Groundbreaking AI technology capable of high EQ, intuition, and proactive engagement of a star salesperson

Today marks the public launch of Palona AI, a suite of AI solutions that accelerate the growth of D2C and other consumer facing businesses. The company also announced $10 million in seed funding from investors including UpHonest Capital, Fusion Fund, Maynard Webb, NEO Investment Partners, and other strategic angels and institutions. At its core, Palona’s mission is to give customers AI that they can trust with the most carefully crafted and important parts of any business: their brand, their customer relationships and, ultimately, their sales.

Palona develops new, proprietary AI systems with multi-agents, multimodal models, combined with an unrivaled emotional intelligence language model. The result is AI that learns about each individual customer, adapts to their needs, and takes action on their behalf with precision and accuracy. Using Palona, businesses easily create a customized “Employee of the Century” that combines soft sales skills with 24/7 availability, unlimited capacity, and infinite patience.

“We have pioneered Generative AI technology to help businesses grow by giving them AI that breathes life into their brands. Palona will replace the shopping ‘doomscroll’ with a delightfully friendly and individualized experience that builds relationships,” said Maria Zhang, CEO and co-founder of Palona. “Building relationships with customers requires a precise mix of human skills that even the best salespeople train for years to achieve. We captured that skillset and turned it into models and actions our AI Agents can consistently perform.”

A Winning Track Record in AI

Palona AI is led by industry leaders with a long history of leading tier-one AI engineering and research teams as well as creating billions of dollars in business value. The company’s founders include:

• Maria Zhang - Former VP of Engineering at Google, VP/GM of the AI for Products group at Meta, and CTO of Tinder. Maria also founded Alike, acquired by Yahoo in 2013.
• Steve Liu - Former Chief Scientist at Samsung AI Center and Tinder. Tenured professor at McGill University; Associate Academic Member at MILA; Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering; Fellow of the IEEE; Chair of ACM SIGBED. Steve authored/co-authored over 390 papers in top referenced computer science publications.
• Tim Howes - Co-Inventor of LDAP, the internet directory protocol, Co-founder of LoudCloud and OpsWare, sold to HP in 2007 for $1.65B. Former CTO at both Netscape and HP Software. Rockmelt Co-Founder and CTO. Most recently he led Developer Productivity at Meta AI Infrastructure.

Their collective experience in building high-performance AI systems ensures Palona’s ability to deliver reliable, scalable solutions that are at once cutting-edge, useful, and durable.

Palona supercharges day-one sales conversions, volume, and cart size by training on a brand’s product catalog and knowledge base. The technology helps customers like Wyze and MINDZERO serve their current users and convert prospects into recurring subscriptions. Wyze is a popular smart home camera company, while MINDZERO is an innovative wellness studio specializing in contrast therapies and mindfulness.

“I’ve always wished that I could personally connect with every customer to share why they should choose our camera and CamPlus plan. Palona has made that possible with the Wyze Wizard AI Agent, delivering the curated, personalized buying journey I wish I could give every customer myself.” said Yun Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Wyze.

Beyond sales, Palona helps customers scale order capacity and increase order sizes. With partner Pizza My Heart, a beloved West Coast pizza chain, Palona turned the brand into a fully embodied AI character named “Jimmy the Surfer.” Customers can call or text Jimmy to order from select stores, piloting at the iconic Palo Alto location, where Jimmy remembers preferences, suggests deals, and peppers the conversations with jokes and useful information to keep customers engaged.

The Pillars of Palona

Palona Agents are centered around three core elements - the “Pillars of Palona”:

• Brand Consistency: Through a quick onboarding rooted in a customer’s existing knowledge base, Palona Agents handle thousands of conversations while staying true to a brand’s voice, principles, and practices.
• High EQ: Palona Agents adapt empathically to dynamic conversations and consistently outperform both human staff and other AI solutions on industry benchmarks.
• Persuasiveness: Like a great salesperson, Palona Agents look for the “pitch perfect” moment to proactively upsell and cross-sell, suggesting the right product or service in an engaging and value-added way - not only improving immediate sales, but brand loyalty and LTV.

“We have a dedicated research team in Montreal developing technology to enhance foundational large language models with the personality traits they need to be effective in sales: EQ, humor, current-day texting etiquette, and gentle persuasion. These traits make the Palona AI Agent delightful for customers to talk to, even while it is being a more effective salesperson,” said Professor Steve Liu, Palona’s Chief Scientist.

“MINDZERO is focused on bringing a new type of health and wellness experience to athletes of all levels, using contrast therapy to enrich their lives with heat and cold,” said David Semerad, the CEO of MINDZERO. “Our Palona agent, Jen, has become our new best friend - she’s able to answer customer questions in such an authentic, kind, and helpful way, it really blows our minds. Even sensitive topics like ‘can I be nude in the sauna?’ or ‘is there an age limit to the therapies?...,’ Jen handles these topics in such a human way that we actually borrow our FAQ answers from her!”

Chuck Hammers, CEO at Pizza My Heart: “As we grew Pizza My Heart from 1 to 28 locations, we created the character 'Jimmy the Surfer' to embody our brand and give customers the vibe of our business. Palona AI brought Jimmy to life in a way that just makes me smile - which I never expected from an AI. Now, Jimmy helps our customers order pizza by talking with them directly - via voice or text - offering another fun way for customers to engage and interact with Pizza My Heart. Jimmy has joined our friendly and fun-loving crew, matching their level of personality, convenience, and customer relationships."

About Palona

Palona pioneers building AI solutions to help businesses grow by bringing their brands to life and creating lasting connections with their customers. Palona is redefining customer engagement for consumer facing businesses in the D2C, retail and service industries. For more information, visit palona.ai.

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