据Prentis自身称，其Hive-32B模型在两个计算机使用基准测试中表现优于竞争对手，包括OpenAI的GPT-5.4和Anthropic的Claude Opus 4.6：WindowsAgentArena，用于衡量在真实Windows应用上的端到端任务完成情况，以及ScreenSpot-v2，用于测试模型定位正确屏幕控件的能力。
这家初创公司押注于自动化日常办公任务，很快将超越编码，成为人工智能的最大应用场景，但这一市场竞争激烈。消息人士称，Anthropic、Open AI 和 Mira Murati 的 Thinking Machines Lab 也在开发用于电脑使用的 AI 代理。Anthropic 还直接在这一领域收购人才——今年早些时候，它收购了位于西雅图的电脑使用初创公司 Vercept：https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/25/anthropic-acquires-vercept-ai-startup-agents-computer-use-founders-investors/，将其创始人纳入麾下并关闭了其产品。
Prentis 没有回应 TechCrunch 的置评请求。
Prentis 的首席执行官 Ritankar Das 也是 Titan 的创始人，Titan 是一家建设并运营 AI 公司的控股公司。现年 31 岁的 Das 是加州大学伯克利分校百年来最年轻的大学奖章获得者：https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/ritankar-das-chemistry-economic-powerhouse，18 岁时以生物工程与化学生物学双学位毕业，并在牛津大学获得生物医学工程硕士学位。
他在退出剑桥的 AI 博士项目后于 2014 年创立了 Titan，当时他是盖茨剑桥学者。Das 曾将 Titan 描述为有意复古的老式控股公司模式，类似伯克希尔·哈撒韦，这种模式靠自身退出收益而非外部有限合伙人进行融资。
特斯拉的无人驾驶出租车正在倒退：https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/23/teslas-robotaxis-are-moving-in-reverse/ Sean O'Kane：https://techcrunch.com/author/sean-okane/
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Prentis：https://www.prentis.ai/, a new AI research lab focused on computer use models, co-founded by serial entrepreneur Ritankar Das and tech heavyweights Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Launched in April, Prentis is training models to learn how office workers navigate routine workflows across documents and systems, with the goal of building AI agents that can control computers to automate those tasks.
Prentis will ostensibly develop agents tailored to these customers’ needs, such as handling insurance claims and automating customs duty refund exceptions without needing a human to hunt down paperwork.
The startup has already signed contracts worth up to $50 million with several customers, including healthcare management service organization, a manufacturer, and goods and clothing manufacturers, the two people familiar with the discussions tell TechCrunch. This echoes investor materials obtained by TechCrunch that predict an estimated $75 million annualized run rate by the third quarter of this year. (Prentis’ pitch deck notes those figures reflect estimated annualized value based on a contracted fee equal to 20% of savings realized, not recognized revenue, and are “performance-dependent and subject to final execution.”)
By its own account, Prentis says its Hive-32B model outperforms rivals, including OpenAI’s GPT-5.4 and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6, on two computer-use benchmarks: WindowsAgentArena, which measures end-to-end task completion on real Windows applications, and ScreenSpot-v2, which tests a model’s ability to locate the right on-screen control.
In its pitch deck, the company argues its edge comes from running a much smaller, cheaper model. In fact, it claims roughly 10 times lower cost per task than frontier APIs, saying it’s more economical to deploy across everyday workflows. TechCrunch hasn’t independently verified the company’s benchmark results.
The startup is betting that automating everyday office tasks will soon outpace coding as AI’s biggest use case, but it’s a crowded market. Anthropic, Open AI, and Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab are also working on developing AI agents for computer use, one of the sources said. Anthropic has also been acquiring talent in the category directly — it bought the Seattle computer-use startup Vercept earlier this year：https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/25/anthropic-acquires-vercept-ai-startup-agents-computer-use-founders-investors/, folding in its founders and shutting down its product.
Prentis didn’t respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
Ritankar Das, CEO of Prentis, is also the founder of Titan, a holding company that builds and operates AI companies. Das, now 31, was UC Berkeley’s youngest University Medalist in more than a century：https://chemistry.berkeley.edu/news/ritankar-das-chemistry-economic-powerhouse, graduating at 18 with a double major in bioengineering and chemical biology before earning a master’s in biomedical engineering at Oxford.
He founded Titan in 2014 after dropping out of an AI PhD program at Cambridge, where he’d been a Gates Cambridge Scholar. Das has described Titan as an intentional throwback to an old-fashioned holding-company model like Berkshire Hathaway, one that’s funded by its own exits rather than outside limited partners.
Other businesses launched and operated by Titan include AI-powered virtual care provider Tala Health, which raised a $100 million seed：https://fortune.com/2025/11/04/tala-health-raises-100-million-seed-round-ritankar-das-holding-company-ai-era/ round last year, and Forta Health, an autism care startup that raised $55 million：https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/forta-announces-55-million-series-a-to-build-ai-healthcare-and-improve-access-to-quality-care-302036962.html led by Insight Partners in 2024. Titan-founded disease prediction company Dascena was acquired：https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cirrusdx-acquires-dascenas-texas-laboratory-business-expanding-infectious-disease-portfolio-301599353.html by CirrusDx in 2022.
Prentis is a side project of sorts for its two other co-founders. Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock partner, said last month that he was stepping down：https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/05/reid-hoffman-is-leaving-microsofts-board-to-go-founder-mode-with-startup-manus/ from Microsoft’s board after nearly a decade to go “founder mode” on Manas AI, an AI drug-discovery startup he’s also backing; he was an early OpenAI investor and co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman before Microsoft absorbed most of that team in 2024.
Pincus, the Zynga founder, now runs the investment firm Reinvent Capital with Hoffman as a senior adviser, and published a memoir, “Life at the Speed of Play,” last month.
Prentis has already hired more than 25 employees, including researchers who previously worked at OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Tencent, and Alibaba, according to its website：https://www.prentis.ai/.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission：https://techcrunch.com/techcrunch-affiliate-monetization-standards/. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Marina Temkin is a venture capital and startups reporter at TechCrunch. Prior to joining TechCrunch, she wrote about VC for PitchBook and Venture Capital Journal. Earlier in her career, Marina was a financial analyst and earned a CFA charterholder designation.
You can contact or verify outreach from Marina by emailing marina.temkin@techcrunch.com：mailto:marina.temkin@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at +1 347-683-3909 on Signal.
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