Can AI make professional networking more efficient and perhaps so troublesome?
Power players and startups alike are racing to implement AI features that take the network to the next level.
This month, LinkedIn announced an AI-powered job hunting tool that lets users explain their dream roles, as well as an AI coaching tool that helps users pay. These have been combined with other AI tools that Microsoft owned platforms introduced last year, finding new people to connect with someone and write their first direct message.
But while LinkedIn can increase its advantage while betting on artificial intelligence, some investors see an opportunity to disrupt market leaders.
“How can we help people find and do the best job using groundbreaking technology?” The obvious ventures,” James Joaquin said. “It sounds simple, but in reality there are a lot of layers in that layer cake. There are job searches, job hunting, job matching.”
Here are three opportunities in the professional networking field that investors say they are looking at business insiders:
1. Better matchmaking
AI can change the way people search for expert connections, investor Ann Lee Skate told BI. Generated AI improves the search experience, but Agent AI starts automating that process, she added.
Skate led the $3.1 million pre-seed funding round for the series announced in April. Startups connect users (mainly college students) with professional peers, such as future co-founders, mentors and investors, via text messaging.
Another example is Boardy, a voice-driven AI service that introduces users via email. Since its launch in October, it has raised a total of $11 million.
CEO Andrew D’Souza describes Boardy as an AI super connector that AI character users speak on the phone.
Audio AI tools like Body are also of interest to investors like Andrew Yong, who joined Body’s seed round earlier this year.
“I think Voice-First is Voice-First because input is the next big social platform,” Yeung said.
2. Niche, verticalized job market
“There’s an opportunity to find these vertical slices that aren’t suitable for LinkedIn and where startups can actually build networks and labor markets and make employers and employees better,” Joaquin told BI.
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His company is an investor in Incredible Health, an AI-powered healthcare job marketplace.
“Healthcare is different,” Joaquin said. “It’s so professional that you need a different kind of professional network to match your employer with your employees.”
3. More tools for career growth beyond networking
Joaquin also sees his role in helping AI develop professional skills that could impact his career.
“How do you develop your career to coach, mentor and move up that ladder?” he said.
Advances in AI, particularly generative AI and large-scale language models, provide startups with “a richer dataset about user behavior, motivation and previous goals,” Skate said.
Beyond professional networking, AI is rekindling widely in the ways it uses to improve its alignment with consumer tech startups, especially those with dating and friendship.
