TechCrunch: CopilotKit raises $27M to deploy app-native AI agents

CopilotKit, a startup building infrastructure for embedding AI agents directly inside applications, raised $27 million in a Series A round led by Glilot Capital, NFX, and SignalFire. The company simultaneously launched CopilotKit Enterprise Intelligence, a self-hostable offering bundling production-grade infrastructure for teams deploying agents within their own software products.

The core of CopilotKit’s approach is the AG-UI protocol, which standardizes how AI agents communicate with user interfaces. Instead of returning plain text, an agent using AG-UI can generate interactive UI elements — custom charts, action panels, data tables — tailored to the specific user query. CEO Atai Barkai described the difference: “The agent can reply with interactive UIs that are defined by your own company.” The protocol supports streaming chat and front-end tool calls, and sees millions of weekly installs. Fortune 500 adopters include Deutsche Telekom, Docusign, and Cisco.

For product managers, this launch marks a shift in how AI capability gets packaged into products. Building AI features as embedded agents — rather than standalone chat interfaces — is increasingly what enterprise customers expect. CopilotKit’s compatibility with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and LangChain frameworks means teams are not locked into a single provider when evaluating infrastructure. The enterprise-grade self-hosting option also addresses the data residency and compliance requirements that slow down procurement in regulated industries.