Ally of internet users, Brunswick startup launches ‘new kind of search engine’ via AI
Photo / Courtesy, Oak AI
Founder Tom Law calls Oak AI “a new kind of search engine.”
A Brunswick startup is using artificial intelligence to give internet users better background about the results of their web searches.
Oak AI is “an applied ethics startup company building next-generation AI to simplify the internet and give individuals agency online,” said Tom Law, the company’s founder.
“We’re a new kind of search engine,” he said.
Oak AI launched in April as an early-access pilot program, and now has offices at Brunswick Landing.
Law bootstrapped the startup with sweat equity, some private investment and support from the Maine Technology Institute and Dirigo Labs, where the company won the Audience Choice Award at a pitch competition last spring.
The company's full subscription service, called Oak vibeCheck, rolled out in August. The service allows users to input background information they’d like to receive about a website, page or document, such as a company’s owner or values.
“It’s like a personalized Consumer Reports,” Law said.
Last month, Oak AI launched another service allowing consumers to browse the “Project 2025” presidential transition document published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Next step into next-gen AI
Law grew up in New York, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biomedical instrumentation from Syracuse University. Living in Austin, Texas, he worked in leadership roles at startups and large companies for over a decade.
His teams have been active in fields such as the next-gen 6G wireless cellular network, green energy, cyber-physical systems, autonomous robotics and AI systems.
Law moved to Maine in 2020 and began working on his idea for an AI-powered applied ethics company.
Since the launch earlier this year, he said, “We’ve been building and scaling quickly.”
The service is marketed as providing “guard rails” on the actions that AI and digital entities are allowed to take. The tagline is “The way life online should be.”
Healthy boundaries
Oak AI is marketing vibeCheck as a way for consumers to turn their personal values into actionable insights, using AI.
“We increase visibility and understanding of the web around you as you navigate and help you see when something you care about is not quite right,” the website says.
The company sees itself as a direct-to-consumer service and has gained initial traction with people who want to understand what happens with their data, Law said.
The service offers individual subscription options and enterprise pricing based on the number of employees.
Typical questions from average consumers, he said, might be whether a website is suitable for children, whether a site is locally owned or what a company does with credit card information and personal data.
“People want to set healthy boundaries,” he said.
As its sole full-time employee, Law has brought on about a dozen part-time contractors and consultants. The company is in the middle of a capital raise to add employees, especially engineers, he said.
The long-term vision?
“We want to be a service like Google that’s actually on the side of the consumer,” Law said. The message, he added, is simple: Treat my digital person with respect.
“It’s a challenge, because the way the internet has been built is that the companies have the choices. How you get treated is up to the whims of the giant ocean of the internet. We want to put the power back into the hands of consumers.”
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