The beginning of the end of the transformer era? Neuro-symbolic AI startup AUI announces new funding at $750M valuation

Augmented Intelligence Inc (AUI), a NYC startup developing AI beyond transformer architecture, has raised $20 million in funding. This bridge SAFE round, completed rapidly, brings AUI's total funding close to $60 million at a $750 million valuation cap. AUI combines transformer technology with "neuro-symbolic AI," aiming for deterministic conversational AI. The funding round includes participation from various investors, building on a previous $10 million raise. AUI's foundation model, Apollo-1, is designed for task-oriented dialog, unlike open-ended LLMs. Apollo-1 uses a neuro-symbolic architecture, separating linguistic fluency from task reasoning. This architecture enables state continuity, policy enforcement, and reliable API calls, which are limitations of existing LLMs. Apollo-1 is domain-agnostic, allowing rapid onboarding for enterprises across different sectors. AUI aims to make Apollo-1 easily adoptable, deployable in standard cloud environments, and significantly more cost-efficient than other reasoning models.