Zoe retweeted
I describe AI behavioral simulation as a “what-if” machine. I wrote about what a What-If Machine is, and how it works, at @simile_ai:
Most big decisions are some version of a “what-if” question.
What if we launched this? What if we raised the price? What if we didn’t?
At Simile, we’re building a What-If Machine to simulate those decisions before making them for real. But getting the answer right requires understanding both what people do and why they do it.
@msbernst explains what it takes to build one.
simile.com/blog/what-if-mach…
Zoe retweeted
Anyone can simulate the future. But the simulation only matters if it’s trustworthy.
At Simile, we train two types of models: simulation models and confidence models. Our first research blog post explores the origin of our proprietary confidence model, which predicts the accuracy of our population simulations and, in turn, makes them actionable.
simile.com/blog/confidence?v…
Zoe retweeted
Simile has been selected amongst this year's IA40, the top private companies shaping the future of applied AI.
Proud to be building alongside this group.
The 2026 Intelligent Applications 40 is here.
Now in its sixth year, the IA40 recognizes the top private companies shaping the future of applied AI, from foundational infrastructure to full-stack intelligent applications.
This year's list reflects a market maturing fast:
→ 450+ companies nominated and voted on by 72 investors across 54 leading firms
→ $410B raised by this year's 45 winners since founding — more than 25x what the inaugural 2021 class had raised at the same point
→ 23 repeat winners and 22 new entrants, a 49% turnover rate, down from 68% last year, as some of 2025's breakout companies start to entrench
The big pattern this year is how companies are “Harnessing the Value of AI.” As frontier models become more capable and commoditized, the winners are increasingly the companies proving they can turn AI capability into real ROI, whether they're building the application, aggregating the models, or supplying the infrastructure underneath. Databricks remains the only company to appear on every IA40 list since we launched it in 2021.
Congratulations to all the 2026 IA40 winners. Your work is defining what's possible in this new era of intelligent applications.
Explore all 45 winners and our analysis of the companies, categories, and funding patterns defining this year’s list → ordnl.link/RAFgnA7
Thank you to our great partners: @AWSstartups, @GoogleStartups, @Microsoft, @NYSE, @Delta, and @McKinsey.
Zoe retweeted
Five months ago, we launched @simile_ai with the belief that simulation would become a new way for the world to make decisions.
Today, that belief feels less like a thesis and more like the beginning of a new category.
Incredibly proud of my team. We are just getting started.
Zoe retweeted
I think it’s pretty clear that simulation is the next frontier for AI.
The most impressive feats of AI to date are when we have a clear environment + reward, whether it be beating Le Sedol at Go, winning an IMO gold medal, or writing entire apps from scratch. In these cases, the RL algorithm can try different actions, and observe the well-defined consequences in the safety of a docker container.
But what about messy real-world situations involving people? The rewards are unclear, the stakes are high, and you can’t experiment in the real world. But these situations are precisely where the next big opportunity in AI is. To crack this, we need to *simulate* society (“put society into a docker container”). Concretely, this means building a model that can predict what will happen in any given situation (real or hypothetical). If we can do this, we are only limited by our imagination: predict the future, optimize for better outcomes, answer hypothetical (“what if”) questions. Ultimately, this goes beyond making better decisions, but it’s about giving us a better understanding of ourselves and the world.
Simulation is the whole enchilada. And this is exactly the research that @simile_ai is working on. Read more here:
simile.ai/blog/simulation-ne…
Zoe retweeted
The @simile_ai train keeps rolling. Great story on the @WSJ cc @joon_s_pk wsj.com/cio-journal/can-ai-r…
Zoe retweeted
Simile is increasing decision-making capacity and decreasing research time. We are proud to work with partners like @CVSHealth! 🤝
Projects that took months are now taking hours, and studies are closer resembling human behavior than prior self-reported research - all with the goal of providing the best products and services for customers at companies like CVS Health, where the customer is centered in every decision.
Read more in the CVS Health whitepaper below.
Zoe retweeted
h1 roadmap earth, h2 roadmap mars
Simile CEO @joon_s_pk says their long-term goal is to simulate all 8 billion people on Earth:
He says the real value isn’t just predicting what people will do - but understanding why they do it, referencing a line from the Oracle in The Matrix: ‘You’re not necessarily here to make a decision. You’ve already made the decision. You’re here to understand the decision and why you made it.’”
“That captures the essence of simulation. The models we're creating aren't merely trying to predict the future - although we are good at that, and that is one of the core capabilities - but what is more important to me is understanding why we made a decision, and creating these kinds of bottom-up simulations where we can actually go back and trace through the audit logs of how society might unfold.”
Zoe retweeted
Happy Valentine’s Day from Team Simile!
Fun fact: In our founders’ 2023 paper, @joon_s_pk and team introduced the concept of generative agents to the world by simulating a town of 25 agents… one of who was planning a Valentine’s Day party.
The agents autonomously spread invitations to the party over the next two days, made new acquaintances, and asked each other out on dates to the party.
This town of agents, Smallville, along with all the flirty festivities, was instrumental in creating the field of AI-based simulation.
Love is in the air! 🎈
Zoe retweeted
AI that predicts earnings call questions is in the works. @simile_ai CEO @joon_s_pk says his startup correctly forecast eight out of 10 analyst questions on a recent simulated call. The company has raised $100 million to scale its human-behavior prediction tools bloom.bg/406v6ub
Hehe come chat with me on our website!!
simile.ai/
the @simile_ai site is so cute check out this easter egg on submit
Zoe retweeted
Congrats on the launch @simile_ai ! (and I am excited to be involved as a small angel.)
Simile is working on a really interesting, imo under-explored dimension of LLMs. Usually, the LLMs you talk to have a single, specific, crafted personality. But in principle, the native, primordial form of a pretrained LLM is that it is a simulation engine trained over the text of a highly diverse population of people on the internet. Why not lean into that statistical power: Why simulate one "person" when you could try to simulate a population? How do you build such a simulator? How do you manage its entropy? How faithful is it? How can it be useful? What emergent properties might arise of similes in loops?
Imo these are very interesting, promising and under-explored topics and the team here is great. All the best!
Introducing Simile.
Simulating human behavior is one of the most consequential and technically difficult problems of our time.
We raised $100M from Index, Hanabi, A* BCV, @karpathy @drfeifei @adamdangelo @rauchg @scottbelsky among others.
Zoe retweeted
Looking good, @joon_s_pk !! bloomberg.com/news/videos/20…
Zoe retweeted
Simile on Bloomberg:
bloomberg.com/news/videos/20…
New year, new continent, new company - and a powerful new way to understand consumers
Honoured and beyond excited to be building with the amazing team at @simile_ai !!
