Most AI tools wait to be told what to do. Sol, from Sol Foundry Inc., finds the commitments expressed in Gmail, does the work needed and comes back for approval.

SAN FRANCISCO: Today, Sol emerged from stealth with $4 million in funding from General Catalyst, Nexus Venture Partners, DeVC, Peercheque and Kunal Shah. Sol built a proactive AI around a simple premise: if you have already said you will do something, shouldn’t there be an AI that starts doing them instead of waiting for you to tell it?

The work can include researching, creating documents, building slides, scheduling time and drafting replies. The user retains final approval. A promise to send analysis can become research and a document; a promise to align can become a scheduled meeting; a request for a plan can become a presentation.

Sol is designed for people whose work runs through high volumes of email, including founders, executives and professionals in sales, marketing, consulting, recruiting, and agencies. Instead of requiring users to remember every follow-up, create tasks manually or repeatedly prompt an assistant, Sol finds the commitments already expressed in their emails and gets the work moving.

The obvious missing product

People make commitments in email all day: “I’ll send the analysis,” “I’ll share the proposal,” “I’ll review,” “I’ll set up the meeting,” “I’ll get back to you.” The work that follows is then scattered across threads, documents, calendars and research. Yet most AI tools wait for the user to formulate a prompt or manually assign a task - even when the next job is already obvious from what the user has said.

Sol is built to be the product that should already exist: an assistant that recognizes a stated commitment and gets the work behind it moving. It replaces the gap between “I said I’d do it” and “it is done” with a visible, user-approved workflow.

“People whose work runs through email often have to repeat themselves: first in email, then again when they ask an AI to act. There’s no good reason for that. If I’ve already said I’ll do something, there should be an AI that gets started on it.
We shouldn’t have to become experts in AI to benefit from it. AI should learn how to use the right tools and skills behind the scenes, so people can focus on the work they’re uniquely good at while Sol does the heavy lifting and gives them a simple way to approve or edit the work.”
- Anish Karan, CEO of Sol

Akarsh Shrivastava, partner at General Catalyst commented: “When we first met Anish, Prateek and Ranjith, we were blown away by the impact they had made together. Anish is a second-time founder and one of the sharpest product minds we’ve worked with, turning referrals into a top growth channel for eighteen months in a market where they rarely work.” He continued: “Sol’s problem is simple and deeply felt: if you’ve said you’ll do something, AI should already be doing it. Their consumer obsession and design philosophy stood out to us, and that’s exactly what this moment needs.”

Jishnu Bhattacharjee, Partner, Nexus Venture Partners shared, “What got us excited about Sol is that Anish and team are building AI that just knows when to act and proactively does the right things. There is no learning curve, it’s AI that just works.”

Finds and does the work it takes

Sol is not limited to drafting replies. Once it identifies a commitment and its context, it can create the supporting work the commitment calls for: documents, presentations, research and meeting coordination. The product is designed for the difference between an unanswered email and a finished outcome.

To do that reliably across multi-step work, Sol operates in its own computer environment, can use a browser, and draws on a growing library of more than 100 specialist skills. Those capabilities let it gather context and work across the tools a commitment touches; the user remains at the approval point before anything final is sent, scheduled or shared.

To take a few examples

• You said you'd send over a deck for the upcoming leadership meet, Sol spots this, gathers the required context and builds the deck - you approve/edit before it gets sent.
• You were asked to share agreements to move the deal forward - Sol notices this, gathers the required context, finds past agreements and creates the required agreements - you approve/edit before it gets sent.
• You said you'd set up time with a colleague, Sol proactively looks up respective calendars and finds the available and suitable time slots - you approve/pick the slot before it gets scheduled.

Founded by Anish Karan, Prateek Srivastava & Ranjith Nair, Sol is initially available through selective access and a waitlist at hellosol.app. The company plans to extend general access soon.

About Sol:
Sol is a proactive AI from Sol Foundry Inc. that finds commitments expressed in email, does the work and comes back for your approval. Rather than waiting for users to prompt it, Sol identifies commitments and starts the work needed to fulfill them, from research and documents to presentations and meeting coordination, while keeping users in control of the final outcome. Founded by Anish Karan, Prateek Srivastava and Ranjith Nair, Sol is backed by General Catalyst, Nexus Venture Partners, DeVC, Peercheque and Kunal Shah.

Fonte: Business Wire