By Krystal Hu
(Reuters) – Artificial intelligence storytelling startup Tome has seen its user numbers triple in a month to 3 million and is planning to launch a paid subscription in the coming weeks, Chief Executive Keith Peiris told Reuters, as AI products grow in popularity.
Tome is also adding a document-to-presentation feature powered by GPT-4, the latest foundation model released by Microsoft-backed OpenAI. The feature enables users to turn a document of up to 25 pages into AI-generated slides with text and soon photos, competing head-to-head with Microsoft’s AI “Copilot”. Tome is one of many AI productivity startups that are in a race with the Big Tech such as Microsoft and Google to release AI-powered products, which could change the way people write and communicate at work.
“It’s a push into work and enterprise use cases for us after all the demand we’ve seen,” said Peiris, co-founder of Tome. “We want to use AI to shape and aid in every part of the process of taking an idea in your head and then translating it to a compelling story.” The user growth and product launch came as the San Francisco-based company raised $43 million in a funding round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners last month at a $300 million valuation. It also counts Greylock and Coatue as its backers. Tome’s product is currently free to use, while it will soon launch a paid tier that costs about $10 a month to guarantee unlimited access for users, Peiris said. It serves many startup clients as well as college students.
“Startups tend to be faster, moving, iterating and deploying new technologies because they don’t have an existing customer base,” said Reid Hoffman, partner at Greylock that invested in Tome, who also sits on the board of Microsoft.
(Reporting by Krystal Hu in New York; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
