The Peel with Turner Novak Howie: The AI Secretary | Austin Petersmith, Co-founder and CEO
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Oct 9, 2025 Austin Petersmith, Co-founder and CEO of Howie, dives into the challenges of building AI email assistants. He explains why AI is tough to crack, especially with the complexities of scheduling. Austin reveals how a human-in-the-loop approach has improved growth and user retention. He shares the story behind Howie's catchy name and the viral launch video that propelled their success. With insights into brand strategy and the potential for broadening their services, Austin outlines the exciting future for AI in productivity.
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Email Is A Strategic Launch Channel
- Email is the dominant channel for external scheduling and booking links, making it a logical entry point.
- Email's natural latency lets Howie run slower, higher-accuracy inference than realtime chat would allow.
Use Humans To Pull Experience Forward
- If models can't reach near-perfect accuracy, add humans-in-the-loop to bridge gaps and reduce critical errors.
- Build tooling to make humans highly efficient so they can scale oversight without huge cost.
One Customer To Validate A Rebuild
- After rebuilding for humans-in-the-loop, Austin onboarded one customer (Diego) and paused new signups until Diego was satisfied.
- That focus unlocked rapid word-of-mouth growth and daily usage spikes.