A new startup, /dev/agents, founded by former Google executives, has raised a substantial $56 million in seed funding to develop an operating system specifically designed for autonomous AI agents. This innovative platform aims to enable seamless collaboration among AI agents, allowing them to complete complex tasks without human supervision.

The company's founders, including David Singleton, Hugo Barra, Ficus Kirkpatrick, and Nicholas Jitkoff, are veterans of the tech industry, having played key roles in the development of Android and other notable projects. Singleton, the CEO, believes that a unified operating system is essential to unlock the full potential of AI agents, which are being developed by numerous startups and large tech companies.

Currently, developers lack standard tools and systems to build effective AI agents, making it challenging to create robust and efficient autonomous systems. /dev/agents' cloud-based operating system seeks to address this issue by providing a unified platform that can work across devices and present personalized user interfaces using generative AI.

The $56 million seed round, co-led by Index Ventures and Alphabet's independent growth fund, CapitalG, demonstrates the confidence of prominent investors in /dev/agents' vision. The round also saw participation from Conviction Capital, as well as notable tech leaders such as OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathi, Scale AI CEO Alexander Wang, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora, and Android founder Andy Rubin, who will also serve as an advisor to the company.

The investment values /dev/agents at $500 million, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. This significant valuation underscores the potential of the company's operating system to revolutionize the AI landscape.

Nina Achadjian, a partner at Index Ventures, expressed her enthusiasm for the project, citing the technical difficulty and grandeur of the idea. "It's a super difficult technical problem, and a really big idea," Achadjian said. "But if there was one team to do it, the team that built Android and Stripe from the ground up would be the team."

Jill Chase, a partner at CapitalG, highlighted the exceptional nature of the /dev/agents team, which is a crucial factor in her firm's decision to invest in a pre-product company. "We will do it when two things are true: first, when the market opportunity is so massive and generational," she said. "The second criterion is the team has to be truly exceptional. That could not be more clear in this instance."

/dev/agents expects to have the first version of its product available by early-to-mid next year. The company's business model is likely to resemble Android's, with potential revenue streams coming from commerce transactions or user subscriptions.

The emergence of /dev/agents marks a significant step towards realizing the potential of autonomous AI agents, which could transform various industries and aspects of our lives. As the company continues to develop its operating system, it will be fascinating to observe the impact it has on the AI landscape and the broader tech industry.