PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 12, 2016) - Ozlo Inc., an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered search company, today announced the public launch of its assistant (named Ozlo) and next generation AI platform. Ozlo is the first publicly available assistant that can link together multiple sources of information to answer questions like, "What's a good place to watch the game tonight," or "Good place for a date nearby." Now available on iOS and web, Ozlo will become accessible everywhere as the company opens its platform to more third-party data providers and developers over the next year.
Ozlo is powered by a next generation AI platform that can extract and combine knowledge from many different sources, providing direct answers to questions. Unlike other assistants, Ozlo starts from a position of information neutrality, providing the best possible insight to the user.
"Assistants are becoming an important starting point for people to get things done, just like the search engine became for the web," said Charles Jolley, co-founder and CEO of Ozlo Inc. "Ozlo's unique ability to combine information from multiple sources means that you can trust him to give you the best answer, no matter where it comes from. For developers, it provides an independent, non-competitive platform for discovery."
Ozlo has been in private beta since May with a focus on restaurants, bars and recipes. Since then, he has rapidly expanded his knowledge to other areas, including movies and show times, weather, news, and details about more than 20 million places in the U.S., from state parks to nail salons, and even PokéStops.
As Ozlo understands the context of a query or request, he is able to provide answers that go beyond a string of blue links. For example, some, but not all pizza restaurants offer gluten-free pizza. Likewise, many of them use different delivery services, or just do it themselves. Ozlo's AI platform can combine all of these facts and reason about them. When you ask for the "best gluten-free pizza delivered," Ozlo uses this ability to determine which places have gluten-free options and shows you just the ones that deliver, no matter what delivery option they use.
Ozlo's sources include more than 300 million facts provided by partners and providers including Yelp, TripAdvisor, Zagat, Michelin, DoorDash, IMDb, Westworld Media, TimeOut, the Infatuation, and Yummly. The company also leverages unique partnerships with dietary specialists such as Further Food, Authority Nutrition, Gluten Free Globetrotters, Gluten Free Mrs. D, and Cookies and Kate.
"With recent consolidation in the AI space, assistant neutrality is becoming increasingly important," continued Jolley. "As assistants become the interface to information, there's both an enormous business opportunity and a critical consumer need for ongoing access to impartial information through an independent platform."
Ozlo is available at www.ozlo.com and can be downloaded from the App Store at www.ozlo.com/download. Developers who want to join Ozlo's platform can apply at www.ozlo.com/partners.
About Ozlo
Ozlo was built by experts in search, human-centered design, and artificial intelligence. Ozlo was founded in late 2014 by Charles Jolley (CEO) and Mike Hanson (CTO) who want to change the way people access information. Ozlo has offices in Palo Alto, Calif. and Seattle. The company has received $14 million in funding by Greylock Ventures and other investors, including Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo.
