OpenAI Acquires Team from GV-Backed AI Evaluation Platform Context.ai

On Tuesday, Context.ai, a startup known for its work in AI model evaluations and analytics, announced that its co-founders would be joining OpenAI. Following this move, Context.ai has decided to phase out its products, as shared in a message on their website. When approached for details, OpenAI opted not to disclose the specifics of the acquisition.

The message from Context.ai highlighted the challenges and importance of evaluations in AI development: "Evals are a requirement to building high-performing AI applications, but they’re hard to get right today. We spent two years building evals and analytics for [models] at Context.ai — with a few pivots along the way. We couldn’t be more excited for this next chapter of our journey at OpenAI and are grateful to everyone who played a part."

Founded in 2023 by Henry Scott-Green and Alex Gamble, both former Google employees, Context.ai managed to secure $3.5 million in seed funding from GV and Theory Ventures that same year. The company, led by CEO Scott-Green and CTO Gamble, was focused on providing valuable insights into AI model performance.

One of their key offerings was a dashboard that allowed users to delve into the data their models generated, helping them assess whether the content was effectively addressing user queries. Users could share transcripts through an API, which Context.ai would then analyze, categorize, and tag based on the subject matter.

In a 2023 interview with TechCrunch, Scott-Green discussed the common frustrations developers face: "The phrase that I always hear is that ‘my model is a black box.’ We’ve spoken to hundreds of developers who are building [models], and they have a really consistent set of problems. Those problems are that they don’t understand how people are using their model, and they don’t understand how their model is performing."

As of August 2023, Context.ai had six employees. It's uncertain whether the entire team will transition to OpenAI, and the current size of the team remains undisclosed.

Henry Scott-Green shared his enthusiasm on X, stating that he and Gamble aim to develop the essential tools for developers at OpenAI, with a particular emphasis on model evaluations. Scott-Green's LinkedIn profile now reflects his new role as a product manager at OpenAI, where he is "building evals."