Ollie 隐私导向 AI 助手将于 11 月 6 日关闭
Ollie, a privacy-focused AI assistant, is shutting down
隐私导向 AI 助手 Ollie 将在 11 月 6 日正式关闭，CEO Bill Lennon 称竞争加剧使公司难以脱颖而出、扩大用户并获得所需资本。Ollie 采用订阅制，可连接邮件和日历，并提供预约、膳食计划和账单支付功能；公司曾于 9 月完成由 Khosla Ventures 领投的 $7.5 million 种子轮融资。客户将在随后几天收到数据导出和退款说明。
文章将 Ollie 的产品功能、融资情况、关停原因和用户善后放在一起，呈现隐私助手在竞争与融资压力下的经营困境。
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 X on 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 market has exploded over the past year, as the increasingly powerful models that undergird such applications have made them significantly more useful for daily tasks.
Ollie, which discussed its $7.5 million seed round led from 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 like Instinct have shown.
Ultimately, the pressures of the burgeoning AI industry had taken its 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.
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Lucas is a senior writer at TechCrunch, where he covers artificial intelligence, consumer tech, and startups. He previously covered AI and cybersecurity at Gizmodo. You can contact Lucas by emailing [email protected].
来源：TechCrunch · techcrunch.com