AI automation startup Relay shuts down, staff joins Google’s Chrome team
Relay, an AI-powered workflow automation tool that was launched in 2021 with thegoal of becoming the new Zapier, is shutting down, and some of its staff — including its top executive — are joining Google’s Chrome team. Jacob Bank, Relay’s founder and CEO, shareda company announcementMonday that reveals the app will be shutting down access for paying customers on September 14. Free customers would have already lost access as of August 15. The app’s closure wasinitially announcedin July. Bank, who previously spent a little over six years at Google,revealed thathe would now be rejoining the tech giant as VP of Product for Google Chrome, where he will lead the product and developer relations teams for Chrome, according to hisLinkedIn. “I’ve spent my whole career doing one thing: building tools that help people get more done with AI, without sacrificing their personal creativity or insights,” said Bank in aposton X. “And joining the Chrome team is an ideal opportunity to bring those experiences to many, many more people.” “We have some really ambitious plans to help you work with AI in Chrome to get things done, and I’ll have more to share soon,” he added. Bank originallyjoined Google in 2015after his previous startup, a scheduling app called Timeful, was acquired by the search giant. At Google, he worked in a number of different areas, including as product lead for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Chat, before eventually leaving to launch Relay. Similar to Timeful, Relay offered users productivity upgrades via workflow automation, allowing businesses to streamline repetitive tasks like document drafting and copyediting, as well as various project management tasks. TechCrunch reached out to Google and to Relay for more information. Just how Bank and others plan to further integrate AI into Chrome is a hanging question, though Bank calls Chrome “a perfect place to collaborate with agents.” The move follows a steady path of AI integration into Google’s user experience. The integration of Gemini into search has fundamentally altered Google’s front end — not to mentionthe rest of the internet. Gemini has also beenintegrated into Chrome, where it serves as an optional in-browser assistant. Overall, users seem to be responding well to these integrations, as Google recently reported that Geminihad crested 1 billion users.
