Console raises $6.2M from Thrive to free IT teams from mundane tasks with AI

In case you’ve ever been locked out of your work pc, you realize the pressing want to succeed in IT help. Sadly, assist desk employees are sometimes busy helping others, which might imply a major delay earlier than you regain entry.

Andrei Serban realized the important significance of IT’s handbook work when he was a product lead on Rippling’s apps and integrations workforce. Serban, who joined Rippling after it acquired his coding safety startup Fuzzbuzz in 2023, noticed a chance to automate most of the assist desk’s primary duties with AI, from resetting passwords, to granting entry to apps like Figma and Miro, to routine troubleshooting.

Serban couldn’t wait to get began on his imaginative and prescient. He left Rippling final yr to discovered Console, a startup on a mission to assist IT groups cut back mundane, repetitive duties, thereby releasing up time for assist desk professionals to work on extra strategic and complicated tasks.

Whereas making an attempt to automate assist desk features isn’t new, Console differentiates itself from present opponents — together with Moveworks, which was acquired by ServiceNow in March for $2.85 billion — by forgoing lengthy, advanced set up processes. Due to its simple integration with Slack, Console’s AI assistant might be made accessible to everybody within the firm in just some weeks.

“We’re in a position to get there so quick as a result of we don’t require you to interchange your assist desk,” he mentioned.

Console sees itself as an AI co-worker that up-levels present assist desk professionals. Serban even urged that as corporations digitize extra of their operations, the IT operate will turn out to be more and more very important.

Workers message Console on Slack and the startup’s AI agent rapidly responds to requests as a result of it is aware of every part in regards to the person, from their particular laptop computer mannequin to the functions they’ve permission to make use of. Console’s AI can resolve over 50% of the duties by itself, and it’ll loop in somebody from IT for extra advanced points, Serban mentioned.

The quick set up time attracted clients, together with Scale AI, Flock Security, and Calendly.

These buyer wins have led Console to safe $6.2 million in seed funding from Thrive Capital.

Vince Hankes, a associate at Thrive, mentioned that the agency, which has backed most of the main AI corporations, together with OpenAI, Cursor, and Scale AI, has had a thesis about synthetic intelligence’s potential to help with IT duties since ChatGPT was first launched within the fall of 2022.

Whereas Hankes acknowledged that Console’s quick integration may make it appear simply replaceable, he believes its AI know-how will enhance so rapidly with person adoption that it’s going to turn out to be an indispensable, deeply built-in system important to everybody on the buyer’s firm.

Console’s purpose is to finally begin supporting different features, together with answering worker requests about HR, finance, and authorized.

“We wish Console to be an worker’s first name for assist,” Serban mentioned.