Neo: a $30M bet on building workplace software from scratch for the AI era

Bhavin Turakhia, a serial entrepreneur who previously built Zeta and Flock, announced in early July 2026 that he has put $30 million of his own money into Neo, a platform designed to compete directly with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. Neo launched internally in April 2026 and is now opening to outside users.

The argument behind Neo is architectural rather than feature-based. Turakhia’s position is that platforms built before AI existed cannot be adequately upgraded by layering AI assistants on top. He frames it as building an iPhone when competitors are trying to turn Nokia phones into iPhones—the constraint is the underlying design, not the addition. Neo combines documents, project management, and file storage in a single interface, with AI built into the core rather than added as a sidebar or optional feature.

For writers and content teams, the relevant aspect is how Neo treats document creation. Rather than a word processor with AI tools attached, Neo positions AI as a participant in the workflow—handling structure, drafts, and revision without requiring users to switch into a separate chat interface. The platform also offers model-agnostic AI, meaning organizations can connect different models rather than being locked to a single provider’s capabilities.

Neo targets mid-sized businesses in technology, consulting, and professional services. Whether it can compete with incumbents that have years of user adoption, integrations, and enterprise contracts is an open question. But as an example of what it looks like to build document-creation tools with AI as a first-order design constraint rather than an add-on, it is worth watching for writers who spend significant time in document workflows and want to understand where the category is heading.