On Thursday, the meeting notetaker company Read AI launched an AI-powered email-based assistant called Ada. This new tool is designed to help users manage their schedules, answer questions based on a company’s knowledge base, and reply to out-of-office emails.
Read AI describes Ada as a “digital twin” that handles tasks for you around the clock. The assistant is available to all users, who can begin configuring it by sending an email to “ada@read.ai” with the message “Get me started.”
When you ask Ada to find a meeting time with someone, it replies to the other person in the email thread with your availability. If that person indicates they are unavailable, Ada will respond with new time options. While Ada accesses your calendar through Read AI, it does not reveal the details or nature of your meetings to others.
Ada can also answer questions by drawing from a company’s knowledge base, topics discussed in your prior meetings, and public internet searches. For example, you could ask, “Ada, can you provide an update on how we are tracking for Q1 goals?” to get relevant information.
If someone else asks a question in a thread, Ada will prepare a draft response for you to review and refine before sending. The startup emphasized that Ada does not reveal any sensitive information without your explicit permission.
Read AI’s VP of Product, Justin Farris, explained that this new feature does not rely on Model Context Protocols. Instead, it builds a knowledge graph from meeting data and connected services to provide more contextual answers. He added that over time, the assistant will take proactive actions. For instance, if you mention a follow-up item in a meeting, Ada will later prompt you to set it up with all the relevant context.
CEO David Shim told TechCrunch, “The way I describe our solution is that when you are bringing on a new employee, you train them. When you add Ada to your workflow and connect more services to give more context, it starts to ramp up and handle more tasks for you.”
The company stated that while Ada currently works via email, it will soon be available on Slack and Microsoft Teams.
On the sidelines of Web Summit Qatar earlier this month, Shim shared that Read AI now has over 5 million monthly active users and plans to grow that number to 10 million. He mentioned the company sees 50,000 sign-ups daily and has a broader base of 100,000 users who consume Read AI’s content, like meeting summaries, without creating an account.
For Read AI, the United States remains the largest market, but the company is experiencing strong international growth. While 60% of users are outside the U.S., revenue is split roughly equally between domestic and international sources.
The company, which has raised over $81 million in funding, continues to add AI-powered tools to its suite. Last year, it launched Search Copilot for knowledge discovery. Last month, it added features to update customer-service software, send custom emails from within a meeting report, and stay updated on topics using internal and web knowledge.
Other meeting notetaker companies are also introducing new tools to extract more insights and actions from meeting notes. Last September, Granola added “recipes,” which are repeatable prompts to surface knowledge from meeting data. Quill, which came out of stealth this week with a $6.5 million funding round, connects to tools like Linear, Notion, and CRMs with the aim of automating tasks.