket agents that look over the shoulder of the primary agent," Bavor said.
The intrigue: Taylor also addressed reports that OpenAI is turning into a for-profit. It's not true, he said.
- "Right now, there's a nonprofit and a for-profit in one corporate structure, and we're thinking about how to reconfigure that. And we're trying to set up the nonprofit to actually be more sustainable and extremely well financed," Taylor said.
Go deeper: Sierra, co-founded by OpenAI chair Bret Taylor, raises $175 million
