As AI tools flood the workplace, Teammates introduces the first platform for building a true virtual workforce: AI colleagues that collaborate, learn, and grow alongside people.

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

After a year of look-alike copilots and endless brittle workflow automations, Oakland-based Teammates is launching with a new vision for AI at work. Instead of following the standard playbook of “faster, cheaper, and more efficient” the company is betting that what people really want are virtual colleagues that feel human: collaborative, intuitive, and most notably, remarkably fun to have around.

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Teammates’ virtual employees operate less like software tools and more like members of the team. There are no drag and drop flow charts or complicated workflow generators. Instead, Teammates hang out in Slack and Teams just like any remote employee. They get company email addresses, LinkedIn profiles, Salesforce and GitHub accounts, and they operate thousands of applications across all the departments in an organization.

They’re smart, capable, and delightful enough to make you forget they’re made of code.

Founded in 2024 by CEO Ben Stein and CTO Kenneth Hoxworth, and backed by Matrix Partners, Teammates brings decades of experience in scaling human-centric technology. As former Twilio product leaders, Stein and Hoxworth helped grow the company’s text messaging business from $5 million to more than $500 million in revenue. Stein also co-founded QuitCarbon and Mobile Commons (acquired in 2014), where he proved that the key to digital engagement isn’t more technology—it’s understanding human behavior.

Teammates is built around four principles that redefine how AI and humans work together:

Collaboration should be more than a catchphrase: Teammates can take direction from multiple humans at once and work with other Teammates to get a job done. They ask questions, work together to solve problems, and will assign tasks back to their human counterparts when necessary. They even show up in the comments on Google Docs. It’s “multi-player mode” for AI agents.

Autonomy is the new automation: The tasks that deliver the greatest value to businesses are often too nuanced for the most advanced workflow builders. Teammates thrive in that complexity. Give them a goal like “monitor the news for stories that could impact our business. Alert me about risky ones and write blog posts about the interesting ones,” and they get to work, continuously learning which topics and sources matter most. It’s proactive intelligence for the workplace.

Artificial intuition matters more than artificial intelligence: The modern workplace runs on ambiguity. Requests like “can you handle this?” or “did you get the new numbers, yet?” mean plenty to humans but almost nothing to most AI agents. Teammates are different. Over time they learn how a company operates, build an understanding of the context behind each request, and figure things out on their own—just like a real colleague would.

Software should evolve with you, not force you to adapt to it: Teammates learn and adjust to match the way you work. New style guide? No problem. CEO hates the Oxford comma? Understood. And when the company switches to a new project management platform, Teammates are up and running within minutes. No training. No setup. No slowdown.

"For the past 30 years, people have learned to work with software,” says Stein. “Teammates represents the moment software learned to work with us. They’re not replacing humans, they’re joining them and making every day work better, more productive, and honestly, more enjoyable.”

Teammates is now inviting users to design their first virtual colleague for free at teammates.work

About Teammates

Teammates is the end-to-end platform for companies to design and manage a virtual workforce. We’re pioneering a new type of virtual AI employee – fun, intuitive and able to join your team to help you get your work done right. Learn more at teammates.work.

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Source: Teammates