A16z-backed Codi rolls out AI agent to handle office management

Codi, a startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz and co-founded by Christelle Rohaut and Dave Schuman, is rolling out what they’re calling the first AI-powered platform to completely automate office management.

Codi started back in 2018, before the pandemic hit, with a goal to help companies find flexible office spaces. Back then, it operated more like a marketplace, matching companies with buildings that offered flexible leases, and Codi even helped manage the move-in process, as TechCrunch previously reported.

Rohaut, the company’s CEO, said that in those early days, she and her team manually managed office spaces and vendors for all their clients. However, recent advances in AI have now allowed them to essentially automate their own jobs.

“With the previous Codi model, you had to find your space through Codi. Now, you can use this to automate your office logistics no matter what office you lease,” she explained about their new AI SaaS product.

The startup first released the beta version of this new AI office management product in May and officially launched it on Tuesday. Codi last raised a $16 million Series A in 2022, which a16z led, bringing their total funding to date to $23 million.

This technology arrives as the push for the return-to-office continues across corporate America. “Office management remains very manual and broken,” Rohaut told TechCrunch. She added that it can cost companies at least $80,000 a year just in administrative costs to run an office.

The office manager job itself has changed drastically over the years. In the post-pandemic era, as companies shifted to remote and hybrid work, the formal office manager position often went unfilled. Even when companies do employ an office manager, Rohaut said they usually spend more time planning events than dealing with the actual office logistics.

Rohaut mentioned that she and the team trained the Codi AI using all the expertise and data they gathered over the past few years. Companies just input their vendors into the AI system, and the AI then coordinates all their office needs, like pantry restocking and cleaning. The company was quick to point out that they hit $100,000 in ARR just five weeks after releasing the beta.

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“We estimate this new platform saves hundreds of hours a year on admin tasks,” she said. Codi charges a monthly management fee, like a subscription, which Rohaut continued, is “a fraction of the cost of an office manager or part-time office manager or even a fractional EA.”

Rohaut stated that “a good portion” of their existing clients, for whom they used to manually manage office spaces, are now switching to the AI platform. Just in the beta phase, the new Codi product already signed 40 new companies, including TaskRabbit and Northbeam, Rohaut said.

Rohaut sees legacy management companies and workplace experience platforms like Envoy as Codi’s main competitors. She said Codi eliminates the need for staff members to review, hire, and coordinate with every single vendor because the platform integrates a curated network of service providers and handles the execution autonomously, unlike traditional management companies. She also pointed out that Codi helps coordinate the handling of the physical operations in an office, which is something workplace platforms don’t focus on.

“Codi is building a future where offices can run themselves, just like cars can drive themselves,” she concluded. “We want to entirely remove the logistical burden of managing physical spaces and free human talent to focus on the workplace culture and growth.”