Launch HN: Type (YC W23) – AI-powered document editor
Here’s a general demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpK9PWo0lUw
And here’s a demo that includes math and code blocks: https://type.ai/code-math-demos
There are a lot of AI writing products out now, but we've found that most of them treat writing like a one-shot activity that should be delegated to AI. We don't think that's the optimal way to write. We think of great writing as the product of clear thinking, which requires a lot of time tinkering with and refining ideas. So we’re building a user-friendly document editor that puts the author front and center.
As you write in Type, you can press cmd+k to summon simple AI commands. Most of our commands are grounded in familiar writing primitives (ex. “Write paragraph”) and attempt to understand the context of your document.
Type supports multiple rich block types, including code and math and our commands are able to both interpret and output these block types. So if you're writing an introductory essay about machine learning, for example, you can use Type's chat feature to generate and refine equations and code blocks you'd like to include in your document. Once you’re satisfied with what Type has generated, you can drag and insert the block anywhere in your document (as seen in the demo video above).
We’ve also built a "what to write about next" feature in the document sidebar that offers suggestions on ideas you may consider adding to your document.
We’ve built some editor features that aren’t AI-specific but which we think make for an enjoyable authoring experience: (1) Type is built from the ground up to be offline-first. This means most interactions (search, loading documents, etc.) are instant; (2) Mobile support as installable PWA; (3) Keyboard shortcuts for the most useful commands; (4) Markdown copy/paste support.
We designed Type to be most useful for longer-form writing, so we encourage you to try it out in the context of something like an essay or a technical tutorial. If you try it out at https://type.ai, we’d love to hear what you think. We think Type feels pretty different from other AI writing tools that produce fairly shallow content, but would love to get your honest feedback on whether we're hitting the mark.
Each account comes with a free allocation of AI commands, after which you can activate a paid plan for unlimited AI usage (you can still create and access unlimited docs on the free plan). If you'd like some additional free credits, please just drop us a note at founders@type.ai and we'll refill your free credits.
We'd love your feedback on what feels helpful and what feels confusing or missing. Thanks!