Why I Created Chunk AI
Greetings! This is my first post on the Chunk blog, which I hope will be a way to communicate more directly with users and perhaps offer insights on new features, updates, and occasionally, thoughts on the overall Generative AI space from my perspective. If you’re a Chunk user, THANK YOU! If you’re thinking about becoming a Chunk user, what are you waiting for? It’s free to try! 😁
A little about myself and why I created Chunk AI. I’m James, the creator and founder of Chunk AI. I started researching/working on Chunk in early 2023 and released it at the beginning of 2024. I have over a decade of experience creating apps and have built and worked on nearly two dozen apps during that time. Before I started working on Chunk I had spent the prior 18 months learning and experimenting with generative AI (like a lot of laid-off developers during that time). There were tons of “ChatGPT wrapper” apps that essentially repackaged the ChatGPT API into a “new” app. I knew I didn’t want to just do that, if I was going to build an app, I wanted to provide a unique experience and help people solve problems that perhaps other apps, including OpenAI’s app, were not addressing.
That’s how I started researching RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) technology and how it could be leveraged to 1) make LLMs more accurate and less likely to hallucinate, and 2) allow users to easily search their documents, books, or research using the amazing analytical capabilities of LLMs. I wanted to create an app that didn’t just let you upload a few documents at a time, but a space where you can “live” in and store notes, files and document of all types in a single location. Then provide the tools that would allow the searching of only the documents you needed at the time, without having to really think about which docs are where.
So I started the work on building a custom system that did just that using vector data stores, filters, tags, etc. That was the initial idea for Chunk. Particularly aimed at students, professionals, researchers, and writers. Of course as more users joined Chunk, YOU began to express your needs from Chunk that I’d never thought of.
In the past 6 months, Chunk has seen a lot of updates, such as the addition of web search, more access to different models, online note sharing, and a more in-depth Research Search tool that allows for detailed reports on specific subjects, relying more on academic sources than the broader web for answers and context.
The technology is moving at a rapid pace and it’s been a blast to be along for the ride. As AI models get more and more capable, it’s in-turn enabling developers like myself to create even more useful tools for our users. We have so many helpful features on the way and other ideas that are still in the planning stage, so it’s exciting times!
We believe generative AI is a transformative technology for many, and we’re just at the beginning. At the same time we do value the work of writers, authors, artists and everyone else this new technology can and will affect. We try to be responsible and thoughtful on how this technology is used, and the features we create.
Thank you again for choosing Chunk, we think we offer the best value in this space (cheapest subscription, access to multiple premium models, more features) and hope to continue to provide even more value going forward while helping our users, get things done and solve problems.