Poly Relaunches: AI-Powered Cloud File Storage | YC-Backed

The Rise of AI-Powered File Search: Introducing Poly

New advancements in artificial intelligence are driving innovative solutions for natural language search, enabling quicker and more efficient access to files and information. Several companies now offer services connecting to various platforms for data searching.

A startup named Poly is now launching a service designed to consolidate all your files into a single location, facilitating effortless querying and content discovery.

A Second Iteration for Poly

Poly is currently offering 100GB of storage to users on its free plan.

This launch represents a significant shift for the company, marking its second major product direction.

Founded in 2022 by Abhay Agarwal and Sam Young, Poly initially focused on AI-driven 3D asset creation from prompts. Young has since departed from the company.

Pivoting Based on User Needs

Agarwal, a research fellow at Microsoft specializing in vision AI for the visually impaired, explained that the team underestimated the rapid growth of the AI image and asset generation sector.

“We conducted user interviews to identify key workflow pain points that AI could address,” Agarwal stated. “A prominent need was improved file system organization. Users struggle to locate files on their computers, and we aimed to resolve this issue.”

The original Poly iteration was discontinued in 2023, and the team entered a period of stealth development to build the new cloud-based file organizer.

Public Launch and Funding

After several months of closed beta testing, Poly is now available to the public. Currently, it’s accessible via web and Mac, with a Windows version planned for release soon.

The company is beginning to onboard users from its waitlist immediately.

Poly has secured $8 million in seed funding, led by Felicis, with contributions from Bloomberg Beta, NextView, Figma Ventures, AI Grant, Wing Ventures, and MVP Ventures. This includes a prior $3.9 million round raised in 2022.

Reimagining the File System

“File systems, despite their inherent power and elegance, are often overlooked,” commented James Cham, a partner at Bloomberg Beta. “Poly is re-establishing the file system as a central point of interaction, leveraging AI to enhance clarity of thought.”

AI-Powered Features and Functionality

Poly functions as a cloud storage solution enhanced with AI-powered search capabilities.

The platform currently supports a wide range of file types, including text, PDFs, office documents, images, audio, video, and web files (URLs).

Users can upload files, apply tags, pose questions to the AI assistant, and request summaries or translations.

Furthermore, Poly automatically organizes files, creating new folders and renaming files as needed.

Comparison to Existing Tools

Agarwal positions Poly as an advancement over Google’s NotebookLM, which allows users to consolidate files for questioning and insight generation.

However, while Poly excels at file organization, it currently lacks access to real-time web knowledge and the ability to generate audio or video content.

Future Development Roadmap

The company plans to introduce several new features in the coming months, including web search integration, stylized report creation, a text and markdown editor, and custom metadata support.

Users will also be able to paste Google Docs links and utilize AI agents for calculations and spreadsheet analysis.

Collaboration and Sharing

Poly enables users to create shared drives, upload files, and invite collaborators to ask questions, making it ideal for team projects.

The startup also intends to implement a feature for direct sharing of individual files and folders.

Competitive Landscape and Advantages

Poly will compete directly with established cloud storage providers like Dropbox and Google Drive, both of which offer their own search functionalities.

Initial user experience suggests that Poly’s search capabilities surpass those of Google’s.

The ability to paste a YouTube video link and generate a summary is a notable benefit.

Generous Free Storage

One of Poly’s key advantages is its 100GB of free storage, significantly exceeding the offerings of other storage services.

Paid plans are available, starting at $10 per month for 2TB of storage.

While direct photo sync is not currently available, the company plans to explore this feature in the future, potentially positioning Poly as an alternative to Google Photos.

Target Audience and Use Cases

Agarwal emphasized that early testers have utilized Poly as a primary working storage for projects.

“Our focus is on Gen AI native creators and knowledge workers – individuals involved in content research or file searching,” he explained. “For example, a service executive seeking insights from numerous customer calls.”

Integration and Future Compatibility

Poly currently offers a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for integration with tools like ChatGPT or Cursor.

Although direct integration with other services is not yet available, Agarwal believes that Poly’s support for virtual file references will facilitate importing files from various platforms.