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Hans India
3 days ago
- Business
- Hans India
Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Returns with $30M AI Startup 'Parallel' to Challenge GPT-5 in Web Research
Almost three years after being abruptly ousted from Twitter by Elon Musk, Parag Agrawal is making a high-profile comeback in Silicon Valley. This time, the former Twitter CEO is leading his own artificial intelligence venture — and it's already drawing attention for outperforming some of the biggest names in the field. Agrawal's new company, Parallel Web Systems Inc., founded in 2023, operates out of Palo Alto with a 25-person team. Backed by major investors such as Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, and Index Ventures, Parallel has raised $30 million in funding. According to the company's blog post, its platform is already processing millions of research tasks daily for early adopters, including 'some of the fastest-growing AI companies,' as Agrawal describes them. At its core, Parallel offers agentic AI services that allow AI systems to pull real-time data directly from the public web. The platform doesn't just retrieve information — it verifies, organizes, and even grades the confidence level of its responses. In essence, it gives AI applications a built-in browser with advanced intelligence, enabling more accurate and reliable results. Parallel's technology features eight distinct 'research engines' tailored for different needs. The fastest engine delivers results in under a minute, while its most advanced, Ultra8x, can spend up to 30 minutes digging into highly detailed queries. The company claims Ultra8x has surpassed OpenAI's GPT-5 in independent benchmarks like BrowseComp and DeepResearch Bench by over 10%, making it 'the only AI system to outperform both humans and leading AI models like GPT-5 on the most rigorous benchmarks for deep web research.' The potential applications are wide-ranging. AI coding assistants can use Parallel to pull live snippets from GitHub, retailers can track competitors' product catalogs in real time, and market analysts can have customer reviews compiled into spreadsheets. Developers have access to three APIs, including a low-latency option optimized for chatbots. Agrawal's return to the tech scene comes after a turbulent 2022, when Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and immediately dismissed most of its top executives, including him. That move followed months of legal disputes over the takeover. Rather than taking a break, Agrawal dived back into research and development. He explored ideas ranging from AI healthcare to data-driven automation, but ultimately zeroed in on what he saw as a critical gap in the AI landscape — giving AI agents the ability to reliably locate and interpret information from the internet. Now, Parallel positions him back in the AI race, and perhaps indirectly, in competition with Musk. Agrawal sees the future of AI as one where multiple autonomous agents will work online simultaneously for individual users. 'You'll probably deploy 50 agents on your behalf to be on the internet,' he predicts. 'And that's going to happen soon, like next year,' he told Bloomberg. With speed, accuracy, and reliability as its edge, Parallel could become a defining player in the next phase of AI innovation.
India Today
3 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Fired by Elon Musk, ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is back in the game with new $30M AI company
Ex-Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is back in headlines from Silicon Valley. Almost three years after being unceremoniously fired by Elon Musk on the very day he took over Twitter, the former CEO is back in the game and this time at the helm of his own artificial intelligence company. Agrawal has introduced his new startup, Parallel Web Systems Inc, a cloud platform designed for AI systems to help them conduct online founded Parallel in 2023 and has been quietly building a 25-person team in Palo Alto. Backed by big-name investors including Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, and Index Ventures, the two-year-old company has already raised $30 million. According to the official blog post shared by the company, Parallel's technology is already handling millions of research tasks every day for early adopters, among them, what Agrawal describes as 'some of the fastest-growing AI companies.'So what will Parallel do?In simple terms, Agrawal's new AI platform lets AI applications tap into real-time data from the public web and put together that information directly into their responses. Think of it as giving AI access to a browser that not only fetches the right information, but also verifies it, organises it, and even grades its own confidence in the answer. According to the blog post, the system offers eight different 'research engines' with varying speeds and depth. The fastest can respond in under a minute, while the most advanced — Ultra8x — can spend up to 30 minutes digging for highly detailed information. Parallel says Ultra8x outperformed OpenAI's GPT-5 in independent benchmarks such as BrowseComp and DeepResearch Bench by more than 10 per cent. '(It is) the only AI system to outperform both humans and leading AI models like GPT-5 on the most rigorous benchmarks for deep web research,' notes the company. As for use cases, the company says its services are available for AI coding assistants to pull snippets directly from GitHub, help a retailers track a competitor's product catalogue, or enable a market analyst to have reviews neatly compiled into a spreadsheet. Developers can also integrate these capabilities using one of Parallel's three APIs, including a low-latency option tailored for courtroom drama to coding againInterestingly, Agrawal's return has been quiet yet impactful, following all the chaos of late 2022. That October, he was still leading Twitter after months of battling Musk in court. The fight was about Musk's on-again, off-again $44 billion takeover bid. When Musk finally closed the deal, his first move was to sack most of Twitter's leadership team, including after all the drama, instead of taking a break, Agrawal apparently jumped straight into sketching out ideas in coffee shops, reading research papers, and writing code. Early on, he reportedly considered an AI healthcare venture (via Bloomberg), but kept circling back to what Parag says is in urgent need: Giving AI agents the ability to reliably find and interpret information from the now, it seems he's indirectly back in competition with Musk, this time in the AI race, betting that with Parallel, accuracy and speed will be his winning edge. 'You'll probably deploy 50 agents on your behalf to be on the internet,' he predicts. 'And that's going to happen soon, like next year,' Agarwal told Bloomberg. - Ends
