San Francisco and Sydney-based startup Relevance has raised US$24 million in a series B funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from King River Capital, Insight Partners, and Peak XV.

This brings the company’s total funding to US$37 million.

The funds will be used to enhance product capabilities and expand customer support in Australia and the US.

Relevance, which develops an AI agent operating system for businesses, now employs 80 people, up from 19 in 2023. The platform has 40,000 registered AI agents, with customers including Qualified, Activision, and Safety Culture.

The company also introduced two new features: “Workforce,” a no-code system for building multi-agent teams, and “Invent,” which allows users to create AI agents using text prompts.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ The AI agent race parallels historical workforce transformations

AI agents represent the latest chapter in a long history of workplace transformations, with research showing today’s skill shifts are accelerating faster than previous technological revolutions.

While the proliferation of AI agent platforms like Relevance AI reflects growing market interest, McKinsey research reveals technological skills demand will increase by 50% in the US by 2030, while manual skills will decline significantly 1.

This creates a substantial reskilling challenge, with projections that up to 375 million workers (14% of the global workforce) may need to switch occupational categories as AI agents transform workflows 1.

Companies adopting AI agent technology must therefore prepare for a parallel transformation in human roles, focusing particularly on social and creative skills that complement AI capabilities rather than compete with them.

The historical pattern suggests that while AI will likely eliminate some jobs, overall employment may increase, similar to how ATMs ultimately led to more bank branches and employees by lowering operating costs.

2️⃣ Economics driving the AI agent boom

The economic dimensions behind AI agent adoption explain Relevance’s successful funding round and the rapid expansion of competitors in this space.

The AI agent market specifically is projected to grow from $5.1 billion in 2024 to $47.1 billion in 2025, representing a nine-fold increase in just one year 2.