OctoML is now OctoAI.
The Seattle startup this week revealed the slight but notable tweak to its name. The change reflects a growing product suite, according to CEO and co-founder Luis Ceze.
The company launched its OctoAI product in June to help customers run, tune, and scale generative AI models. It’s part of an evolution of the company’s offerings that now support image generation and text generation applications.
“We now have tens of thousands of users and run billions of inferences regularly,” Ceze told GeekWire. “The time was right for us to make the switch to better reflect the value we bring to customers today, and eliminate potential confusion between our product and corporate name.”
OctoAI started as OctoML when it spun out of the University of Washington in 2019, aiming to help enterprises build their own machine learning and AI models and applications.
The name change highlights the recent AI boom that took over tech in 2023, particularly with generative AI. More than half of companies polled by Gartner in survey released late last year said they are increasing investment in generative AI. Nearly half of the S&P 500 companies mentioned AI on earnings calls since May, according to NBC News.
The new name also may be considered more technically accurate.
“AI is a superset of ML, in the academic sense,” said Ceze, a longtime University of Washington computer science professor and finalist for CEO of the Year at the GeekWire Awards.
OctoAI raised $85 million in 2021 and total funding is north of $132 million. Investors include Tiger Global Management; Addition; Madrona Venture Group and Amplify Partners.
