Walmart tech vet, AI2 research scientists are behind new Seattle startup Spiffy (GeekWire)

A group of “LLM hipsters” are behind a new AI startup in Seattle emerging from stealth mode and aiming to rethink how retail companies engage with customers. … Spiffy CEO Aniket Deosthali previously helped Walmart build its generative AI-powered shopping assistant. The company’s other co-founders include: … Sameer Singh, CTO, joined AI2 in 2021 as an AI fellow, and is an associate professor of computer science at UC Irvine.

Spiffy’s core technology traces its roots to research at AI2.

“They had this vision that generic, large language models like ChatGPT just weren’t going to cut it when it came to solving substantive problems for businesses,” Deosthali said of his co-founders.

Spiffy is developing what it describes as “Outcome-Oriented Models,” a version of AI that is hyper-personalized and continuously improves toward a goal.

The idea is to equip retailers and their customer-facing workers with custom AI tools that don’t require extensive budgets to train models and run advanced graphics processing units.

Spiffy sees opportunities to help retailers of all sizes change the way they think about their customer service workforce — and not necessarily by replacing them, but by enhancing their workflow.

“Humans are often looked at as a cost center in organizations,” Deosthali said. “Our belief is that humans with AI can create opportunities to reimagine that fundamental assumption.”

Read the full article in GeekWire.