Everyday Stuff Gets Makeover Using AI

 

"Located on Sesame Street and filled with toys, the office of AI startup Viam, founded by tech veteran Eliot Horowitz, is nothing if not fun.

Visitors are greeted by an animatronic fluffy dog, a claw machine and a robotic arm that can pour you a glass of wine (well, water from a wine bottle) -- all examples of Viam's aim to use software to command, control and monitor everyday stuff. And yes, it is literally on New York's Sesame Street -- at 63rd Street and Broadway -- named for the iconic kids show that Viam shares a building with.

"The challenge here is that the number is infinite." said Horowitz, co-founder and former chief technology officer of database company MongoDB, on the potential applications for Viam's technology.

Founded in 2020, Viam is built on the premise that anything can be made "smart," through the combination of its software platform, existing hardware and AI. This includes smart refrigerators, of course, but also smart bathroom lines and even smart pizza.

Many things in the physical world either generate some kind of data or are surrounded by something that does (like a security camera).

Viam provides a platform to bring that data to the cloud, where it can be analyzed for insights -- and sometimes managed and controlled remotely.

"I walk around my house, I walk around my office, and I want everything to be smarter," Horowitz said.

Case in point: Viam said it is working with Long Island's UBS Arena, home to the New York Islanders hockey team, to shorten bathroom lines. The platform plugs into existing security cameras and then uses computer vision to determine which bathrooms have the shortest lines. That critical data are sent to fans using the official New York Islanders + UBS Arena app.

One day the app might even tell fans when to go to the bathroom.

The Islanders now wear a Viam logo on their helmets in anticipation of that momentous day.

But the vastness of possibilities here can also be a challenge, said board member Carolyn Everson, who also sits on the boards of beverage company Coca-Cola and media company Walt Disney. She said that on first meeting Horowitz, she had trouble understanding what the company actually did. It is hard to describe, she said, because it essentially does everything. It can be difficult for people to get their head around that, she said.

The big question is whether Viam can persuade enough other companies to make their businesses "smarter" through the company's tech. Viam said that custom pricing is available for enterprises but declined to share specific numbers.

There have already been plenty of attempts to integrate the physical world with software. They range from predictive maintenance sensors in factories to the app that you probably never use to control your home dishwasher.

Horowitz's pitch is that there is a disconnect between the companies that make the data-generating hardware such as sensors and the companies that run the software algorithms. Getting the data off the sensor and into a usable format can be a big lift -- and that is on top of the cost of the sensors themselves. Some companies said they have been able to make this work and do it well. Horowitz says it can be a lot easier.

Viam positions itself instead as the platform that plugs into anything, even low-tech security cameras, and does the heavy lifting of bringing the data into a usable format. Viam's platform can be directly installed on many devices but some require a small piece of additional hardware.

That flexibility is critical for a company like pizza chain Sbarro, which is typically more focused on pepperoni abundance than installing high-end monitoring equipment.

Six years ago, Sbarro did install cameras over the pizza buffets that would -- every 30 minutes -- send HQ a static photo of what the display of available slices looked like at that given time. "We use those images as coaching and teaching and ways to reward our stores that do a great job," Rohan Shearer, Sbarro's senior vice president and chief administrative officer. "It's really not Big Brother."

Now Viam is using those cameras to analyze how long certain pizzas have been sitting out and to generate alerts when it is time to replace them.

That also opens up possibilities including monitoring which pizzas are selling the most at given times or matching supply to the expected demand at a given hour, Shearer said.

The company said all its corporate-owned locations have been equipped but that it is still working on helping the franchises catch up. "It's a work in progress," Shearer said.

Hundreds of miles off the East Coast, meanwhile, Viam is also making fishing boats smarter. Canyon Runner, a sportfishing company that offers coaching, seminars, chartered voyages and live advice for fishing boats, is using Viam's platform to pull and analyze critical data from its customers' boats.

That data, which can include speed, positioning, water temperature and wind direction, are used to help Canyon Runner provide customers critical insights on where the swordfish and mahi-mahi are biting on any given day.

Viam has raised a total of $87 million from investors including Union Square Ventures and Battery Ventures, and its service became available in 2023. The company declined to share its current valuation.

"The goal here that Viam is pursuing by building a comprehensive platform is to abstract away much of this complexity and just let people focus on 'what are the smarts I want this machine to have?,'" said Albert Wenger, managing partner at Union Square Ventures.

In its New York headquarters, the company constantly brings in various pieces of equipment to play around with and make sure it can make the plumbing work. Part of the space includes a series of robot arenas where staff can relive the glory days from high-school robotics club as a way to stay sharp on programming physical devices. Horowitz curated the whole layout himself, and it is a work in progress.

"I've been upset that we can't bring tractors in," Horowitz said." [1]

1. Everyday Stuff Gets Makeover Using AI. Bousquette, Isabelle.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 16 Dec 2024: B.1.