Why (and how) we renamed our company
From CommandBar to Command AI
“The natural language interface for software”
When we started CommandBar back in 2020, we wanted to make software easier to use by using natural language. Specifically, we built a natural language search bar that any company could embed into their website or app, which gave users the ability to command the product with words. Can’t find the page for something? Search. Can’t find the right setting? Search.
We named the company CommandBar because the product was a searchbar that let users perform commands.
Still helping users
In the 4 years since, we’re still working on helping users use computers. We’re extremely proud to serve over 25M end users and partner with a ton of world-class companies: Hashicorp, Gusto, Yotpo, Launchdarkly, and many more use CommandBar to help their users.
And while search (now called Spotlight) is still part of our product, we’ve expanded a lot since then into other ways to help users in ways that prioritize their experience and avoid annoying them (like so many other attempts to help them). Specifically, we now package our offering in two:
Nudges: tools for onboarding and guiding users, including proactive messaging
Copilot: our AI support agent for support teams
Raising the bar by dropping the Bar
So, the name that fit so snugly before doesn’t quite represent the platform we’re building today. To reflect that, today we transition from CommandBar to Command AI. Command because we’re still helping users command software (not commanding them to do things they don’t want to do).
AI because all the cool kids are doing it we think there’s a transformational moment upon us to change how humans use software, by leveraging advances in generative AI. We want our platform to feel like a friendly human is sitting their next to every user, available to answer questions, to take over the mouse and teach, or proactively nudge the user at high-leverage moments. Adjusting to the user’s preferences and how they like to be helped, as well as the goals of the company whose product they’re using.
What’s next
Our first act as Command AI will be to formally announce two products we’ve been cooking on for quite a bit.
AI co-browsing: why should the chatbot be trapped within that little bottom-right box? We noticed so many questions in our chat logs that were basically “how do I do x” and the answer would often be a list of “First go here, then go here, etc”. Helpful, but kind of annoying and tedious to follow. What if the chatbot could do what a human helper would do in these situations? Just say “here, let me show you”, grab the mouse, and take the user on a little tour. That’s what our AI co-browsing feature enables. Copilot can choose to walk the user through something, instead of just responding with text.
Nudge autopilot: nudges allow product, support, marketing, and growth teams to message users inside their products. And we’ve built tooling to help our customers target nudges so that users are more likely to find them useful. But what if instead, we could send actually personalized, n-of-1 messages depending on who the user is and what they’re currently doing? Seem like they’re trying to add a teammate? “Hey, you’ve been clicking around settings for 3 minutes. Are you trying to add someone to your account?” Nudge autopilot, which we’re currently working on, enables Command AI to show nudges to users automatically based on goals, versus requiring our customers to manually wire up specific targeting rules (instead, they can set guardrails).
Looking forward to building many more goodies for your users so we live up to this new :)
-James (co-founder / CEO at Command AI)
Love this!