While artificial intelligence has become more and more ubiquitous in the last year, most Americans have a way to go before they’re comfortable using the tech, according to the Pew Research Center.
Newly launched startup Superintelligent is betting it can solve this problem and help more people master using AI in their work and personal lives. The company just exited stealth with $2 million in pre-seed funding from Learn Capital, an edtech-focused VC fund.
Based in New York, Superintelligent is a learning platform designed to help people understand how to use AI tools. Users watch short videos, ranging from three to seven minutes, on AI-related topics. The startup uploads at least 50 new video tutorials a week and offers accompanying step-by-step instruction guides to help users master topics such as using AI meeting tools, building a chatbot, and editing images with OpenAI’s DALL-E.
Superintelligent has been operating in beta since 2023 and has grown to 1,500 users ahead of its launch, the startup said. It costs $20 per month or $192 per year, and the startup distributes a weekly newsletter that makes a small number of tutorials temporarily free.
Nathaniel Whittemore, founder and CEO of Superintelligent — and a former principal at Learn Capital from 2011 to 2012 — explained that as AI becomes an increasingly important skill in the workplace, Superintelligent is providing crucial learning opportunities for employees to stay ahead of the game.
“Two forces are at play here,” the told Business Insider. “There’s a feeling of urgency to learn advanced skills to compete in a rapidly changing job market and work environment. At the same time, there’s a more aspirational sense of opportunity to get ahead of what will be the most significant change in how we work in our lifetime.”
These forces have made AI-related edtech a “need to have” rather than a “nice to have,” Whittemore said.
“I think AI-related online education will massively outstrip the demand for the aggregate for all other types of online education,” he said. “People who never would have cared about taking an online course before will 100% find themselves looking for online tools for learning AI.”
There aren’t other startups on the market that help people learn to use AI, and a deep understanding of the tech has long been synonymous with advanced technical degrees and highly paid computer-engineering roles.
Instead, some AI startups have taken pains to be über user-friendly, such as OpenAI, which runs the wildly popular AI chatbot ChatGPT. Through the GPT Store, paying users can further customize their ChatGPT experience with tools ranging from no-code website building to AI research assistants.
More broadly, AI is providing a boon to the edtech space, with startups such as Lirvana Labs, which provides AI learning for kids; Curipod, which lets teachers create AI lesson plans; and AI-powered study assistants Digest.ai and FoondMate all raising funding recently.
As he looks to the rest of the year, Whittemore says he’s focused on making an enterprise version of Superintelligent available to employers as well as building more AI tools into the platform itself, such as the ability to help users find relevant courses.
Check out the 13-slide pitch deck Superintelligent used to raise its pre-seed funding round.
