Imagine learning directly from Elon Musk’s notes. Glasp wants to help you do that and more.

Kei Watanabe, cofounder and product manager at Glasp, tells the story of Glasp— the company placing knowledge in everyone's palms.

Kei Watanabe, Glasp co-founder and product manager

The generative AI dust has fully settled and hard questions about its true utility value for everyday living are now getting asked. Founders and innovators are responding to those questions in many different ways. As large language models (LLMs) continue to mature, we’ve seen GPT-powered tools like ChatGPT and Bard— which can help researchers, writers, marketers, students, and even enterprise IT teams generate ideas and answer complex questions at lightning speed. We’ve also seen other text-to-image tools like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney which can make an artist out of anyone in mere seconds. And now, there’s Glasp— a generative AI-powered platform that wants to democratize knowledge for everyone.

Two weeks ago, I chatted with the super-charismatic Kei Watanabe, co-founder and product manager at Glasp, about the work Glasp is currently doing and where the company hopes to be in the near future. Co-founded by Watanabe and Kazuki Nakayashiki in June of 2021, headquartered in San Francisco, with two funding rounds since inception, and a current headcount of four employees (three full-time and one part-time), social highlighter platform Glasp is leveraging a wide range of technologies, including GPT, to democratize access to other people’s learning and experiences.

Below is my interview with Watanabe, who tells the story behind the founding of Glasp, the company’s trajectory so far, and what to expect in the next few years.

Note: This interview has been slightly edited for better clarity.

What was the challenge you wanted to solve when you founded Glasp?

Kei Watanabe: It’s to democratize access to other people’s learning and experiences that they have collected throughout their lives as a utilitarian legacy. We believe everyone in the world has unique experiences and knowledge that they collected throughout their life. But usually, people don’t take notes or share actively, so once they pass away, no one can access their knowledge. It’s a loss for human society. We call it “knowledge isolation” and we’d like to solve it.

That’s interesting. How would you describe what Glasp does and the impact you have had so far?

KW: We started Glasp some two years ago. We have tested many ideas and we have learned so many things. As a result, we have collected more than 3 million highlights (digital legacies) and reached 200,000 users so far. We’re so glad that we have been receiving positive feedback about Glasp. Many of our users say it’s the best extension they’ve used, captures information easily, and has an amazing community reading experience— like this ‘Wall of Love’.

How does AI, especially generative AI, play into what Glasp does?

KW: AI, especially ChatGPT and GPT, helps Glasp a lot. First of all, we launched the YouTube Summary powered by ChatGPT and it led to our product growth drastically. And it was the earliest release in the world, so a lot of people got to know Glasp through it. It saves users time when researching on YouTube. It gives us a quick summary of a YouTube video in a few seconds, so users can grasp the content and determine if they should watch it or not.

Secondly, we have launched several AI-related features. One example is “Ask Digital Me.” It’s a kind of AI chatbot answering your question based on your highlights. For example, I read a lot of articles about product management, so if you ask my AI (Digital Me) a question, it answers the question. And if someone is on Glasp, Elon Musk, for example, we can ask his AI a question— and Elon’s AI can answer our question. It’s related to our mission of democratizing access to people’s knowledge.

How exactly does the technology stack that powers Glasp work?

KW: Glasp is made of a simple tech stack: JS, NextJS, AI API (GPT), GCP, and Firebase. Glasp is a simple product, so high-level technology isn’t necessary now. However, we'd like to work on more AI features, so we’ll implement an AI API. Eventually, we’d like to develop our own AI model.

What’s the enterprise play for Glasp? How can companies apply or use your platform in their business operations?

KW: We’ll add more features to the product so that users can highlight various information easily and learn from others. We’ll release an iOS mobile app soon, add an image highlight, and local PDF highlight. Also, we’ll let users discover insightful content and perspective from other people.

Regarding growth, we focus on SEO and viral growth. We’re improving our SEO and adding features so that users can find value when it's shared.

Enterprises, especially researchers and writers, can benefit from Glasp. Team members can capture important information and share them with other team members with Glasp. Also, when writing content, Glasp can save time during research and drafting because it supports exporting essential parts of the article into Google Docs, Word, etc.

What company milestones would you like to share?

KW: We’ve reached 3 million highlights (digital legacies), gained 200,000 users, and 700,000 installs for YouTube Summary. We’ve also got featured in reputable media outlets like Forbes, Business Insider (Spanish), PC Gamer, MSN, Economic Times, and so on.

What are your plans for the future of Glasp?

KW: We’d like to democratize access to other people’s learning and experiences that they have collected throughout their lives as a utilitarian legacy. We’ll build and improve the product to pursue the mission. And we’d like to create a place where people can capture information, connect with like-minded people, and learn from each other.