Reka AI: A deep dive into the multimodal model builder

Not too long ago, it felt like a handful of giants owned the entire world of generative AI. But a new crew of smaller, super-efficient players is shaking things up, and Reka AI is right at the front of the pack. Founded in 2022 by former researchers from Google and Meta, the startup recently hit a $1 billion valuation with some serious backing from NVIDIA and Snowflake.

Reka is all about building powerful, multimodal AI, which is a fancy way of saying it can understand text, images, video, and audio all at once. So, let’s get into what Reka AI is, what its models can actually do, and whether it’s the right tool for something like customer support, or if you’d be better off with a more specialized platform.

What is Reka AI?

At its heart, Reka AI is an AI research company on a mission: to build its own advanced, multimodal AI models and make them easy for businesses to use anywhere. They’re positioning themselves as a nimble, independent alternative to Big Tech, founded by a team with serious credentials from places like Google Brain and DeepMind.

They build everything themselves, from the ground-up models to the applications that run on them. According to an interview with CEO Dani Yogatama, this lets them be incredibly efficient, training top-tier models for just a fraction of what their bigger competitors spend.

Their lineup includes a family of foundation models (we’ll get to those in a second) and a couple of enterprise platforms that are currently in private beta:

• Nexus: A platform for creating and managing AI "workers."

• Guardian: A system for monitoring video in real-time.

Basically, Reka provides the powerful, raw ingredients that other companies can use to cook up their own AI-powered solutions.

A closer look at the Reka AI model lineup

Reka AI isn’t just one thing. It’s a suite of multimodal models, each built for a different job, from huge, complicated tasks to tiny, on-device apps. The key thing to remember is that all their models were built from day one to be multimodal, not just text models that had vision tacked on as an afterthought.

Reka Core: The high-performance flagship

Think of Reka Core as their heavyweight champion. It’s the biggest and most capable model they have, designed for the really tricky stuff that demands a deep understanding of text, images, audio, and video all at once. This is the model you’d turn to for high-stakes applications where you just can’t afford any mistakes.

Reka Flash: Fast and cost-efficient reasoning

Reka Flash is the middle-ground model, striking a nice balance between power and price. It’s made for reliable, quick thinking in everyday business situations. It might not have all the muscle of Core, but its speed and lower cost make it a really practical option for rolling out AI across your organization without blowing the budget.

Reka Spark and Edge: Compact and versatile

On the smaller end of the scale, you have Reka Spark and Edge. These models are super compact and built for efficiency, which makes them perfect for running on a device or in situations where you don’t have a ton of resources. They still have the same multimodal DNA as their bigger siblings, just in a much smaller package.

Model	Size	Ideal Use Case	Key Characteristic
Reka Core	Largest	Complex, high-stakes tasks	Maximum performance & fluidity
Reka Flash	21B parameters	Everyday business applications	Balanced cost and performance
Reka Spark/Edge	Smallest	On-device, embedded AI	Ultra-compact and efficient

While these models give you a powerful starting point, here’s the catch: you need some serious tech know-how to actually build, integrate, and maintain applications with them.

This video provides a great overview of the different multimodal models offered by Reka AI.

Key Reka AI capabilities: Multimodality and agentic reasoning

Reka AI’s tech is built on two concepts that are shaping the future of AI: true multimodality and agentic reasoning. Getting what these mean is the key to understanding what makes their approach special.

True multimodality: Beyond text

When Reka says "multimodal," they really mean it. Their models can natively process and understand a mix of text, images, video, and audio all at the same time. This opens the door to things that are just impossible for a text-only model.

For example, you could use a Reka model to:

• Search a huge video archive by just typing, "show me all the clips where the CEO talks about our new product."

• Automatically create detailed, searchable descriptions for an entire library of images. They’re actually exploring this in a partnership with Shutterstock.

• Analyze sports footage to automatically cut highlight reels and track how players are doing.

This video demonstrates Reka Vision, Reka AI's real-time video monitoring solution.

The promise of agentic reasoning

Agentic reasoning is the next evolution from simple Q&A bots. It’s all about creating AI "agents" that can actually do things by planning, using tools, and learning as they go. Instead of just giving you an answer, an agent can take action. Reka’s beta platforms, Nexus and Guardian, are built on this idea of creating AI workers to automate complicated workflows.

The reality, though, is that building and deploying these agents is a huge undertaking for developers. For most businesses, the immediate need isn’t a general-purpose agent builder; it’s a solution that’s ready to go for a specific job.

Reka AI pricing and enterprise deployment

Let’s talk about one of the most important factors for any business: cost. Unfortunately, Reka AI doesn’t have a public pricing page. If you’re interested, their website tells you to contact their sales team for a demo.

This isn’t unusual for companies that focus on big enterprise deals with custom contracts, but it can be frustrating for a few reasons:

• No transparency: You can’t get a ballpark idea of costs without getting on a call with a salesperson.

• Hard to forecast: Budgeting becomes a total guessing game when prices aren’t standardized.

• High barrier to entry: You can’t just sign up and start tinkering. You have to go through the whole sales process first.

When it comes to deployment, Reka has teamed up with cloud providers like Oracle, making its models available on the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for their enterprise clients.

For businesses that need predictable costs and want to get started on their own, platforms like eesel AI have a totally different model. With clear, tiered pricing and no surprise fees, you know exactly what you’re paying for. You can even start on a monthly plan and cancel anytime, which gives you the freedom to try things out without getting locked into a long-term commitment.

Is Reka AI the right fit for your customer support team?

There’s no doubt that Reka AI’s models are powerful. In theory, a team of talented developers could use them to build a custom AI tool for customer support. But this brings up the age-old question for any support leader: do you build it yourself or buy something off the shelf?

The challenge of building with Reka AI vs. buying

If you decide to build your own tool with a general-purpose model like Reka’s, you’re signing up for a lot more than just plugging into an API. You’d need a dedicated engineering team to handle everything. We’re talking about:

• Integration: Writing all the code to connect the model to your help desk (like Zendesk or Freshdesk) and all your internal knowledge sources.

• Workflow Logic: Designing the entire system from scratch that decides when to answer a ticket, when to escalate it, how to tag it, and what to do next.

• Fine-tuning: Pouring a ton of time and resources into training the generic model to understand your specific support issues and sound like your brand.

Comparison: Why a specialized platform gets you there faster

The alternative is to go with a tool that’s already built for the job, like eesel AI. It’s designed to solve these exact problems right out of the box. It’s a complete meal, not just one of the ingredients.

Here’s where a specialized platform can make a difference almost immediately:

• One-click Integrations: eesel AI connects to your help desk, Slack, Confluence, and other tools in just a few minutes. No complicated coding or overhauling your current setup.

eesel AI's one-click integration with Slack, which contrasts with the custom development needed for Reka AI.

• Pre-built Workflows: You get an AI Agent for full automation, an AI Copilot to help your human agents, and AI Triage for routing tickets, all ready to configure from a simple dashboard.

The eesel AI Copilot assists human agents with pre-built workflows, a feature not available out-of-the-box with Reka AI.

• It learns your business: eesel AI automatically learns from your past support tickets and knowledge base, so it gets your business context and adopts your brand voice right away.

• Risk-free Simulation: Before you even turn it on, you can run a simulation on thousands of your old tickets. This shows you exactly how the AI will perform and gives you an accurate prediction of your automation rate.

eesel AI's risk-free simulation feature allows you to test performance before deployment, a key advantage over building from scratch with Reka AI.

This table breaks down the two approaches:

Feature	Reka AI (Building a solution)	eesel AI (Ready-to-use platform)
Time to Value	Months or years	Minutes to hours
Required Expertise	AI engineers & developers	No-code, self-serve setup
Help Desk Integration	Custom API development required	One-click integrations (Zendesk, Freshdesk, etc.)
Key Functionality	General-purpose model	Specialized AI Agent, Copilot, Triage, Chatbot
Testing & Safety	Manual testing required	Built-in simulation on past tickets
Pricing Model	Custom enterprise contract (not public)	Transparent, predictable monthly/annual plans

Reka AI: Choosing the right tool for the job

So, what’s the final verdict on Reka AI? It’s an impressive company that’s definitely pushing the limits of what’s possible with efficient, multimodal AI. If your organization has a deep bench of tech talent and a specific need to build a custom, large-scale AI application from scratch, their models are a fantastic, independent alternative to the big players.

But a powerful model is just an ingredient. For specific jobs like customer service or internal IT support, the main goal is to solve problems and get results as quickly and safely as you can. In those situations, a specialized, ready-to-go platform is a much faster, safer, and more cost-effective way to get where you want to go.

If your goal is to automate support, lower your ticket volume, and give your agents a boost without starting a massive engineering project, it might be worth checking out how eesel AI can plug into your workflow in minutes.