Seattle-based startup CopilotKit has successfully raised $27 million in a Series A funding round led by Glilot Capital, NFX, and SignalFire. The company, founded by Atai and Uli Barkai, aims to transform how AI agents interact with users by moving away from traditional, clunky text-based chat interfaces toward more dynamic, app-native experiences.

At the core of the company’s offering is the AG-UI protocol, an open-source framework designed to standardize how AI agents communicate with user interfaces. Unlike standard chatbot implementations that return long, difficult-to-read blocks of text, CopilotKit enables agents to render interactive components—such as custom pie charts or data visualizations—directly within an application. This allows developers to maintain brand consistency while giving agents the capability to take meaningful actions based on user intent.

The newly acquired capital will be used to scale the company’s team and support the launch of CopilotKit Enterprise Intelligence, a self-hostable platform tailored for large-scale business deployments. This move is designed to address the growing demand among Fortune 500 companies, including existing clients like Cisco, Docusign, and S&P Global, for greater control over their AI infrastructure.

While the AI agent space is becoming increasingly crowded with tools from major cloud providers and development platforms, CopilotKit distinguishes itself by maintaining a horizontal, vendor-neutral approach. By prioritizing self-hosting capabilities and compatibility with existing technology stacks, the startup intends to remain the default choice for developers seeking flexibility. The company maintains that its commercial enterprise offerings are designed to complement, rather than restrict, its widely adopted open-source protocols.