Airtable gets into the AI agent game with Superagent

It mightiness dependable brainsick to some, launching an wholly caller merchandise enactment portion your flagship concern has shed two-thirds of its insubstantial value. But Howie Liu, the laminitis and CEO of Airtable, suggests it’s the sanest happening helium could do.

The institution that investors valued astatine $11.7 cardinal during the zero-interest-rate fervor of 2021 present trades connected secondary markets astatine astir $4 billion. But Airtable has raised $1.4 cardinal total, and Liu says the institution inactive has fractional of that successful the slope portion “throwing disconnected cash.” The valuation illness affected capitalist returns and worker banal options, but didn’t undermine the concern itself.

Liu’s effect is to motorboat Superagent, an AI cause helium suggests could yet eclipse Airtable itself. It’s Airtable’s archetypal standalone merchandise successful its 13-year history, and captures some wherever the institution is headed and the world of the existent AI moment: each superior bundle subordinate is racing to beryllium they tin present connected agents.

To recognize what makes this determination particularly interesting, see what Airtable is: a no-code level that democratizes app-building. It’s fundamentally a supercharged database that lets anyone make customized bundle tailored to their workflows. The institution present employs much than 700 radical and serves implicit 500,000 organizations, including 80% of the Fortune 100. This isn’t a struggling startup but alternatively a mature concern betting its aboriginal connected a caller architecture.

Superagent represents Liu’s stake connected “multi-agent coordination”—a strategy wherever you inquire a question and get not 1 AI adjunct fumbling done sequential tasks, but a coordinating cause that deploys specialists moving successful parallel. “You’re not prompting an AI,” Liu explains. “You’re orchestrating a team.”

Here’s however it works: When you inquire Superagent astir expanding your athleisure marque into Europe (an illustration from Liu), the strategy archetypal builds a probe plan, identifying what needs probe and surfacing dimensions you didn’t deliberation to inquire about. Then it deploys specialized agents successful parallel – 1 investigating financials, different analyzing competitory positioning, different reviewing absorption and news. Finally, it synthesizes everything into a finished deliverable.

The output isn’t a partition of text. It’s an interactive marketplace investigation with demographic breakdowns, competitory beingness mapped visually, and enlargement timelines you tin filter and explore. “What if each idiosyncratic could person New York Times-quality information visualization built for each task they have,” Liu told maine implicit Zoom past week. “This would person been unfathomable 10 years ago, oregon 5 years ago, wherever you don’t get that prime of output – you conscionable get text. But to beryllium capable to present get genuinely highly precocious quality, affluent interactive outputs arsenic a default format, I deliberation that’s a crippled changer.”

The favoritism Liu draws betwixt Superagent and competitors is technical. He name-checks Anthropic’s AI cause Claude and Manus (a newer entrant successful the AI probe abstraction that’s being acquired by Meta) arsenic the lone 2 products with “a true, mostly capable, long-running and truly astute cause architecture.” Most different alleged agents, helium argues, are simply “LLM powered workflows” – predetermined steps with AI calls mixed in, not existent autonomous agents that tin course-correct and backtrack.

It’s a good enactment successful a marketplace wherever everyone is abruptly launching AI agents. OpenAI kicked disconnected 2025 by launching caller agent-building tools, portion Notion, Harvey, and hundreds of different companies person since added cause functionality. In a marketplace steeped with cause claims, Liu’s insistence that Superagent is antithetic volition request to beryllium itself successful practice.

In a blog station announcing the product, Liu provides examples of what Superagent tin do. Ask it to measure Google arsenic a three-year concern opportunity, helium writes, and you get a structured appraisal with citations to net calls, defensibility investigation against OpenAI and Anthropic, and hazard factors you hadn’t considered. Ask it to little you connected Wells Fargo’s AI strategy earlier pitching them, and you get their regulatory posture, caller AI investments, and circumstantial symptom points your merchandise addresses. The strategy pulls from premium information sources similar FactSet, Crunchbase, SEC filings, and net transcripts.

The determination caps a translation for Airtable, which Liu has been repositioning arsenic an “AI-native platform.” Last fall, the institution brought successful David Azose, formerly the engineering pb for ChatGPT’s concern products astatine OpenAI, arsenic CTO. At the aforesaid time, it acquired DeepSky (formerly Gradient), an AI agents startup that had raised $40 million. Superagent volition run semi-independently from Airtable, helmed by DeepSky’s founding trio.

The pricing was inactive being hammered retired arsenic of past week, but it sounded poised to travel the emerging AI products playbook: $20 per period per idiosyncratic astatine the introduction tier, up to $200 for powerfulness users, with generous inference credits. “We’re not trying to optimize for nett borderline close now,” Liu says.

Whether Superagent becomes the trillion-dollar marketplace Liu envisions oregon a large stake that doesn’t cookware retired remains to beryllium seen. The contention is not trivial, and the distinctions Liu draws betwixt “real agents” and the remainder whitethorn not substance to customers if the others tin present capable results faster and cheaper.

But for a CEO whose institution has mislaid $7.7 cardinal successful insubstantial valuation portion retaining astir of its existent capital, the determination shows a willingness to stake connected the aboriginal alternatively than support the present. Indeed, Liu has reframed that earlier valuation compression arsenic a recruiting advantage, telling employees they’re getting “equity that’s really overmuch much attractively priced than the $11 cardinal valuation” with important upside if his bets wage off. He has superior for strategical acquisitions and doesn’t request to rise different round.

Asked if helium thinks Superagent is yet the bigger opportunity, Liu shrugs — he’s not ruling it out. Airtable “will astir apt beryllium larger for astatine slightest the adjacent word than immoderate caller products that we do, including Superagent,” helium says. “But I besides similar being capable to stake connected Superagent. Optionality is simply a bully thing.”

This is Liu’s mentation of what helium calls “wartime” enactment – a word helium admits helium erstwhile eschewed arsenic needlessly convulsive but present embraces arsenic apt. “Being precise accelerated connected the gully to beryllium capable to adapt,” helium says, is “the astir value-creative mode to tally things close now.” He rapidly adds, “It’s besides the astir breathtaking mode to bash things.”