The startup Skej meeting scheduling AI is a new and innovative way to organize meetings with an AI assistant’s help easily.
While AI may not be capable of entirely substituting Google Search, it can be beneficial in more particularized scenarios, such as automating mundane tasks like meeting scheduling. Skej is an emerging startup that proffers an AI assistant that can be integrated into email conversations to determine the most convenient meeting time for all parties involved.
In contrast to alternative scheduling solutions such as Calendly, Skej does not necessitate the user to peruse the availability of others to locate a suitable time for a meeting. Skej will add a meeting to your calendars whenever they receive a Calendly link from another user. Skej will analyze the link to identify times when you are available and then schedule the meeting.
“No one I’ve ever met has an affinity for organizing meetings,” says Paul Canetti, co-founder and CEO of Skej.
In addition to working on the meetings startup Bounce House, the New York-based serial entrepreneur, who had previously founded and sold the no-code app development platform MAZ Systems, was also involved in Bounce House. Individuals could pay for time segments with experts such as piano or yoga instructors.
Simon Baumer, a fourth co-founder who passed away from cancer three months after establishing Skej last August, returned to the project alongside Canetti, his brother Justin, CTO Anindya Mondal, and members of the founding team from those previous endeavors and others. (“The group has a page on Skej’s website dedicated to Simon in his honor, where he is credited with developing “the essence of the product today.”)
Paul explains that although Calendly is practical and has enabled him to build an “incredible business,” he disliked having to advertise his every spare moment. He was delighted with the scheduling process once he employed a human assistant, such as an EA. A human, as opposed to a technological platform, could readily comprehend the context surrounding meetings and determine whether to rearrange the schedule to accommodate an essential individual, even if you were, for instance, scheduled as busy. The resulting notion was to develop an AI assistant capable of performing the same tasks.
Skej can be utilized without the need to visit a website or obtain an application; include its email address in your conversation. In the future, Skej can also include a phone number in text messages. Presently, the service is compatible with all email platforms, including Gmail, Outlook, and others. Additionally, it integrates with Google Calendar and Zoom, and Outlook Calendar support is anticipated within the next few weeks.
To utilize Skej, append the email to your conversation and request it to locate suitable meeting times in your reply. As an illustration, Paul responded to Skej during the interview scheduling process for TechCrunch: “Could you kindly provide some potentially convenient times this week?” The AI assistant then emailed me alternative times and a hyperlink to my calendar to locate a suitable time. Skej confirmed and added the meeting to my calendar following my preference confirmation.
The system is operational because the Skej user, in this instance Paul, has granted it access to his calendar. Skej merely extended the invitation to his calendar on his behalf.
However, had I clicked the link, Skej could have scheduled the meeting autonomously, eliminating the need for further communication. This latter alternative is most effective for internal teams in which many members must collaborate to determine a convenient time period for all.
Skej utilizes various LLM models, some of which are employed to deconstruct the email’s language into data that is subsequently inputted into its proprietary system.
“Innerly, we refer to it as the brain…” The Skej brain functions similarly to a marketplace for matching times and a scheduling engine,” Paul explains. “As a result, various individuals from different time zones, with distinct conflicts, preferences, and factors to consider, can be present,” he further elaborates. “In addition, it is engaging in negotiations to find a match.” Paul observes, “Then…it spits back the match, suggested times, or data, and an LLM assists in crafting a message that sounds natural when it’s returning.”
Skej additionally allows users to classify distinct contacts and associate them with different calendars, such as personal or professional ones. Paul is confident that, over time, Skej will also be able to enable this form of categorization using natural language. You may utilize a more conventional dashboard to configure your integrations and preferences.
However, one thing Skej has yet to do is develop an application.
“It’s funny. We also receive this query frequently from VCs…Paul states, “It’s like, ‘Well, eventually you’ll have an app, right?'” However, he explains that Skej is designed to be “completely agnostic to the tools you already use and enjoy, and it can adapt to whatever workflow you have in place.”
“You are not being coerced into using a specific application or doing a particular thing,” he further states.
Betaworks, Mozilla Ventures, Stem AI, Spice Capital, Deftly. Vc and Differential Ventures are among the pre-seed investors in Skej. Paul asserts that the round came just short of one million. The remote distributed team of Skej consists of two additional full-time engineers and three co-founders.
Already in public beta, the service is being utilized by more than one thousand consumers. Currently available at no cost while the development team gathers feedback, Skej will eventually include a paid tier.
