When TechCrunch asks if Flowrite is “Grammarly on steroids,” CEO and co-founder Aaro Isosaari laughs, saying that’s the reaction they always get for the AI writing productivity tool they’ve working on since late summer 2020, leveraging early access to OpenAI’s GPT-3 API and attracting a wait-list of 30,000 email-efficiency seeking prosumers eager to get their typing fingers on its beta. With this AI-powered sidekick, achieving ‘Inbox zero’ — via lightning-fast email writing — may be a lot simpler, At least, if you are the type of person who sends out a slew of routine emails every day.
What precisely does Flowrite do? It converts a few instructions (yes, you must input them) into a fully functional, pleasant-to-read email. Therefore, whereas Grammarly can help you improve an existing piece of writing by proposing changes to grammar, syntax, style, and so on, Flowrite can help you create the item in the first place, as long as it is an email or other professional messaging type communication. According to Isosaari, Flowrite’s AI models trained on email.
In addition, the business was born out of his unhappiness with how much time he had to spend drafting emails. As a result, it has firmly focused on professional communications, rather than broader use cases for AI-generated words, such as copywriting and so on (which GPT-3 also used for).
“I recognized this was an issue in my former job because I’d spend several hours every day communicating with various stakeholders via email and other messaging platforms,” he adds. “We also realized there were a lot more individuals — it’s not just our dilemma as co-founders; there are millions of people who might benefit from better communication in their day-to-day job.” The following is how Flowrite works: The user gives a set of simple (bullet-pointed) instructions that cover the main points of what they want to say, and the AI-powered tool takes care of the rest, creating a full email content that transmits the needed information in a way that flows.
The wordy legwork of filling in respectful greetings/sign-offs and determining out acceptable phrases to convey the desired tone and impression therefore done automation, Isosaari claims that the AI-powered application has an advantage over email templates (an existing email productivity tool) in that it reacts to context and “isn’t stagnant.”
One apparent but crucial element is that the user given the opportunity to review — and edit/tweak — the AI’s proposed text before sending it, ensuring that the human remains the agent in the loop. Isosaari uses the example of a sales email, in which the instructions might be as simple as typing “sounds amazing • let’s talk more in a call • next week, Monday PM” — in order to get a Flowrite-generated email that includes the essential details as well as “all the greetings” and “added formalities” that the extended email format requires.
(As a side note, Flowrite’s first pitch to TechCrunch made through email and did not appear to include the usage of their product.) At the very least, the email did not say “This email is Flowritten,” as a later missive from Isosaari did (to send the PR as asked). Which may indicate which kind of email communications you should speed-write (with AI) and which you should devote more of your human brain to (or at least make it appear as if you did it all yourself).
Isosaari tells TechCrunch, “We’ve designed an AI-powered writing tool that helps professionals of all types write and communicate quicker as part of their regular workflow.” “We know that millions of individuals spend hours a day on emails and messages in a professional setting — thus engaging with many stakeholders, both internally and outside, consumes a lot of time and daily working hours.” And Flowrite makes it easier for them to do so.”
