Coda and Grammarly Merge to Build User-Centered AI Productivity Platform

The newly merged productivity tool company aims to build a user-centered AI platform with integrated agents across various applications.

### The Future of Productivity: User-Centered AI and Competitive Innovation
* 🚀 The leaders of both companies united to share their vision for the future of productivity, which focused on **user-centered AI** and **collaborative applications**.
* 🤖 They foresee a shift away from **isolated and rigid applications** towards tools that **adapt to individual users, their teams, and roles**.
* 🌐 One major innovation discussed is the integration of **over 500,000 applications** with Grammarly, creating what the Grammarly team refers to as an "**AI superhighway**."
* ✉ The goal is to transform the Grammarly toolset from just proofreading to a **comprehensive platform** that assists in **drafting emails**, **structuring customer conversations**, and **updating CRM systems**.
* 🏢 The discussion also touched on the alignment of goals between the two companies, including aspirations for an IPO, with a focus on **building a long-lasting company** rather than just a **quick exit**.
* 🌟 The leadership believes they can become **one of the top three or four companies** recognized for AI tools, leveraging their **combined strengths and innovative approaches**.
* 📈 With a new CTO from Instacart and a CFO with a YouTube background, the company is **poised for growth** in a competitive landscape filled with both **startups and established tech giants**.

So, coming together, productivity tools. What do you offer as one? Yeah, I'm really excited about this opportunity. Kota joining us. Currently, I've been a personal user of the product for many years, really drawn to the innovative approach and passionate people.

But the reason this happened was the leaders of both companies got together and just painted our vision for the future; what we saw as the future of productivity.

And it just turned out that our views were nearly identical. We both saw the technology evolving to what we call user-centered AI.

And a future world where the applications we use won't feel as isolated, siloed, or rigid as the ones we're using today. Instead, they'll be really focused on the user, adapted to each person, their teams, and their roles.

So we're going to be building a user-centered AI platform of the future focused on applications and agents for everybody. It's a competitive space. I hear "agents" being named by startups and large publicly traded businesses alike.

And I hear of, you know, Apple trying to integrate, trying to make my email flow easier. How are you going to compete against big tech as well as startups? Yeah, I mean, maybe just start with the term "agent." I know it's a hot term everyone is using these days.

One of the big innovations that
apparently is being worked on is that instead of forcing you to go to some other
place, it follows you into every different surface, about 500,000
different applications that have been integrated with Grammarly.
One of the terms that the Grammarly team

likes to use that I really loved
is the idea that they built this AI superhighway, and it's the gateway to
have agents actually work with you in every other tool.
But one observation is, right now, there's sort of only one car running on that
highway: the Grammarly toolset

today.
It's amazing. But what it does is just help you with
your proofreading. And one of the things we're going to do
is we're going to take one of the most popular Coda product parts.
We call it Coda Brain, which is a

network of hundreds of integrations into
all of your back-end systems. And we're going to turn them into agents on
this platform. So what you can imagine is, instead of
interacting with Grammarly as just a proofreading
agent, you can imagine that now the

suggestions that come to you will help
you draft and send emails, can help you structure customer conversations, can
help you update your CRM systems, and we can really bring agents right to the
user. That's one of the main things
we'll be working to share.

You said how the goals of the two
companies were basically completely aligned.
Is the IPO goal also aligned? When you're looking at the changes made—a great new CTO from Instacart, your CFO coming from, she called, you with your
background at YouTube.

But big companies as well as startups, it looks as though you're destined for an IPO. You know, I think the goal is to build an enduring company. And I think that in this sort of crazy world and everything we work on, I think there's a very small list of companies

that can have that meaningful platform to really be that future of... I think the approach of Grammarly and now with code, I think we can really be at the forefront of that. And yeah, we'd like to be one of those top

three or four companies that people think of when they think about the AI tools for their world.

Coda and Grammarly's AI Agent Future

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Discussion about the merger of two productivity tool companies and their shared vision for the future of user-centered AI.

Kota joins the company, excited about the innovative approach and passionate people.

The merger stemmed from a shared vision between the leaders of both companies regarding the future of productivity.

Both companies envision a future of user-centered AI, where applications are more adaptable and personalized.

Addressing the competitive landscape and how the merged company plans to compete with big tech and startups in the "agent" space.

Discussion on the term "agent" and its prevalence in the industry.

Grammarly's AI superhighway analogy is mentioned, highlighting its integration with numerous applications but limited functionality.

The plan to leverage Coda Brain's integrations to create more functional agents on the platform.

Discussion about the long-term goals of the merged company, including the possibility of an IPO.

Question about whether the IPO goal is shared between the two companies.

The focus is on building an enduring company and becoming a leader in the AI tools space.

The ambition to be among the top companies people associate with AI tools.