Former Google AI experts secure funding from Thrive Capital.

Former Google AI researchers, Ashish Vaswani and Niki Parmar, who authored the paper that led to the generative AI boom, have raised $8 million for their new startup Essential AI, which aims to build software for enterprises to use large language models. Thrive Capital led the funding round, with Conviction and angel investor Elad Gil also participating. Essential AI is not in direct competition with Adept AI, a company the duo also co-founded in 2021.