AI Will No Longer Just Answer, It Will Manage People: Humans&'s Bold Claim

Let's be honest, our current AI assistants couldn't convince anyone in a team meeting. They can't get you to choose a logo, negotiate a budget, or even get you to say, 'let's postpone this meeting.' It's at this exact point that a startup called Humans& has burst onto the scene saying, "Hold on, we're going to solve this." And they're not just saying it; they've also managed to secure $480 million in seed funding to finance their project. Yes, you heard that right. An incredible amount for a company that's only three months old and doesn't even have a product yet.

Team Dynamics and AI: Why Are We Still Failing?

Today's AIs answer questions, summarize documents, even solve math equations. Great. But all of this paints a picture of an obedient digital servant catering to a single user. Real life, especially work life, is much more complex than that. Conflicting priorities, decisions stuck in limbo, team cohesion that fades over time... That's the real issue. Where is AI in this chaotic human coordination task? The answer: Almost nowhere.

The founders of Humans& are names who have previously worked at places like Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Google DeepMind. This team's thesis is clear: "The next big leap in foundation models will be in the field of social intelligence and coordination." So, the next evolution of AI might not be about giving us smarter answers, but rather about enabling us to work together more intelligently.

So What Exactly Will This 'Central Nervous System' Do?

The company's CEO and a former xAI researcher, Eric Zelikman, explains the topic with a very simple example: "When a large group needs to make a decision, usually someone gathers everyone in a room and has everyone express their different camps on, say, which logo they want." He and his team laugh, remembering the time loss and tedium caused by reaching an agreement on their startup's logo.

This is precisely the kind of process Humans& aims to manage with a system they want to build. The product isn't clear yet, but they're talking about something that could replace multi-user communication and collaboration platforms like Slack, Google Docs, or Notion. There's an approach targeting both corporate and individual users. As we touched upon in our article titled Davos 2026: How Did the World Economic Forum Transform into a Technology Summit?, the discussion is about how technology and human-centric business models are shaping the global agenda. Humans&'s vision is exactly a part of this global transformation.

Where Will the $480 Million Go? (And Is That Much Money Deserved?)

This is the most crucial question. This is one of the largest seed investments we've ever heard of. The founding team's background and their story of "AI shouldn't take people's jobs, it should empower them" seem to have attracted investors. However, there is no concrete product at the moment. There's only a philosophy and a claim.

This situation reminds me of the metaverse craze in the early 2020s. Everyone believed we were on the brink of something, but no one could quite show what it was. Humans& plans to use this massive funding to develop a new foundational model architecture, not just a chat bot, to avoid falling into the same trap. So they want to build the infrastructure from scratch, for 'social intelligence.' This is a much more challenging task than just writing code.

As the other founder, Andi Peng, said, "We are reaching the end of the first paradigm where question-answer models trained to be very intelligent in specific areas are scaling." They think the second wave will be the wave of figuring out what this technology is good for in daily life. They might be right. We all have incredibly capable tools at our disposal, but we still spend hours trying to schedule a meeting date via email chains at the office.

Final Word: Between Optimism and Skepticism

The Humans& project is exciting. If they succeed, they could fundamentally change the way we work. However, $480 million brings an incredible burden of expectation. Investors must be expecting not just a good collaboration tool, but something that will redefine the future of AI.

Let me close like this: The next time you're lost in an email thread or bored in an interminable Zoom meeting, think of Humans&. Maybe one day we'll be able to say, "Hey AI, gather this team and get them to agree on this project." Until that day comes, good luck Humans&. May your money be enough for you.