AI21 Labs

AI21 Labs was founded in 2017 by Yoav Shoham, Amnon Shashua, and Ori Goshen in Tel Aviv. Its Jamba model, released in 2024, was notable for combining transformer and state-space model (SSM) architectures — a technical direction explored as an alternative to pure transformer models for handling long contexts efficiently. AI21 offers a writer-focused AI product (Wordtune) alongside its enterprise API. It is smaller than the frontier labs but technically credible and has been a consistent voice in AI governance debates.