Littlebird Secures $11M for AI-Powered Screen Reading Tool

There's been significant discussion about building context for AI systems. In the consumer software space, we've seen a wave of startups focused on search, documents, and meetings. Their goal is to capture context from your digital activities, connect with other tools, and let you query that aggregated data. Some have taken this further. For example, Rewind (which later became Limitless and was acquired by Meta) and Microsoft's Recall aim to capture everything on your screen to help you remember it all.

A new startup named Littlebird is tackling a similar challenge with a slightly different method. While apps like Rewind store screenshots or visual data, Littlebird "reads" your screen and stores the context as text.

The core premise of the product is that by continuously reading your screen, it eliminates the need for you to manually provide additional context for productivity tasks. The founders believe that while many AI tools demand your attention, Littlebird operates quietly in the background, only surfacing when you need it.

Image Credits: LittlebirdImage Credits:Littlebird

When you install Littlebird, you can customize which applications it should ignore, preventing it from capturing context from them. The company states it automatically excludes password managers and sensitive fields in web forms, such as those for passwords and credit card details. You can also choose to connect other apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, and Reminders.

The application allows you to ask questions about your data, providing pre-generated prompts to help you begin, like "What have I been working on today?" or "Which emails are most important to me?" After a few days of use, I observed these prompts becoming more tailored to my habits.

Littlebird also includes a built-in, Granola-like note-taker. It uses system audio to run in the background, transcribing meetings and generating notes and action items. When you view a meeting in detail, a "Prep for meeting" option leverages context from past meetings, emails, and company history to give you relevant background. This feature can even pull information from platforms like Reddit to show what users are saying about a specific product or company.

Image Credits: Littlebird

Another feature, called Routines, lets you set up detailed prompts for Littlebird to execute at regular intervals—daily, weekly, or monthly. The company offers pre-built routines such as a daily briefing, weekly activity summary, and yesterday's work recap. Users can also create their own custom routines with specific instructions.

Littlebird was founded in 2024 by Alap Shah, Naman Shah, and Alexander Green. Brothers Alap and Naman previously founded Sentieo, a platform for institutional investors that was sold to market intelligence firm AlphaSense. They also co-founded a health food company named Thistle. Alap co-authored the viral "Citrini" paper on how AI agents could impact the economy, which briefly affected several tech stocks. Green has experience founding companies across hardware, software, and AI.

"We began when Alap identified a key problem: AI's effectiveness hinges on user data. The models themselves know nothing about you, which limits their usefulness. We explored various user interface and operating system paradigms ripe for AI disruption, and that sparked the Littlebird project," Green explained to TechCrunch during a call.

Green noted that while Rewind's approach was similar, it relied on screenshots and offered a suboptimal search experience. He stated that Littlebird is just beginning and faces numerous challenges ahead, including teaching large language models (LLMs) to comprehend diverse types of user context.

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With Littlebird, users can delete their data at any time. All data is encrypted and stored in the cloud. Green explained that cloud storage enables the use of powerful models for various AI workflows, which isn't feasible on local devices.

"We don't store any visual information, only text, which makes the data much lighter. I believe that's another reason Recall and Rewind faced challenges—screenshots consume far more data. I also think visual capture feels more invasive," he said.

Image Credits: Alexander Green

Littlebird is free to download and use. However, for higher usage limits and access to features like image generation, users can subscribe to plans starting at $20 per month.

The startup has secured $11 million in funding led by Lotus Studio, with participation from investors including Lenny Rachitsky, Scott Belsky, Gokul Rajaram, Justin Rosenstein, Shawn Wang, and Russ Heddleston.

Several of these investors are active users of the product. Rajaram, who has worked on ad products at Google and Facebook, said the tool reduces the friction of remembering, retrieving, and re-explaining your own work. DocSend co-founder and CEO Heddleston mentioned he used Littlebird to rewrite his company's marketing site, drawing context from meetings, emails, Notion, and other sources.

Rachitsky, who runs a newsletter and podcast, commented that AI is only as good as its context and often misses nuances of your daily life. He uses the tool to refine his productivity workflows and improve his well-being. He believes that for long-term success, the product must identify a definitive killer use case.

"Everything hinges on finding that essential, must-have use case. That's the critical factor for this product's success right now. I know many users have already found their own killer use cases, and the team is actively focusing on these emerging experiences," he noted.

"I've interviewed many AI product builders on my podcast, and the most consistent lesson is that you never truly know how people will use your product until it's in their hands. The strategy is to release early, observe how people use it, and then double down on those successful use cases, rather than waiting for a perfectly conceived solution."