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For much of his life, Zain Javaid, 19, wanted to be a quant who uses math and data to guide his investment decisions. And for a while, he was one. But he got bored. Then, in 2022, ChatGPT was released, and he told TechCrunch, “I felt fundamentally excited in a way that I never had been before.” He became interested in personal AI, and that interest led him to start Ghost, which announced Monday that it has emerged from stealth after a year of building, along with an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Other investors in the round include Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova. His founding team includes Nicholas Chua, 19, Yifei Chen, 24, and Gautam Sharda, 23. Ghost’s first product is Core, a personal computer designed specifically for AI agents that can take actions on a person’s behalf. According to Javaid, the idea is to centralize a person’s data, from what’s on their desktop to apps to smart home devices, into one piece of hardware designed to continuously run AI agents that can act as an assistant, perform tasks, and understand a person’s life. “You can run models on existing hardware, but it’s a terrible experience on many levels,” said Javaid, who is also Core’s CEO. Core includes an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU (a type of chip commonly used to run AI models), said Javaid, adding that the GPU is bundled into the device’s price, so customers don’t need to buy one separately. He said it also has its own software layer, browser, and filing system and can continuously process information and tasks without constant prompting. Core costs $3,499. Preorders for the first batch open Monday, and shipping is scheduled for the last week of October. Javaid described Core as a “brain in a box” without a screen, which users access through a phone or app. Voice mode is also available, but users must speak into the Core app rather than the box itself. Core comes with three models preinstalled: Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B, and Gemma-4-31B. Javaid said users can also install other models from Hugging Face, where developers share AI models, or load their own trained models. Asked how Core differs from a Mac Mini, Apple’s small desktop computer that some people set up to run AI tools, Javaid said Core’s hardware and software were built specifically for running AI agents, with models already installed, while the Mac Mini is a general-purpose computer that can be configured for AI. “As new models or improvements to existing models come out, we can push out over-the-air updates, similar to how Tesla works,” Javaid said of Core, adding that if a new generation of models comes out, the company asks users whether they want to switch. “Users can also turn on auto-updates so they’re always running the latest generation of a given model.” The team currently builds the units at its San Francisco facility. Javaid said the goal is to sell a fully functioning computer that doesn’t require complex setup or configuration. He said the models and personal memory run locally, and that all personal information is encrypted so that no cloud provider or third party, including Ghost, can meaningfully access it. He also said users can control how much autonomy they give their Core agents, and that the device is programmed to keep working if Ghost shuts down. “All of the source code, logic, and model weights live on the device, not the services,” he said. “We build this device to not be dependent on having an outside entity maintaining the service.” He said the team is also building a firewall to limit how the agent can use its credentials, such as logins and passwords. The firewall “monitors every outgoing network request on the computer and if it sees the agent performing a sanctioned action or exfiltrating data it shouldn’t, it rejects the request and flags it for user review.” “The user owns all of it,” he said of the device, memory, and data. “Once you buy the hardware, everything is stored, run, and processed on the device.” He said he is not too worried about the competition, including from established tech companies. “People sometimes give incumbents credit for having already built the product because they have the ingredients,” he said. He credited Apple with good hardware and disruption, but said much of what Core is aiming to tackle is software: “The model reasons over your life, how it remembers, how it takes action, how it knows when to reach out,” he continued. Javaid offered an example of how Core is meant to work: “Core proactively sends you a notification that you might be getting sick because it sees your resting heart rate is elevated, sees from computer history that you were up late working on a project, and has seasonal context that it is flu season in San Francisco.” The company’s main focus is building a product people love, he said. “If we can’t do that, Apple isn’t the reason we failed,” he said. Above, Core’s founding team (L-R): Gautam Sharda, 23; Yifei Chen, 24; Zain Javaid, 19; and Nicholas Chua, 19.
document fetched 2026-10-06 02:55 · canonical https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/05/at-19-ghost-founder-raises-11-million-to-build-a-3499-computer-for-your-personal-ai