Barndoor's Venn.ai: An AI Co-Pilot That Actually Does Your Job (Safely)

NEW YORK, NY – February 24, 2026 – The era of AI assistants that can only chat is rapidly drawing to a close. Barndoor.ai, a startup founded by seasoned tech entrepreneur Oren Michels, today launched Venn.ai, a new platform designed to fundamentally change how artificial intelligence interacts with the software that powers modern businesses. The platform acts as a secure bridge, allowing popular AI tools like Claude and ChatGPT to not just read data from, but actively perform tasks within applications like Salesforce, Jira, and Google Workspace.

While AI adoption has surged, its utility has often been constrained by security concerns and technical limitations, relegating it to a smart conversationalist rather than an active participant in workflows. Venn.ai aims to solve this by providing a controlled environment where AI agents can execute complex, multi-step tasks, but only with explicit human approval, addressing a critical trust gap that has hindered deeper enterprise adoption.

Built by Barndoor, a company that recently secured $13.6 million in seed funding, Venn.ai is being released as a standalone product focused on usability for a broad range of business professionals. It enters the market not as another chatbot, but as a critical piece of infrastructure for what many believe is the next evolution of workplace AI.

Beyond Chatbots: The Rise of Agentic AI

The launch of Venn.ai taps into the burgeoning field of "agentic AI." Unlike generative AI models that primarily respond to prompts by creating text or images, agentic AI systems are designed to be action-oriented. They can independently plan and execute a series of steps to achieve a specific goal, effectively acting as digital assistants that can manipulate software, manage data, and communicate across different platforms.

This shift from passive generation to active execution represents a massive leap in potential productivity. However, it also introduces significant risks. The prospect of autonomous AI agents operating with broad permissions inside sensitive corporate systems has been a major source of anxiety for IT and security leaders. Concerns over "AI sprawl"—the uncontrolled proliferation of agents across an organization—data exposure, and unintended actions have created a pressing need for robust governance.

"People want AI to do things across the apps they use everyday, but without proper controls, that's risky," said Oren Michels, co-founder and CEO of Barndoor, in the official announcement. Michels, who previously co-founded and led the pioneering API management company Mashery until its acquisition by Intel in 2013, brings a deep understanding of connecting disparate systems securely. His new venture aims to apply similar principles of control and governance to the world of AI agents.

Bridging the Trust Gap with 'Human Authority'

The centerpiece of Venn.ai's solution to the agentic AI security problem is a feature the company calls "human authority built in." This is more than just a simple permission setting; it is a human-in-the-loop control mechanism designed to function at the point of action.

When a user instructs an AI to perform a task that involves writing or modifying data—such as updating a Salesforce record, creating a Jira ticket, or sending a message in Slack—Venn.ai intercepts the command. The platform then pauses the workflow and presents the user with a clear summary of the action the AI is about to take. The process only proceeds once the user reviews and explicitly confirms the action. This ensures that no data is changed and no message is sent without direct human oversight.

This approach directly confronts the core fear associated with agentic AI: unpredictability. By embedding a mandatory review step, Venn.ai allows employees across marketing, sales, finance, and operations to experiment with powerful automation without the risk of an AI going rogue. It transforms the AI from an autonomous agent into a highly capable co-pilot that still answers to a human captain, ensuring that business logic and situational context, which AI models can lack, are applied before any irreversible action is taken.

A New 'Control Plane' for the Enterprise

Barndoor positions itself not merely as an app integrator but as the "first and only Control Plane for the agentic enterprise." This strategic framing suggests a much broader ambition. Rather than competing directly with workflow automation tools like Zapier or Make.com, which primarily focus on connecting app triggers and actions, Barndoor aims to provide a foundational governance layer that sits across an organization's entire AI ecosystem.

This 'Control Plane' is designed to give IT and security teams the visibility and guardrails they need, while simultaneously giving business teams the freedom to innovate. The platform provides telemetry and audit trails for every agentic action, creating a comprehensive record for compliance and security monitoring. By integrating directly into the AI tools employees already use, like ChatGPT and Claude, Venn.ai avoids introducing yet another proprietary application, a common friction point for new software adoption.

This strategy is backed by a notable team and significant early investment. With its $13.6 million seed round led by Crosslink Capital, Barndoor has the resources to pursue its vision of becoming an essential utility for any company looking to deploy agentic AI safely and at scale.

Putting AI to Work: Early Use Cases

The practical applications of this technology are vast and varied. Early-access users are already demonstrating how Venn.ai can automate complex, cross-functional workflows that were previously manual and time-consuming.

A product manager, for instance, described a workflow where Venn.ai was asked to consolidate user feedback from Intercom, Gmail, and Notion. The AI then categorized the feedback, identified recurring themes, and drafted corresponding Jira tickets for the engineering team's next sprint, pausing for approval before creating the tickets.

Similarly, a customer success manager connected Venn.ai to Salesforce, Zendesk, Google Docs, and Slack. They tasked the AI with pulling data from recent support tickets and customer records to draft a health summary in a Google Doc, generate a presentation from that summary, and share the final link with the team's Slack channel—a multi-step process that touches five different applications, all orchestrated through a single prompt.

Even personal productivity can be enhanced. One user connected Venn.ai to their Gmail and Google Sheets to conduct a subscription audit, asking the AI to find all recurring charges, extract the monthly fees, and populate them into a spreadsheet for review.

These examples illustrate a shift from single-purpose AI queries to sophisticated, agentic workflows. Venn.ai is now available in a free early access period, with Barndoor encouraging users to test its capabilities and provide feedback to help shape the future of responsible AI in the workplace.