Adam D’Angelo, the CEO of Quora, is focusing his energy on Poe, a platform that allows users to interact with multiple AI models at once. This service, launched last year, has its own URL separate from Quora and is designed to be more adaptable in the rapidly changing AI landscape. While Quora, the Q&A forum founded by D’Angelo, has been around for nearly 15 years, Poe is a newer venture that aims to make AI more accessible by allowing users to compare different models and build bots on top of them.
Poe, which stands for “Platform for Open Exploration,” is a subscription service that gives users access to various AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s Gemini. Users can sample multiple models at once and developers can build bots focused on specific tasks like travel booking or creating coloring books. The goal of Poe is to serve as a web browser for AI, making the technology more user-friendly and opening up new revenue streams for developers. This shift towards AI reflects D’Angelo’s belief in the potential of this technology and the need to stay ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.
The development of Poe arose from AI experiments using OpenAI’s GPT-3 to generate answers for Quora questions. While the AI-generated answers were not as high-quality as human-written responses, they were effective for niche questions that hadn’t been answered before. D’Angelo recognized the potential for a service that resembled private chat rather than an open forum, leading to the creation of Poe. This new direction comes at a challenging time for Quora, with questions about its relevance and user base compared to competitors like Reddit.
D’Angelo’s involvement with Poe and AI has been influenced by his position as a board member at OpenAI, where he experienced the organization’s power struggles and leadership changes. Despite some speculation about his role in these events, D’Angelo remains focused on advancing Poe’s capabilities and expanding Quora’s offerings in the AI space. With recent funding from Andreessen Horowitz, the company is poised to grow its AI platform and explore new opportunities in the field.
While Quora has faced criticism for its machine-generated answers and concerns about content quality, D’Angelo remains confident in the overall positive impact of AI on the platform. He acknowledges the need for improvement but believes that AI answers have added value to Quora’s user experience. Looking ahead, D’Angelo sees Poe as a key component of Quora’s future growth and is committed to building new products to keep pace with the evolving AI landscape. By leveraging the talent and infrastructure already in place at Quora, he aims to continue innovating and expanding the company’s offerings in the AI space.
