Ruben Harris and Timur Meyster, the founders of the upskilling platform Career Karma, announced today the launch of the company OutRival, which offers a service that hosts and lets businesses build their own customer service agents to take on customer interactions.

AI agent companies are hot right now, and AI is one of the only sectors in venture capital seeing a flood of money rush toward it. As of September, the VC industry poured at least $64.1 billion into the AI sector and a third of all VC dollars this year went to AI startups, according to PitchBook data reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Startups building AI agents have alone raised more than $8 billion this year, according to PitchBook data reported by the Verge.

Although OutRival is entering a crowded field, Harris feels now is the perfect time to take aim at the industry. Harris said he and Meyster saw firsthand how important personalized interactions are, as well as the limitations of existing systems like automated phone calls.

“Today with AI, not only are companies in every industry making technology a part of their core operations but AI is fundamentally changing how they do business and how people work,” Harris told TechCrunch. “We knew there had to be a way to scale personalized experiences using AI while making the technology accessible to people closest to the customer journey.” 

His company aims to differentiate itself from its competitors by helping — rather than replacing — existing consumer teams, encouraging them to easily build AI agents that can work with existing tools and systems to help converse with customers. The company has operated in beta mode for the past two years and says it’s already working with admissions teams at colleges to help ease workflow. It plans to expand to other industries.

Harris says Career Karma will continue as a separate company, just now owned by OutRival. (It’s even releasing a Netflix documentary on October 16 in partnership with Workday and LeBron James’ SpringHill Company about hiring overlooked talent). Harris told TechCrunch that they took everything they’ve learned from building Career Karma and applied it to the launch of OutRival.

“Career Karma taught us the power of personalized, human-centric interactions and how important it is to scale those experiences without losing the human touch,” he said. “OutRival takes what we’ve built for Career Karma and scales it, making it accessible for enterprises across industries.” 

Harris says that Career Karma will now use OutRival’s technology to enhance its own operations, creating AI-driven support to help with its job training platform. 

Investors are clearly down for the ride. OutRival is leveraging leftover capital from the $40 million Series B round Career Karma raised in 2022 and says his investors, which include Jack Altman and Initialized Capital, are excited to see what he and Meyster do next. 

“We’re excited to partner with more companies and show how OutRival can be a game-changer in delivering exceptional customer experiences,” Harris said.

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Audio maker Raycon has today unveiled the company’s first pair of bone conduction headphones, replete with water and dust protection, decent battery life, and low latency.

Like all of the best bone conduction headphones on the market, the Raycon Bone Conduction Headphones are designed to pipe audio to your eardrums using vibrations emitted into your skull. It’s a slightly strange prospect for the uninitiated, but bone conduction headphones are extremely popular with runners, cyclists, and commuters. They’re often lighter and more comfortable than many of the best headphones on the market, especially for those who struggle with the rubber tips of in-ear headphones. Furthermore, they let you listen to music and podcasts while retaining awareness of your surroundings.