Ghost exits stealth with $11M and a $3,499 personal AI computer

Ghost, a startup building hardware for personal AI, has emerged from stealth after a year of development with an $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz. The round also includes Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, and Nova. The company is led by 19-year-old founder Zain Javaid, who serves as CEO. His founding team includes Nicholas Chua, 19, Yifei Chen, 24, and Gautam Sharda, 23.

Ghost's first product is Core, a personal computer designed specifically for AI agents that can take actions on a person's behalf. The device is priced at $3,499. Preorders for the first batch opened Monday, and shipping is scheduled for the last week of October. The company builds the units at its San Francisco facility.

Key facts at a glance

• Company: Ghost
• Funding: $11 million seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz
• Other investors: Abstract, Audacious Ventures, SV Angel, Nova
• Founder and CEO: Zain Javaid, 19
• Founding team: Nicholas Chua, 19; Yifei Chen, 24; Gautam Sharda, 23
• Product: Core, a personal AI computer
• Price: $3,499
• Key hardware: Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU
• Preinstalled models: Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B, Gemma-4-31B
• Availability: Preorders opened Monday; shipping planned for late October

From quant ambitions to personal AI hardware

For much of his life, Javaid wanted to be a quant who uses math and data to guide investment decisions. He worked in that direction for a while, but he became bored. Then, in 2022, ChatGPT was released. He said he felt fundamentally excited in a way he never had before. That excitement led him toward personal AI and eventually to start Ghost. The company spent a year building before announcing its funding and product.

Javaid's bet is that AI agents will become a central part of daily life, but they need a different kind of computer. Cloud-based agents can be powerful, but they raise concerns about latency, cost, privacy, and continuous access. A local device dedicated to running models and memory could give users more control over their data and make agentic workflows more reliable. Ghost is positioning Core as that device.

A brain in a box

Core is described as a brain in a box without a screen. Users access it through a phone or app. Voice mode is available, but users must speak into the Core app rather than the box itself. The goal is to centralize a person's data, from desktop files to apps to smart home devices, into one piece of hardware. That hardware is designed to run AI agents continuously, allowing them to act as an assistant, perform tasks, and understand a person's life.

Javaid said people can run models on existing hardware, but it is a terrible experience on many levels. Core aims to remove that friction. It includes an Nvidia RTX Pro 4000 SFF Blackwell GPU, a type of chip commonly used to run AI models. The GPU is bundled into the device's price, so customers do not need to buy one separately. Core also has its own software layer, browser, and filing system. It can continuously process information and tasks without constant prompting.

Core comes with three models preinstalled: Qwen-3.8-Next, Qwen-3.8-27B, and Gemma-4-31B. Users can also install other models from Hugging Face, where developers share AI models, or load their own trained models. Javaid said the company can push over-the-air updates as new models or improvements come out, similar to how Tesla works. If a new generation of models is released, Ghost asks users whether they want to switch. Users can also turn on auto-updates so they are always running the latest generation of a given model.

Privacy, local processing, and user control

Ghost emphasizes local processing and encryption. Javaid said the models and personal memory run locally, and all personal information is encrypted so that no cloud provider or third party, including Ghost, can meaningfully access it. Users can control how much autonomy they give their Core agents. The device is programmed to keep working if Ghost shuts down.

All of the source code, logic, and model weights live on the device, not the services, according to Javaid. The company built the device not to be dependent on an outside entity maintaining the service. That design choice is meant to address a common worry about AI hardware: what happens if the startup behind it fails or changes its terms? By keeping core functions local, Ghost wants users to retain ownership and control.

The team is also building a firewall to limit how the agent can use credentials such as logins and passwords. The firewall monitors every outgoing network request on the computer. If it sees the agent performing an unsanctioned action or exfiltrating data it should not, it rejects the request and flags it for user review. Javaid said the user owns all of it: the device, memory, and data. Once someone buys the hardware, everything is stored, run, and processed on the device.

How Core compares with existing computers

Asked how Core differs from a Mac Mini, Apple's small desktop computer that some people set up to run AI tools, Javaid said Core's hardware and software were built specifically for running AI agents, with models already installed. The Mac Mini, by contrast, is a general-purpose computer that can be configured for AI. That distinction matters for users who want an appliance-like experience rather than a DIY setup.

Core is not the first attempt at dedicated AI hardware. The market has seen pocket assistants, AI pins, and small computers aimed at developers. Many faced criticism for limited usefulness, dependence on cloud services, or unclear privacy policies. Core's approach is to lean into local models, persistent memory, and agentic automation. The $3,499 price places it in premium territory, above many high-end laptops and desktops, so it will need to demonstrate clear advantages for early adopters.

Competition also comes from established tech companies. Javaid said he is not too worried about incumbents. People sometimes give incumbents credit for having already built the product because they have the ingredients, he said. He credited Apple with good hardware and disruption, but said much of what Core is aiming to tackle is software. The model reasons over your life, how it remembers, how it takes action, how it knows when to reach out, he continued.

What an always-on personal agent could do

Javaid offered an example of how Core is meant to work. Core could proactively send a notification that the user might be getting sick because it sees their resting heart rate is elevated. It could also see from computer history that the user was up late working on a project. Combined with seasonal context that it is flu season in San Francisco, the system could infer a health risk and alert the user. This kind of proactive assistance requires continuous access to personal data, which is why Ghost argues for a dedicated local device rather than scattered cloud services.

The company's main focus is building a product people love. If it cannot do that, Apple is not the reason it failed, Javaid said. Ghost is entering a crowded and uncertain market, but its combination of a young founding team, significant seed funding, and a local-first hardware approach has drawn attention. The coming months will test whether users are ready to pay $3,499 for a screenless computer that promises to run their personal AI agents around the clock.

Source:TechCrunch News