• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
Tech

Accompany Wants to Be Your Mobile Chief of Staff

By
Leena Rao
Leena Rao
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Leena Rao
Leena Rao
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 3, 2016, 12:00 PM ET
155453099
Photograph by Aping Vision/STS Getty Images

When Google product executive Amy Chang was trying to sell premium versions of Google Analytics to companies, she would find herself in rooms of 15 to 20 people, many of whom she had met for the first time. “I didn’t have time to look up their bios and prep 20 different briefing docs on everyone,” Chang explained.

That’s where she came up with the idea for a service that would do all of that for you. She left Google, and in 2013 co-founded Accompany with her former colleague at Google, engineer Matthias Ruhl.

The premise for Accompany is simple: the mobile and web app wants to be your virtual chief of staff, providing you with all the information you need for anyone you are meeting with in a given day. The app, which has been in private beta for the past two years and opened to the public today, connects to your Google or Microsoft email account, your mobile calendar, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. From there, the company’s algorithms parse through your personal data — as well as biographies and information listed on the web — to create miniature dossiers on each of your contacts.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

Each night, Accompany will send you an email that include miniature briefings on all the people you are scheduled to meet the next day.

When you open your Accompany app, you’ll see your calendar, and when you can select the person you are meeting with, you’ll see a curated news feed that includes everything you may need to know about the person you are about to meet. That includes news about the company and person, posts from Twitter, as well as the contact’s full bio. You’ll also be able to see your email history with that person, as well as any notes that you have taken about them within the Accompany app.

Noticeably missing from the curated information and data sources is LinkedIn. The company, which was recently bought by Microsoft for $26.2 billion, doesn’t third parties to access to its data. LinkedIn bought Refresh, a competitor to Accompany, in 2015.

For more on LinkedIn, watch:

According to Chang, the proprietary algorithms developed by Ruehl and his team are what separates Accompany from its competitors. This code lets Accompany parse millions of data points on the web to create bios that are equally as accurate as LinkedIn.

“There are 10,000 Andy Smiths on LinkedIn, but we will comb through Facebook, Twitter, and more to make sure we have the right Andy Smith you are meeting with on Friday,” Chang said. The startup spent nearly two years building its core technology, she added.

The app is free for now, but eventually Chang says it will adopt a software as a service model, where users can pay for more features on the service. And though Accompany doesn’t currently generate revenue, the startup has drawn $20 million in investment from Cowboy Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Iconic, and the late Dave Goldberg.

About the Author
By Leena Rao
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Leadership
  • Success
  • Tech
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Environment
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Health
  • Retail
  • Lifestyle
  • Politics
  • Newsletters
  • Magazine
  • Features
  • Commentary
  • Mpw
  • CEO Initiative
  • Conferences
  • Personal Finance
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.


Most Popular

placeholder alt text
North America
Gates Foundation plans to give away $9 billion in 2026 to prepare for the 2045 closure while slashing hundreds of jobs
By Sydney LakeJanuary 23, 2026
3 days ago
placeholder alt text
Europe
Denmark offered to trade Greenland to the U.S. in 1910—and America thought it was crazy
By Steven Lamy and The ConversationJanuary 22, 2026
4 days ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Apple cofounder Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976—today it’d be worth up to $400 billion
By Preston ForeJanuary 23, 2026
3 days ago
placeholder alt text
Personal Finance
Sweden abolished its wealth tax 20 years ago. Then it became a 'paradise for the super-rich'
By Miranda Sheild Johansson and The ConversationJanuary 22, 2026
4 days ago
placeholder alt text
C-Suite
Jamie Dimon’s reality check for ambitious workers: ‘There’s going to be a grunt part to every part of a job. Get over it’
By Jake AngeloJanuary 23, 2026
2 days ago
placeholder alt text
Success
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says ‘a lot’ of six-figure jobs in plumbing and construction are about to be unlocked because someone needs to build all these new AI centers
By Preston ForeJanuary 21, 2026
5 days ago

Latest in Tech

AIRecruiting
Silicon Valley talent keeps getting recycled, so this CEO uses a ‘moneyball’ approach for uncovering hidden AI geniuses in the new era
By Sydney LakeJanuary 25, 2026
15 hours ago
AIthe future of work
Meet a 70-year-old Home Depot store associate who uses AI on his phone about once an hour: ‘I think my job would suffer if I couldn’t’
By Matt O'Brien, Linley Sanders and The Associated PressJanuary 25, 2026
15 hours ago
lakehouse
AIConsulting
Inside KPMG’s Orlando Lakehouse: the $450 million Covid boondoggle that’s becoming a secret weapon for the AI revolution
By Nick LichtenbergJanuary 25, 2026
18 hours ago
Virta Health CEO Sami Inkinen
SuccessPersonal Finance
The CEO of a $2 billion healthcare firm only felt rich after he paid off $100K in student loans—but that joy ‘disappeared’ in less than 3 days
By Emma BurleighJanuary 25, 2026
21 hours ago
Jake Miller, CEO of Fellow.
SuccessEntrepreneurs
This millennial founder got rejected 73 times before building a 9-figure coffee company. One more no, ‘I would have figured out how to sell a kidney’
By Preston ForeJanuary 24, 2026
2 days ago
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Menlo Park, California on Sept. 17, 2025. (Photo: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
AIData centers
Why Meta is positioning itself as an AI infrastructure giant—and doubling down on a costly new path
By Sharon GoldmanJanuary 24, 2026
2 days ago