Wait, are there now two authorized AI corporations named Harvey? And the way is it they each contain a Winston? And why did one disappear in a single day? It’s a authorized tech thriller.
Final November, a GPT-powered authorized AI startup known as Harvey got here out of stealth mode, revealing it had raised $5 million in funding led by the startup fund of OpenAI, the developer of GPT. Since then, Harvey has seen some main wins, together with being deployed firmwide by Allen & Overy, one of many world’s largest legislation corporations, after which being adopted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of many world’s largest accounting corporations, for its 4,000 authorized professionals.
For sure, all of this made for thrilling occasions for Harvey’s two founders, Winston Weinberg, previously an affiliate at legislation agency O’Melveny & Myers, and Gabriel Pereyra, previously a analysis scientist at DeepMind and a machine studying engineer at Meta AI.
Given this, I used to be shocked yesterday to study of one other Harvey authorized product, additionally describing itself as an AI lawyer. Even stranger, the web page title and the metadata description described the web page not as AI lawyer Harvey, however as AI lawyer Winston — the very identify of one of many different Harvey’s founders.
This second Harvey touted that it’s “your private AI lawyer” and that Harvey has “learn each legislation ebook there’s, scored within the prime 10% of legal professionals on the Bar, and is aware of the reply to any authorized query you could have.”
It additionally in contrast itself to the price of a standard lawyer, indicating it may very well be utilized in each state and would ship 24/7 outcomes.
To additional deepen the thriller, final night time I emailed the second Harvey’s CEO to ask if I might communicate to him in regards to the web site. He has not responded as of but, nonetheless, as of this morning, the location has now disappeared, and the URL is pointing to the website-building platform Wix, with the message, “Seems like this area isn’t related to an internet site but.”
Simply to verify that this was not a spin-off of the primary Harvey, I emailed the founders. They confirmed that they don’t have anything to do with this second Harvey.
I discovered of this second Harvey after its CEO despatched an e mail addressed to house owners of small companies within the Portland, Ore., space. The e-mail recognized the sender as Lance Bricca, CEO of Harvey, and stated he additionally runs a Portland-based small enterprise. The e-mail went on to say:
“My brother and I constructed an AI lawyer to assist our personal enterprise, however after seeing how a lot cash it saved us writing contracts, reviewing authorized docs, and answering any legislation query we’d usually need to pay a lawyer to reply, we determined we wished to share it with different small companies in Portland.
“Our web site is meet-harvey.com. Let me know what you assume! (Additionally, there’s a 7 day trial so there’s no danger to you to attempt it out).”
On LinkedIn, Lance Ricca is listed because the Austin, Tex., primarily based CEO of an organization known as Orion. (The e-mail I described above got here from an e mail deal with exhibiting the area “send-orioninc.com.”) A December 2022 news release identifies Ricca and his brother because the founders of an organization known as Atlas, described as a males’s psychological well being startup, however whose URL results in a publication about rising happiness utilizing neuroscience.
He additionally obtained a FINRA Series 7 securities license in 2022 and was affiliated with a micro-investing firm known as MicroVentures.
The now-disappeared web site defined that Harvey labored by way of e mail.
“E-mail Harvey any authorized query or contract you need written; he’ll have the ability to do it,” it stated. “Harvey emails you again in minutes with a solution backed by the entire web. It’s that straightforward.”
The location was providing a seven-day free trial, after which the associated fee could be $100 monthly. As of now, the location’s payment page on Stripe continues to be up.
The location additionally stated that the product had been utilized by “prime determination makers” on the corporations Superhuman, Robinhood, Uber, Grin and Airbnb. All of those corporations are additionally listed within the MicroVentures web site as a part of the company’s portfolio.
If anybody is aware of something extra about this firm or its here-yesterday, gone-today web site, please let me know.