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98 points jonasnelle | 5 comments | | HN request time: 0.834s | source

Hey HN, we're Alexi and Jonas the co-founders of Autotab (https://autotab.com). Autotab is a chrome-based browser you can teach to do complex tasks, with a simple API for running them from your app or backend.

Here is a walkthrough of how it works: https://youtu.be/63co74JHy1k, and you can try it for free at https://autotab.com by downloading the app.

Why a dedicated editor?

The number one blocker we've found in building more flexible, agentic automations is performance quality BY FAR (https://www.langchain.com/stateofaiagents#barriers-and-chall...). For all the talk of cost, latency, and safety, the fact is most people are still just struggling to get agents to work. The keys to solving reliability are better models, yes, but also intent specification. Even humans don't zero-shot these tasks from a prompt. They need to be shown how to perform them, and then refined with question-asking + feedback over time. It is also quite difficult to formulate complete requirements on the spot from memory.

The editor makes it easy to build the specification up as you step through your workflow, while generating successful task trajectories for the model. This is the only way we've been able to get the reliability we need for production use cases.

But why build a browser?

Autotab started as a Chrome extension (with a Show HN post! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37943931). As we iterated with users, we realized that we needed to focus on creating the control surface for intent specification, and that being stuck in a chrome sidepanel wasn't going to work. We also knew that we needed a level of control for the model that we couldn't get without owning the browser. In Autotab, the browser becomes a canvas on which the user and the model are taking turns showing and explaining the task.

Key features:

1. Self-healing automations that don't break when sites change

2. Dedicated authoring tool that builds memory for the model while defining steps for the automation

3. Control flows and deep configurability to keep automations on track, even when navigating complex reasoning tasks

4. Works with any website (no site-specific APIs needed)

5. Runs securely in the cloud or locally

6. Simple REST API + client libraries for Python, Node

We'd love to get any early feedback from the HN community, ideas for where you'd like the product to go, or experiences in this space. We will be in the comments for the next few hours to respond!

1. Carrok ◴[] No.42198441[source]
You say "try it for free" but your website has no pricing information at all. Is this free for just a while? Free forever? What is your monetization strategy?

Can I point it at my own LLM or am I locked into using OpenAI?

replies(2): >>42198492 #>>42198572 #
2. alexirobbins ◴[] No.42198492[source]
We have unlimited free editing, so you can fully try everything out and know your skill will work before we ask you to subscribe. You also get 5m of free runtime. Subscriptions start at $39/month with 300 minutes of runtime included.

Right now we do not let you BYO llm, but it's something we would love to provide an option for where possible!

replies(1): >>42198502 #
3. Carrok ◴[] No.42198502[source]
5 minutes seems like barely enough time to complete any given task, let alone actually try it out. $40/mo for a capped plan seems steep, but maybe I'm not your target customer. Best of luck!
replies(1): >>42198545 #
4. alexirobbins ◴[] No.42198545{3}[source]
The free edit mode has all of the features of run mode, and lets you fully test the skill. The only difference is that inside of a loop it will ask you to click to continue.

A lot of AI tools promise the world and don't deliver. We explicitly don't want anyone to pay us until they're sure Autotab can do their task, even though the model costs during editing are actually much higher than during runtime.

5. jonasnelle ◴[] No.42198572[source]
Good point, will add pricing information to our website ASAP, had skipped that one in the push to launch (it is only available in the app at the moment)