Google Research Veterans Raise $7M Funding for AI Agent Platform ‘Luda’
In Brief
Luda today announced a $7 million funding round round led by BITKRAFT and Compound.
The company enables anyone to create, train, and launch their own AI agents through Real-Time Reinforcement Learning (RT-RL).
Luda, an AI-driven user generated content (UGC) gameplay company, today emerged from stealth to announce a $7 million funding round led by BITKRAFT and Compound. Google AI lead Jeff Dean and NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin also participated in the round.
The company aims to enable anyone to create, train, and launch their own AI agents through Real-Time Reinforcement Learning (RT-RL). Luda claims this is achieved through Mels, a real-time browser-based simulation leveraging generative AI to animate characters.
Unlike the avatars that users typically create in games, Luda users can assemble characters, or AI agents, from building blocks in a digital sandbox. Once the characters are crafted, Luda’s RT-RL technology steps in to bring these creations to life based on real-world physics.
“You can build our AI characters with any shape and form by using Lego-like blocks, bring them to life, and interact with them to reveal emergent behaviors. All without any handcrafted animation or coding by us or our users,” Vijay Sundaram Founder and CEO of Luda, told Metaverse Post.
Luda’s journey began five years ago in Google Research when the team was developing innovative generative AI techniques like RT-RL, aiming to create a new consumer category: immersive interactive AI agents.
The company — formed by industry veterans from Google Research, Disney, and Zynga, is driven by the belief that the new platform can elevate people’s experiences through play, blending advanced technology with interactive entertainment.
“AI is such a powerful reason for optimism, but so much of the narrative is motivated to make it inaccessible, if not scary, for consumers. But there’s a different story, where AI is accessible and empowering, where everyone doesn’t just benefit from AI but understands it intuitively enough to create it,” said Sundaram. “And to us there isn’t a more beautiful place to start than making it playful.”
How RT-RL Fosters Intuitive Interaction with AI agents
Luda asserts that RT-RL enables accelerated learning for AI agents, which drastically cuts down the training time. Additionally, Low-Latency Inference, enables agents to run freely on consumer devices instead of costly servers in data centers.
The company believes that people belong at the center of AI, which is why it incorporated Human Interactivity into its AI agent creation platform, allowing people to interact with agents instantly.
“Our agents are real-time, 3D, and physics-based which means users can interact with them in immersive environments like game worlds or mixed reality, and can play with them in physics-based sandboxes like an obstacle course,” Sundaram explained.
Rather than automating the experiences that existing UGC platforms already provide, Luda hopes to make AI agents a fundamentally new medium.
“YouTube showed the promise of bringing UGC to video, Minecraft and Roblox did the same for UGC and gaming, we and many others have a chance to do the same for UGC and AI agents – building on all of the technical and social primitives these other platforms have helped establish,” Sundaram told Metaverse Post.
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About The Author
Cindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.
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Cindy is a journalist at Metaverse Post, covering topics related to web3, NFT, metaverse and AI, with a focus on interviews with Web3 industry players. She has spoken to over 30 C-level execs and counting, bringing their valuable insights to readers. Originally from Singapore, Cindy is now based in Tbilisi, Georgia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communications & Media Studies from the University of South Australia and has a decade of experience in journalism and writing. Get in touch with her via cindy@mpost.io with press pitches, announcements and interview opportunities.
