Spectre AI Incorporated was a private software company that served various government agencies and defense contractors in the early 2000s. The company is notable for having developed and deployed the first functional presence engine in 2001 (the system predated

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by six years). Spectre AI's initial contract with

Raytheon Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitaliz ...

was the direct result of a request on the floor of the United States Congress on September 13, 2001 by Senators

Judd Gregg Judd Alan Gregg (born February 14, 1947) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 76th governor of New Hampshire from 1989 to 1993 and was a United States senator from New Hampshire; in the Senate, Gregg served as chairman of the ...

and

Ernest Hollings Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings (January 1, 1922April 6, 2019) was an American politician who served as a United States senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005. A conservative Democrat, he was also the 106th governor of South Carolina, ...

. This was a surprising amount of access given the company was started one year earlier in

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the ...

. Spectre AI went on to create a suite of agent-based software products that were deployed for various government agencies and defense contractors. In late 2002 the company merged with Next-IT where it continued to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary. In 2004, the company revealed that it was working on public facing technology and developed the

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, c ...

's first AI recruiter,

SGT STAR SGT STAR, also known as Sgt. Star or Sergeant Star, was a chatbot operated by the United States Army to answer questions about recruitment. Background After the September 11 attacks, traffic increased significantly to chatrooms on the U.S. Army's ...

. The project later became controversial, and was the subject of numerous FOIA requests by the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...

over fears that the mechanism was overly invasive, which proved not to be the case.

History

Spectre AI Incorporated was founded by Philip Galland and Robert Hust. Galland, initially the company's primary investor, left his position at

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...

to become the company's CEO. In 2004, He and cofounder Robert Hust (the inventor of the functional presence engine) went on to form Agent Science Technologies, Inc. Next IT subsequently merged with defense contractor

Verint Systems Verint Systems is a Melville, New York-based analytics company which was founded in 2002. The company sells software and hardware products for customer engagement management and business intelligence. Their products are designed to assist clien ...

. Spectre AI is no longer operational.

References

{{Reflist Former defense companies of the United States Software companies based in Washington (state) AI companies Companies based in Spokane, Washington