New CEO of Grammarly announces the startup's AI push worth $13 billion

The creator of a well-known writing assistant, Grammarly, is replacing its CEO and introducing a brand-new artificial intelligence tool, the latest venture into the quickly expanding field of technology that can produce text, photographs, and videos from scratch in Silicon Valley.

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From May 1, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury will lead Grammarly, the company announced on Tuesday. Brad Hoover will be replaced by Roy-Chowdhury, who was previously the global head of product; Hoover will continue to serve on the board.

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"The enthusiasm around AI is so palpable," Roy-Chowdhury remarked. "We are witnessing a groundswell of support for this issue of communication."

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GrammarlyGO, an upcoming offering from the startup, is scheduled for release in April. According to Roy-Chowhury, who led the team that developed the product, it will assess context to construct and recommend phrasing for various circumstances based on a text's level of formality and tone.

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Grammarly has generally concentrated on the writing stage of the composition process. However, GrammarlyGO will provide input on the questions to ask and the information that could be helpful to include. In a competitive market with many players, Roy-Chowdhury praised the company's years of experience in ethical AI development, including work to eliminate bias in the underlying data.

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The startup is attaching its wagon to the hottest area of technology with the product: generative AI, which can generate creative pictures, texts, and videos based on instructions. As a result of OpenAI Inc.'s success with ChatGPT, which attracted a $10 billion investment from Microsoft Corp., other firms, from Google to Snapchat, have unveiled AI chatbot capabilities intended to capitalize on an advantageous situation.

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When Grammarly was valued at $13 billion in a funding round in 2021, it became one of the most valuable unicorns. This made two of its founders, Canadian citizens Max Lytvyn and Alex Shevchenko, billionaires. In 2009, they established the business in Kyiv alongside Dmytro Lider. The company, which employs roughly 1,000 people, still has offices in Berlin, New York, New York City, San Francisco, and Kyiv.

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The number of employees that are currently working in Ukraine was not disclosed by Roy-Chowdhury. Grammarly has ceased operations in Belarus and Russia in response to Russia's invasion. Since 2014, it has donated all net earnings from those countries to organizations that aid Ukrainians.

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In the years before Grammarly, Roy-Chowdhury held positions at Lazard Ltd., Amazon.com Inc., and Google, where he worked on the Chrome browser and served as vice president of product management. In his appointed position, he will oversee a large group of executives. This includes the newly formed positions of chief technology officer, which are now held by Joe Xavier, and chief sales officer, which are currently handled by Matt Rosenberg.