Relay, the AI workflow-automation startup launched in 2021 to compete with Zapier, is shutting down, and founder and CEO Jacob Bank is rejoining Google as VP of Product for Chrome. TechCrunch reported the announcement on Monday, August 17. Some of Relay's staff are joining the Chrome team alongside Bank.
The shutdown timeline
Free customers lost access on August 15. Paying customers keep access until September 14, at which point the product goes dark. Relay offered AI-assisted workflow automation covering document drafting, copyediting and project-management tasks, positioned against Zapier as the incumbent.
Bank's return to Google
Google acquired Bank's smart-calendar startup Timeful in 2015, and he spent just over six years at the company, rising to Director of Product Management for Gmail, Calendar and Chat. Over that stretch 9to5Google reports he worked on Smart Reply, Smart Compose, Nudging, and AI-driven anti-malware and anti-phishing protections in Gmail. He left in 2021 to start Relay.
In the Chrome role he leads the product and developer relations teams. Bank called Chrome people's "primary workspace for productivity" and the "perfect place to collaborate with agents," saying the team has "some really ambitious plans to help you work with AI in Chrome to get things done."
Google's recent AI moves
Google published the Agentic Resource Discovery specification for how agents find and verify capabilities across the web, backed by Microsoft, Nvidia, GitHub, Hugging Face and Salesforce. On hardware, the Pixel 11 lineup launched August 12 on the Tensor G6 with on-device AI claims built around running inference locally.
Gemini 3.5 Pro missed its June target with no new release date given.
Source: TechCrunch
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