AI is rapidly penetrating every part of our personal and work lives, but today’s solutions are largely isolated into chat environments and away from where users actually get work done. Current LLM-based productivity tools require users to constantly switch between browser tabs and applications. AI is transforming how we derive value from web and digital applications, but most people still primarily use browser interfaces. 

That’s why we’re leading the seed round for Strawberry, a browser with built-in AI assistants that work alongside you on any website.

Seamless Integration of AI Assistants

One of Strawberry’s key insights is that the browser already holds a lot of user context (browsing history, saved passwords, etc) and many users would like help with automating their work inside the browser without having to share their login and other information with a third party agent. Rather than changing established patterns of human-computer interaction, Strawberry offers the benefits of AI in the place where users already spend most of their time. Their product transforms browsers into automated assistants that can research, click, type, and summarize on users’ behalf.

Strawberry’s founder, Charles Maddock, is electrifying. He started coding at the age of 10 and co-founded a game development studio in his teens. With Strawberry, he combines a deep urge to create with remarkable product and user intuition. Charles also has a powerful ability to inspire and attract top-tier talent. Alongside his co-founders Sebastian Thunman and Arian Hanifi, he is growing a core team of engineers who will develop the product that can make AI both accessible and practical for knowledge workers’ everyday tasks. It’s not surprising that when Charles launched a beta of Strawberry on Product Hunt in April this year, it quickly became both Product of the Day and Product of the Week.  

Our Conversation with Charles

We recently spoke with Charles about his vision for Strawberry. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s the core insight that led you to start Strawberry?

It’s all right in front of us. The browser is the ideal platform to become the environment where non-technical users build their own AI agents. Since the user is already signed in to all their accounts, agents can get started without any annoying setup, such as setting up authentication and explaining a bunch of basic information. Since you're sharing your environment with your agents, it is intuitive to explain to them what they need to do. Since users are already familiar with the interface of a browser, it's the perfect place to help them intuitively understand agentic AI and adopt it in their daily work. 

What impact do you want your company to have on the world?

Strawberry aims to bring AI to the masses in an intuitive way that helps people work on the things they actually care about, by automating their gruntwork. We believe that we are in a unique position to transform the way digital work is done by bringing friendly companions into your current workflows, rather than sterile text boxes. Work should feel like a video game. We also want to be a major contributor to AI safety. As a browser, we have the opportunity to design agentic AI to keep humans in the loop. We strive to join companies like Anthropic to push the industry in a more responsible and safe direction.

What’s your main focus for the next year?

The coming year, we'll be hyper-focused on refining the product to be Apple-level intuitive, as well as building out its agentic capabilities and contextual understanding. We are also rolling out the product to more users, in order to get more feedback and to get ready for scale.

What is one piece of advice you'd give to your younger self before starting Strawberry?

If you've decided you're okay with taking on personal risk, then choose to work on the biggest, most ambitious goal you can imagine. Find mentors who push the limits of your ambitions and steer you on the right path. The most ambitious projects are going to excite people around you, people will want to help you and be part of the ride.