Ando wants to take on Slack with a team messaging app that lets humans and agents work together

When Sara Du was helping companies physique MCP servers successful 2025, radical kept asking her however they could usage AI agents from wrong Slack itself. But determination were a clump of method hurdles successful the way: moving messages backmost and distant and getting agents the close context, each without burning done token budgets.

Upon digging into the problem, Du realized that determination was a deeper contented that stemmed from however connection platforms were designed. “The deeper I went, the much I felt Slack and Teams were built for a satellite that was starting to walk america by,” Du told TechCrunch. “Agents were treated arsenic apps you instal adjacent arsenic they were becoming participants successful the team.”

The solution, Du thought, could beryllium a strategy that eliminates “meat proxies,” arsenic Du calls the improvement of radical having to relay AI agents’ enactment to their teams. “The quality efficaciously becomes the messenger betwixt the cause and the remainder of the company,” she said. 

An perfect strategy would alternatively fto agents “participate successful the shared conversations wherever enactment already gets coordinated,” Du said. “They should beryllium capable to recognize wherefore a determination was made, inquire a workfellow a question, physique connected different agent’s work, and bring successful a quality erstwhile judgement is needed.” 

Her startup, Ando, connected Thursday came retired of stealth with an app that sets retired to bash precisely that: It’s a squad messaging level designed for some quality and AI workers.

Ando bills itself arsenic a afloat replacement for Slack oregon immoderate different messaging level that companies utilizing AI agents mightiness privation for interior communication. The app gives agents their ain identities, inboxes and lets them partake successful conversations arsenic people arsenic radical can.

The app has channels, DMs, radical conversations, and adjacent unrecorded calls that tin beryllium transcribed and viewed by an agent, Du said. Agents tin browse channels, prime which ones to join, and tin adjacent articulation conversations without being tagged. If a company’s cause thinks a quality idiosyncratic needs to beryllium notified of something, it tin connection them connected its ain alternatively than waiting for approvals.

To proceed gathering the app, Ando connected Thursday said it has raised $20 cardinal successful pre-seed and effect backing from investors including Accel, Index Ventures and Emergence.

Du’s thought isn’t a caller one. Most of the large players successful the workplace collaboration abstraction person already built successful enactment for AI agents — Slack, for instance, has turned its native bot into an AI agent, and Microsoft has gone to large lengths to integrate Copilot into Teams successful ways that link to the remainder of its Office 365 suite.

But determination is inactive a marketplace for apps to situation the incumbents fixed however rapidly AI is invading workplaces. Just a fewer months ago, Twitter and Block co-founder Jack Dorsey announced Buzz, which brings unneurotic radical and AI agents into 1 messaging app, though it’s much targeted astatine developers.

Du besides feels there’s inactive capable of an vantage successful gathering an AI-agent-native squad messaging level arsenic bequest incumbents effort to fig retired however to pivot their existing software. 

Regardless, she seems to recognize that Ando has an uphill conflict up of it, and admitted that things were dilatory successful the beginning. “A batch of radical we showed it to aboriginal connected were understandably unimpressed,” she said. “It was, successful galore respects, conscionable a jankier messaging platform. People would get stuck connected that earlier they adjacent got to what was antithetic astir the agents.”

But she said her squad knew they were onto thing erstwhile much and much customers started utilizing Ando for longer periods. With Ando, she started to spot that agents could bash much than radical expect: An cause could announcement 2 conversations being held successful antithetic channels astir the aforesaid problem, and without being asked to, could bring everyone unneurotic successful a radical chat, explicate the context, and adjacent suggest a decision. 

“That was truly delightful for me,” she said, “I felt agents could amended negociate radical than humans tin due to the fact that they tin process a batch much messages than a quality tin successful a shorter span of time.” 

She said Ando is presently moving with customers successful software, existent property and concern crossed 15 countries, though galore of the teams it serves close present are small. The caller superior volition beryllium utilized to prosecute much radical and pain done much tokens, she said. 

“I deliberation agents volition fto precise tiny teams run astatine a standard that antecedently required hundreds of people,” she said. “They tin instrumentality connected much of the execution, probe and coordination work, portion humans walk much of their clip connected judgment, strategy and deciding what should hap next.”