tech
January 25, 2026
Humans& thinks coordination is the next frontier for AI, and they're building a model to prove it
Humans&, a new startup founded by alumni of Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Google DeepMind, is building the next generation of foundation models for collaboration, not chat.
TL;DR
- Humans&, a startup founded by former employees of major AI companies, raised $480 million in seed funding.
- The company aims to build AI with social intelligence for collaboration, going beyond current chatbot functions.
- Their goal is to create a "central nervous system" for the human-plus-AI economy, addressing coordination challenges in teams.
- The new AI model will be trained using long-horizon and multi-agent reinforcement learning for planning and coordination.
- Humans& intends to own the collaboration layer, potentially replacing or enhancing tools like Slack and Google Docs.
- Despite having no product yet, the startup has attracted significant funding based on its founding team's pedigree and vision.