Germany's DeepL presents AI agent for business tasks

German AI translation service DeepL has presented an artificial intelligence agent which it says can be used to optimize and automate "a wide range" of "repetitive, time-consuming" business tasks.

Dubbed the DeepL Agent, the tool is designed to work entirely within each user's digital environment and respond to natural voice commands to perform complex workflows securely and independently, the Cologne-based firm said.

The tool is able to generate input using "a virtual keyboard, browser and mouse to perform," DeepL said in a press release. It said DeepL Agent can act on behalf of the user via existing interfaces.

"It can handle almost any task that a human can perform with the help of computer systems," said the company's chief executive and founder, Jaroslaw Kutylowski on Wednesday. "It moves seamlessly between users' tools and workflows and continuously improves its own performance over time."

The agent is designed to support a wide range of business areas and user cases. For example, it can independently gather insights for sales teams, automate invoice processing, and handle the translation and approval of documents, said Kutylowski.

Kutylowski founded DeepL in 2017 as a competitor to services such as Google Translate.

Since a second major round of financing in May 2024, DeepL has been valued at $2 billion. However, Germany's most valuable AI start-up faces strong competition, with more and more people using chatbots such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini for translation.

DeepL says it is used by around 200,000 companies and public authorities as well as millions of private customers in 228 markets worldwide. The company now has around 1,000 employees.