Draft:Contextual AI
{{AFC submission|d|corp|u=Conscious AI-ML|ns=118|decliner=Ca|declinets=20250529035812|ts=20250508094451}}
{{AFC comment|1=Nearly all of the cited articles are quote-heavy churnalism or press releases. Ca talk to me! 03:58, 29 May 2025 (UTC)}}
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{{Short description|American enterprise software company}}
{{Draft topics|internet-culture|software|business-and-economics|technology}}
{{AfC topic|org}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Contextual AI
| logo = Official Logo. Contextual AI.png
| type = Privately held company
| industry = Information technology
| founded = {{Start date|2023}}
| founders = Douwe Kiela, Amanpreet Singh
| location = Mountain View, California, U.S.
| revenue =
| num_employees = 95
| website = {{URL|https://contextual.ai/}}
}}
Contextual AI is an enterprise software company{{Cite web |last=Singhal |first=Rahul |date=November 30, 2023 |title=The Power Of RAG: How Retrieval-Augmented Generation Enhances Generative AI |url=https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/11/30/the-power-of-rag-how-retrieval-augmented-generation-enhances-generative-ai/ |website=Forbes}} based in Mountain View, California. It develops a platform for building{{Cite web |last=Wiggers |first=Kyle |date=June 7, 2023 |title=Contextual AI launches from stealth to build enterprise-focused language models |url=https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/07/contextual-ai-launches-from-stealth-to-build-enterprise-focused-language-models/ |website=TechCrunch}} specialized Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) agents for enterprise use.{{Cite web |last=Wolfberg |first=Elias |date=August 29, 2024 |title=From RAG to Richness: Startup Uplevels Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Enterprises |url=https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/contextual-ai-retrieval-augmented-generation/ |website=NVIDIA}} The company was founded in 2023 by Douwe Kiela and Amanpreet Singh, both former AI researchers at Facebook AI Research (FAIR){{Cite web |last=Franzen |first=Carl |date=June 7, 2023 |title=Contextual AI emerges from stealth with $20M to pursue 'artificial specialized intelligence' |url=https://venturebeat.com/ai/contextual-ai-20m-artificial-specialized-intelligence/ |website=VentureBeat}} and Hugging Face.{{Cite web |date=January 28, 2025 |title=Build specialized RAG agents with Contextual AI |url=https://cerebralvalley.ai/blog/build-specialized-rag-agents-with-contextual-ai-50FktwkjnHG4gqo47j84Su |website=Cerebral Valley}}{{Cite web |last=Newcomer |first=Eric |date=June 7, 2023 |title=Former Facebook Research Scientists Raise $20 Million Seed Round for Enterprise Foundation Model Startup |url=https://www.newcomer.co/p/former-facebook-research-scientist |website=www.newcomer.co}} Douwe Kiela previously led the Meta research team{{Cite web |last=Kiela |first=Douwe |date=March 20, 2025 |title=Snowflake Startup Spotlight: Contextual AI |url=https://www.snowflake.com/en/blog/startup-spotlight-contextual/ |website=Snowflake}} that introduced the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) approach in 2020.{{Cite arXiv |last1=Douwe |first1=Kiela |last2=Lewis |first2=Patrick |last3=Perez |first3=Ethan |last4=Piktus |first4=Aleksandra |last5=Petroni |first5=Fabio |last6=Karpukhin |first6=Vladimir |last7=Goyal |first7=Naman |last8=Küttler |first8=Heinrich |last9=Lewis |first9=Mike |last10=Yih |first10=Wen-tau |last11=Rocktäschel |first11=Tim |last12=Riedel |first12=Sebastian |date= 2020|title=Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks |class=cs.CL |eprint=2005.11401 }}{{Cite web |last=Gain |first=Vish |date=August 2, 2024 |title=San Francisco's Contextual AI raises $80m to scale platform |url=https://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/contextual-ai-funding-series-a-douwe-kiela-rag-platform |website=Silicon Republic}}{{Cite web |last1=Kiela |first1=Douwe |last2=Riedel |first2=Sebastian |last3=Lewis |first3=Patrick |last4=Piktus |first4=Aleksandra |date=September 28, 2020 |title=Retrieval Augmented Generation: Streamlining the creation of intelligent natural language processing models |url=https://ai.meta.com/blog/retrieval-augmented-generation-streamlining-the-creation-of-intelligent-natural-language-processing-models/ |website=Meta}}
Contextual AI focuses on enterprise generative AI applications using RAG 2.0 technology,{{Cite web |last=Bridgwater |first=Adrian |date=January 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Specialized Agents, Even More Raggy than RAG |url=https://techstrong.ai/agentic-ai/contextual-ai-specialized-agents-even-more-raggy-than-rag/ |website=Techstrong.ai}} with deployments primarily in the technology, banking, finance and media sectors.{{Cite web |last=Patangia |first=Pahal |date=October 28, 2024 |title=Fintech Leaders Tap Generative AI for Safer, Faster, More Accurate Financial Services |url=https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/generative-ai-financial-services/ |website=NVIDIA}}
History
In June 2023, Contextual AI announced it had raised $20 million in a seed funding round led by Bain Capital Ventures (BCV), with participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Greycroft, SV Angel, and several angel investors.
In August 2024, the company raised{{Cite news |date=August 2, 2024 |title=Contextual AI raise $80m to advance AI model enhancement tools |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/contextual-ai-raise-80m-advance-101506890.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKiDNVzah14AfFP3XLtWsMrcYa9aMtXCA4DPKk6ddL4wjxpvCeqIX3nXrEbv5fL5QrdPWcosrZOJU6woWGZHhnqHS2aV-LT7MpcyjyY6ku2rrMscQivr_99dUOtMo36XwBddEERTM7Z3aRsvK1c492a6ItAfD48hWYHWUn7FqBKl&guccounter=2 |work=Yahoo Finance}} $80 million in a Series A funding round led by Greycroft,{{Cite web |last=Vu |first=Marcie |date=August 1, 2024 |title=Expanding Our Investment in Contextual AI |url=https://www.greycroft.com/perspectives/expanding-our-investment-in-contextual-ai |website=Greycroft}} with participation from previous investors{{Cite web |last=Cai |first=Kenrick |date=August 1, 2024 |title=Contextual AI raises $80 mln for model-enhancing technique |url=https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/contextual-ai-raises-80-mln-model-enhancing-technique-2024-08-01/ |website=Reuters}} including Bain Capital Ventures, Lightspeed, and Conviction Partners.{{Cite web |last=Mehra |first=Amrit |date=August 2, 2024 |title=Contextual AI Raises $80M Amid Several Business Partnerships |url=https://www.techdogs.com/tech-news/td-newsdesk/contextual-ai-raises-80m-amid-several-business-partnerships |website=TechDogs}}{{Cite web |last=Fink |first=Charlie |date=August 9, 2024 |title=Contextual AI Raises $80 Million, Judge Calls Google A Monopolist, Bytedance Intros Jimeng Text-To-Video AI |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/charliefink/2024/08/09/contextual-ai-raises-80-million-google-is-a-monopolist-bytedance-intros-jimeng-text-to-video-ai/ |website=Forbes}} The round also included new backers such as Bezos Expeditions, NVentures (Nvidia), HSBC Ventures, and Snowflake Ventures.{{Cite web |last=Deutscher |first=Maria |date=August 2, 2024 |title=Contextual AI nabs $80M for its 'RAG 2.0' platform |url=https://siliconangle.com/2024/08/02/contextual-ai-nabs-80m-rag-2-0-platform/ |website=SiliconANGLE}}
Features
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is an artificial intelligence framework that integrates information retrieval with text generation to improve the performance{{Cite web |last=Gutierrez |first=Felix |date=January 3, 2024 |title=Understanding Retrieval Augmented Generation |url=https://felixvidalgu.medium.com/understanding-retrieval-augmented-generation-659093931289 |website=Medium}} of large language models (LLMs) on complex, knowledge-intensive tasks.{{Cite web |last=Xu |first=Sherlock |date=January 25, 2024 |title=Understanding Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Part 1 |url=https://www.bentoml.com/blog/understanding-retrieval-augmented-generation-part-1 |website=BentoML}} It was introduced in 2020 by researchers at Meta AI, including Douwe Kiela, Patrick Lewis and others, in their paper Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Tasks. RAG enables language models to access{{Cite web |date=April 24, 2025 |title=Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) |url=https://www.promptingguide.ai/techniques/rag |website=Prompt Engineering Guide}} and incorporate external information, such as proprietary databases or real-time web content, at query time, instead of relying solely on pre-trained, internal, static knowledge.{{Cite web |last=DataStax Developers |date=October 13, 2023 |title=Where did Retrieval Augmented Generation come from, and where is it going? |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x24WTsguDGg |website=YouTube}} This architecture addresses common limitations of standard LLMs, including hallucination,{{Cite web |last=Sankar |first=S. |date=February 13, 2024 |title=Retrieval Augmented Generation(RAG) - A quick and comprehensive introduction |url=https://medium.com/@AIBites/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag-a-quick-and-comprehensive-introduction-6cd5217a4ebb |website=Medium}}{{Cite web |last=Mellor |first=Chris |date=August 8, 2024 |title=WEKA helps Contextual AI get rid of chatbot hallucinations |url=https://blocksandfiles.com/2024/08/08/weka-helps-contextual-ai-get-rid-of-chatbot-hallucinations/ |website=Blocks & Files}} outdated information, and lack of attribution to source materials. RAG systems retrieve relevant context through a variety of techniques - including vector search, keyword search, text-to-SQL - and feeds this context into the language model to generate responses.{{Cite web |last=Casey |first=Matt |date=August 15, 2024 |title=RAG: LLM performance boost with retrieval-augmented generation |url=https://snorkel.ai/large-language-models/rag-retrieval-augmented-generation/ |website=Snorkel}} The approach improves factual accuracy, supports domain-specific customization, enables citation of sources, and allows for more updated information without retraining the model itself.{{Cite web |last=Turck |first=Matt |date=March 6, 2025 |title=Top AI Researcher on GPT 4.5, DeepSeek and Agentic RAG {{!}} Douwe Kiela, CEO, Contextual AI |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1QycrXdfeE |website=The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck}}{{Cite web |last=Turow |first=Jon |date=March 26, 2025 |title=RAG Inventor Talks Agents, Grounded AI, and Enterprise Impact |url=https://www.madrona.com/rag-inventor-talks-agents-grounded-ai-and-enterprise-impact/ |website=Madrona}}
General Availability. In January 2025, Contextual AI announced the general availability{{Cite news |date=January 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Announces General Availability of Its Enterprise Platform for Building Specialized RAG Agents |url=https://finance.yahoo.com/news/contextual-ai-announces-general-availability-140000271.html?guccounter=1 |work=Yahoo Finance}} of its enterprise platform for building specialized RAG agents.{{Cite news |date=January 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Announces General Availability of Its Enterprise Platform for Building Specialized RAG Agents |url=https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/25/01/n43002212/contextual-ai-announces-general-availability-of-its-enterprise-platform-for-building-specialized-r |work=Benzinga}} Benchmark results showed that the platform outperformed GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.{{Cite web |last=Wheatley |first=Mike |date=January 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI launches RAG 2.0 platform to aid in the development of domain-specific AI agents |url=https://siliconangle.com/2025/01/15/contextual-ai-launches-rag-2-0-platform-aid-development-domain-specific-ai-agents/ |website=SiliconANGLE}}{{Cite news |date=January 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Announces General Availability of Its Enterprise Platform for Building Specialized RAG Agents |url=https://fox8.com/business/press-releases/cision/20250115SF96900/contextual-ai-announces-general-availability-of-its-enterprise-platform-for-building-specialized-rag-agents/ |work=Fox 8 News}} Early adopters included Qualcomm, which used the platform for their Customer Engineering team needs.{{Cite news |date=Jan 15, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Announces General Availability of Its Enterprise Platform for Building Specialized RAG Agents |url=https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/contextual-ai-announces-general-availability-of-its-enterprise-platform-for-building-specialized-rag-agents-302351575.html |work=PR Newswire}}
Grounded Language Model. In March 2025, the company introduced a Grounded Language Model (GLM){{Cite web |last=Nuñez |first=Michael |date=March 4, 2025 |title=Contextual AI's new AI model crushes GPT-4o in accuracy — here's why it matters |url=https://venturebeat.com/ai/contextual-ais-new-ai-model-crushes-gpt-4o-in-accuracy-heres-why-it-matters/ |website=VentureBeat}} for factual accuracy in enterprise AI applications. The model achieved an 88% factuality score on the FACTS benchmark - surpassing OpenAI's GPT-4o, Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet, and Google's Gemini 2.0 Flash.{{Cite web |last=Grlowe |first=John |date=March 9, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Introduces Its GLM, a Grounded Language Model, Designed to Surpass GPT-4o in Accuracy |url=https://medium.com/@ioq1bowuv/contextual-ai-introduces-its-glm-a-grounded-language-model-designed-to-surpass-gpt-4o-in-accuracy-6ba7175f4484 |website=Medium}}
Reranker. In March 2025, Contextual AI released an instruction-following reranker{{Cite news |date=March 11, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Launches World's First Instruction-Following Reranker |url=https://apnews.com/press-release/pr-newswire/contextual-ai-launches-worlds-first-instruction-following-reranker-ecb56585dc31bee5968c13d7000f30b3 |work=Associated Press}} that allows users to influence the ranking of retrieved documents through natural language instructions, such as prioritizing recent files, specific formats, or content from designated sources.{{Cite news |date=March 11, 2025 |title=Contextual AI Launches World's First Instruction-Following Reranker |url=https://seekingalpha.com/pr/20030352-contextual-ai-launches-worlds-first-instruction-following-reranker |work=Seeking Alpha}}
Applications
Contextual AI's platform has been adopted across a range of industries, including finance, technology, media and professional services. Clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Qualcomm{{Cite web |date=2025 |title=Contextual AI's Customers |url=https://www.cbinsights.com/company/contextual-ai/customers |website=CB Insights}} and HSBC.
Reception
In 2025, Fast Company named{{Cite web |last=Sullivan |first=Mark |date=March 18, 2025 |title=The most innovative companies in applied AI for 2025 |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/91268960/applied-ai-most-innovative-companies-2025 |website=Fast Company}} Contextual AI among the most innovative companies in its Applied AI category.
References
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{{Draft categories|
:Category:Artificial intelligence companies