Ollie, a privacy-focused AI assistant, is shutting down
Ollie, a startup whose mission was to deliver an AI assistant that respected its users’ privacy, says that it will be shutting down in a week. Bill Lennon, the company’s co-founder and CEO,took to Xon Friday to deliver the news, noting that the app will officially shut down on November 6. “I’m really proud of what we accomplished,” Lennon said. “We built an incredible personal assistant with a small team, and learned a ton. I’m grateful to our amazing team, our users, our investors, and everyone who supported us on this journey.” The text-based AI assistant markethas explodedover the past year, as the increasingly powerful models that undergird such applications have made them significantly more useful for daily tasks. Ollie, which discussedits $7.5 million seed roundled by Khosla Ventures with TechCrunch in September, offered a subscription-based model. The assistant was focused on helping families stay connected and organized. The app connected to a user’s email and calendar, while also providing integrated functions to help with appointment bookings, meal planning, and bill payments. The company had also planned to eventually move into household budgeting. Crucially, Ollie was one of the first mainstream apps that managed to achieve SOC 2, a privacy compliance standard that companies can attain via an independent audit. Unfortunately, user privacy has never been a hugely profitable aspect of the tech industry. If anything, many new digital assistants present unique privacy challenges for their users — as companies likeInstinct have shown. Ultimately, the pressures of the burgeoning AI industry took a toll on the company, Lennon said. “We got close, but ultimately couldn’t keep up,” he added. “With Muse, Instinct, and others entering the space, it became harder to stand out, grow, and raise the capital we needed to succeed.” Ollie’s customers will receive instructions on how to export data and receive refunds in the coming days, Lennon added.
