Launching a completely new product line while your core business has lost two-thirds of its market valuation might seem irrational to many. However, Howie Liu, the founder and CEO of Airtable, believes it is the most logical course of action. The company, once valued at $11.7 billion during the peak of 2021's investment frenzy, now holds an approximate secondary market valuation of $4 billion. Despite this, Airtable has raised a total of $1.4 billion, and Liu states the company retains about half of that capital while generating positive cash flow. The dramatic drop in valuation impacted investor returns and employee stock options but did not damage the underlying business health. Liu's strategic answer is to introduce Superagent, an AI agent he believes could one day surpass Airtable in significance.

This launch marks Airtable's first standalone product in its 13-year history, signaling both the company's new direction and the current industry imperative: every major software firm is now competing to demonstrate viable AI agents. To appreciate why this move is notable, consider Airtable's foundation as a no-code platform that simplifies application development. It functions as an advanced database, enabling users to build custom software for their specific workflows. With over 700 employees and service to more than 500,000 organizations—including 80% of the Fortune 100—Airtable is a mature enterprise staking its future on a novel architectural bet.

Superagent embodies Liu's vision of "multi-agent coordination." This system responds to a query not with a single AI assistant performing tasks in sequence, but with a coordinating agent that dispatches specialized agents to work in parallel. "You’re not prompting an AI," Liu clarifies. "You’re orchestrating a team."

The process works as follows: if you ask Superagent about expanding an athleisure brand into Europe, the system first devises a research plan, pinpointing investigation areas and uncovering dimensions you may have overlooked. It then deploys specialized agents simultaneously—one examining financials, another analyzing competitive positioning, and a third reviewing management and news. Finally, it synthesizes all findings into a comprehensive deliverable. The result is not a simple text block but an interactive market analysis complete with demographic breakdowns, visually mapped competitive presence, and filterable expansion timelines.

"What if every person could have New York Times-quality data visualization built for every task they have," Liu proposed during a recent Zoom call. "This would have been unfathomable ten years ago, or five years ago, where you don’t get that quality of output - you just get text. But to be able to now get truly extremely high quality, rich interactive outputs as a default format, I think that’s a game changer."

Liu makes a technical distinction between Superagent and its competitors. He cites Anthropic's Claude and Manus—a newer AI research firm being acquired by Meta—as the only other products with what he calls "a true, generally capable, long-running and really smart agent architecture." He contends that most other so-called agents are merely "LLM powered workflows," involving predetermined steps with AI assistance rather than genuine autonomous agents capable of course correction. This is a nuanced claim in a market flooded with new AI agent announcements.

OpenAI began 2025 by releasing new agent-building tools, while Notion, Harvey, and countless others have since integrated agent functionality. In this crowded landscape, Liu's assertion that Superagent is fundamentally different must be validated through real-world use. In a product announcement blog post, Liu offers examples: requesting an evaluation of Google as a three-year investment yields a structured assessment citing earnings calls, a defensibility analysis against OpenAI and Anthropic, and overlooked risk factors. Asking for a briefing on Wells Fargo's AI strategy before a pitch returns details on regulatory posture, recent AI investments, and specific pain points a product could address. The system draws from premium data sources like FactSet, Crunchbase, SEC filings, and earnings transcripts.

This launch concludes a broader transformation for Airtable, which Liu has been recasting as an "AI-native platform." Last fall, the company appointed David Azose, previously the engineering lead for ChatGPT's business products at OpenAI, as its new CTO. Concurrently, it acquired the AI agents startup DeepSky (formerly Gradient), which had raised $40 million. Superagent will operate with semi-independence from Airtable, led by DeepSky's founding team.

Pricing details were still being finalized recently but are expected to follow the emerging standard for AI products: approximately $20 per month per user for an entry-level tier, scaling up to $200 for power users, including generous inference credits. "We’re not trying to optimize for profit margin right now," Liu notes.

Whether Superagent realizes Liu's vision of a trillion-dollar market or becomes an ambitious gamble that fails is uncertain. The competition is formidable, and the technical differences Liu highlights between "real agents" and others may not concern customers if alternative solutions deliver satisfactory results more quickly and affordably. Yet, for a CEO whose company has seen a $7.7 billion paper valuation decline while preserving most of its actual capital, this move demonstrates a commitment to investing in the future rather than merely safeguarding the present.

In fact, Liu has reinterpreted the earlier valuation drop as a recruiting benefit, informing employees that they are receiving "equity that’s actually much more attractively priced than the $11 billion valuation," with substantial potential upside if his strategies succeed. He has capital available for strategic acquisitions and no immediate need to raise additional funds. When asked if Superagent ultimately represents the larger opportunity, Liu offers a measured response—he isn't dismissing the possibility. Airtable "will probably be larger for at least the near term than any new products that we do, including Superagent," he says. "But I also like being able to bet on Superagent. Optionality is a good thing."

This approach reflects what Liu terms "wartime" leadership—a phrase he once avoided as overly aggressive but now finds fitting. "Being very fast on the draw to be able to adapt," he states, is "the most value-creative way to run things right now." He promptly adds, "It’s also the most exciting way to do things."