Viktor: The World's First AI Employee, Out of Poland

Viktor is an AI Employee built by Zeta Labs, a company founded in Warsaw, Poland in 2023 by two former Meta engineers, Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert. Viktor launched on February 12, 2026, and works inside Slack and Microsoft Teams the way a coworker does: you hire it, onboard it, assign work, and it reports back. In May 2026 the company raised a $75M Series A led by Accel, the largest round ever raised by a Polish founded company. I went to Warsaw in August 2026 to meet the team in person.

Key Takeaways

• Viktor launched February 12, 2026, out of Warsaw, Poland
• Built by Zeta Labs, founded 2023 by two ex Meta engineers, whose first product was JACE in 2024
• $75M Series A led by Accel announced May 19, 2026, with both Slack cofounders among the angels
• It is called an AI Employee, not a tool, because you manage it like a hire
• I hired mine on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026, and it has been working ever since

Why "employee" and not "tool"

Most AI products ask you to learn them. You open a tab, type a prompt, copy the answer somewhere useful, and do that again tomorrow. The work never leaves you.

An AI Employee is different in one specific way: you delegate. You say what you need in plain English, in the same chat tool your team already uses, and it goes and does the whole task. It has memory of your business. It has access to the systems you give it. It comes back with the thing finished, or with a question, exactly like a good hire would.

That distinction sounds like marketing until you watch someone hand off a job they have personally done every week for six years and then not do it again.

The company behind it

Zeta Labs was founded in 2023 by Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert, both former Meta engineers, with the company split between Warsaw and Munich. Their first product, JACE, launched in 2024 on a $2.9M pre seed round and handled email and tasks.

Viktor came next and launched February 12, 2026. Three months later, on May 19, 2026, the company announced a $75M Series A led by Accel, with Bek Ventures, Kaya VC, Inovo VC, and Tenacity Capital participating, and an angel list that includes both cofounders of Slack, Guillermo Rauch, Victor Riparbelli, Joel Hellermark, Mati Staniszewski, and Jack Zhang. Total funding stands at $77.9M, and it is the largest round ever raised by a Polish founded company.

For scale, ElevenLabs raised a $19M Series A in June 2023. Viktor's was roughly four times that, three months after launch. By June 2026, public reporting put the revenue run rate above $15M, and Viktor had launched on Microsoft Teams alongside Slack.

What I saw in Warsaw

I flew to Poland in August 2026 and spent time in the office with the people building this. A few honest impressions.

They are engineers, not marketers. The conversation was about outages, memory handling, audit logs, and where the product still falls short, not about how revolutionary anything is. When I asked about weaknesses, I got straight answers.

They are moving fast. The company is far bigger than the public headcount numbers suggest, and the product I hired in April is meaningfully better than the product that launched in February, particularly in memory and context.

I am not going to publish numbers they have not announced, but the business is a great deal healthier than what has been reported.

What this means for a business owner in Texas

Very little of the above matters to your Tuesday. Here is what does.

An AI Employee is now a real hiring option, not a future one. It works in the chat tool you already have. It costs a fraction of a part time office hire. And the work it takes over first is almost always the work you personally do at night: quotes, follow up, scheduling, reporting, the paperwork that surrounds the actual job.

I hired mine on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2026. Since then it has built websites, run reports, handled client follow up, and taken over the parts of my agency I used to do at 5am. I have now helped roughly fifty other businesses do the same thing.

 ## How to try it

You can hire Viktor free and give it a real assignment this week: https://ref.viktor.com/melissa-elizondo

If you would rather talk through whether your business is actually ready for an AI Employee, and what you would hand off first, book a 30 minute discovery call: https://scheduler.zoom.us/melissa-elizondo/30-min-consult

Disclosure: the link above is my referral link. I use Viktor daily in my own business, and I earn a commission if you become a customer.

People also asked

What is the world's first AI Employee?

Viktor, built by Zeta Labs in Warsaw, Poland, and launched February 12, 2026. It works inside Slack and Microsoft Teams and is hired and managed like a team member rather than used like software.

Who makes Viktor?

Zeta Labs, founded in 2023 by Fryderyk Wiatrowski and Peter Albert, both former Meta engineers, based in Warsaw and Munich.

How is an AI Employee different from ChatGPT?

ChatGPT answers questions in a separate window. An AI Employee works inside your team's chat, remembers your business, connects to your systems, and completes whole tasks you delegate to it.