H Company

What Is H Company?

In April 2023, five researchers who had spent years at Google DeepMind walked out and founded a company in Paris with a very specific ambition: build AI that does things, not just answers questions. Laurent Sifre, Charles Kantor, Daan Wierstra, Karl Tuyls, and Julien Perollat — a group responsible for foundational work in reinforcement learning and AlphaGo — believed that the dominant conversational AI paradigm was the wrong model for most real-world work. The future they bet on was agentic: AI that operates software, navigates browsers, fills forms, and completes multi-step tasks without a human in the loop.

They called the company H. In May 2024, H closed what was then the largest AI seed round in European history — $220 million, backed by Eric Schmidt, Amazon, Accel, Bpifrance, Xavier Niel, and Bernard Arnault. The raise attracted attention and scrutiny in equal measure. Were these five researchers building something substantively different from OpenAI and Anthropic, or was this a European AI lab riding the wave?

By mid-2026 the answer is becoming clearer. H Company, operating at hcompany.ai under CEO Gautier Cloix (who joined from Palantir France in June 2025), has shipped Runner H, Holo-1, Surfer-H-CLI, HoloTab, and Holo3. The result is a coherent product arc from research lab to enterprise agent platform, built from Paris with 90 employees and a GDPR-compliant data stack.

Key Features

Holo3 Vision-Language Models

Holo3, released in March 2026, is H Company's current generation of vision-language models. They are specifically designed for front-end digital environments: rather than processing text, Holo3 models interpret screenshots, identify UI elements (buttons, fields, menus, tables), and determine what actions to take to complete a specified goal. This is qualitatively different from large general-purpose models asked to do computer-use tasks — Holo3 was architecturally designed for this workflow, not adapted to it.

The practical result is reliable browser automation at a lower computational cost than using frontier general models for the same task. Holo3 achieves high accuracy in UI element recognition via screenshots, making it suitable for production enterprise workflows where errors in a multi-step automation are consequential.

Runner H and the Holo Models API

Runner H, launched in November 2024, was H Company's first public agentic API product — a combination of a large language model and a 2-billion parameter vision-language model working in tandem. It established the core architecture that Holo3 evolved from. The Holo Models API provides programmatic access to H Company's vision-language models via a credits system, allowing developers and enterprises to build browser automation workflows at scale.

Credits are pre-purchased units that map to specific tiers of API access, with pricing structured around task complexity and model capability. This is usage-based pricing without a monthly commitment — appropriate for automation workloads that vary significantly in volume.

HoloTab Chrome Extension

HoloTab is H Company's consumer-facing product: a free Chrome extension that deploys an AI agent inside your browser. No API key, no technical setup, no code. Open a browser, install HoloTab, describe a task — "find the cheapest flight from Paris to Amsterdam next Friday" or "fill in this expense form from these receipts" — and the agent executes it by interacting with the web page directly.

HoloTab is significant for two reasons. First, it demonstrates H Company's technology to a broad audience without requiring enterprise engagement. Second, it is genuinely free, which positions H Company to build user familiarity before commercial conversion. The extension is available on the Chrome Web Store and operates on H's infrastructure, not local compute.

Open-Source Research Contributions

In June 2025, H Company open-sourced Holo-1, a 3-billion parameter vision-language model available for community use. The following month, Surfer-H-CLI — an open-source Chrome agent built on Holo-1 — was released, achieving 92.2% accuracy on the WebVoyager browser automation benchmark. These open-source releases serve both scientific credibility (the research community can evaluate H's claims independently) and commercial positioning (developers building on Holo-1 are potential Holo Models API customers).

The combination of proprietary enterprise models and open-source research models mirrors Mistral AI's strategy and provides H Company with a credible place in both the academic and commercial AI ecosystems.

Enterprise Autonomous Operations Platform

H Company's highest-commitment product tier is a full-stack autonomous operations platform for enterprises: agentic models, advanced orchestration, scalable execution infrastructure, and a continuous learning pipeline that improves automation over time. This competes with enterprise RPA platforms like UiPath and Automation Anywhere, but using AI-native vision-language models rather than rule-based scripts.

The key advantage over traditional RPA is resilience to UI changes. Rule-based automation breaks when a website updates its layout. Vision-language agents read the current screen and adapt — they see a new button position and click the correct button regardless. For organisations managing automation across dozens of third-party web applications, this adaptability has significant operational value.

Pricing

H Company's pricing is structured across three tiers with very different buyer profiles.

HoloTab is free — no account required beyond Chrome extension installation. It is the widest distribution point and the clearest demonstration of H Company's technology. For individual users and small teams who want browser automation without infrastructure, HoloTab is a viable starting point.

The Holo Models API operates on a credits system: pre-purchased credits consumed per task, with volume and model tier determining cost. Specific credit prices are not publicly listed and require direct engagement. This is common for early-stage enterprise AI companies managing demand and onboarding — pricing is more a conversation than a catalogue. For development teams evaluating H Company's models for production use, the credits model provides genuine pay-as-you-go flexibility without minimum commitments.

The Enterprise tier is fully custom and bundles the Holo3 models, the full autonomous operations platform, dedicated support, SLAs, and a continuous learning pipeline. This is not a product for self-serve buyers. H Company is positioning itself as a strategic AI infrastructure partner for large organisations, not a software-as-a-service vendor.

EU Compliance & Privacy

H Company is registered at 8 rue Sainte-Cécile, 75009 Paris, France — operating under French and EU law by default. GDPR applies without requiring contractual opt-in, and the company has appointed a designated Data Protection Officer (available at [email protected]). Data Processing Agreements are available for enterprise customers.

France is a serious jurisdiction for AI governance. The CNIL (Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés) is one of Europe's most active data protection authorities, and French companies face real enforcement risk for GDPR violations. H Company operating in Paris under this regulatory environment is a structurally stronger EU compliance position than, for example, a US-incorporated company with a European subsidiary.

Data is processed within EU infrastructure. H Company has an office in New York but the Paris headquarters is the governing entity. For European enterprises that need to demonstrate GDPR-compliant AI infrastructure in procurement documentation, H Company's French domicile and DPO designation provide the necessary paper trail.

The one legitimate investor-based governance concern: Eric Schmidt, Amazon, and other US-based investors hold significant stakes. This does not affect GDPR compliance — H Company is a French legal entity regardless of cap table composition — but some EU public-sector buyers have policies requiring majority-European ownership chains that H Company may not satisfy.

Who It's Best For

Enterprise teams automating complex browser workflows — financial services running KYC checks across multiple portals, procurement teams extracting data from supplier websites, HR teams processing applications across multiple platforms. Holo3's vision-language architecture handles these tasks more reliably than generic AI applied to RPA.

Developers building AI-powered automation products who want access to specialized computer-use models rather than repurposing general-purpose LLMs. The Holo Models API provides a focused, cost-efficient route to browser automation capability.

Individual users curious about agentic AI should start with HoloTab — free, no commitment, and a genuine demonstration of what autonomous browser agents can do in 2026.

If you need a conversational AI assistant for text tasks, document summarisation, or creative work, H Company is the wrong fit. Its models are optimised for UI interaction and workflow execution, not general dialogue.

The Verdict

H Company has done what Paris-based AI labs are supposed to do: taken a defensible research insight — purpose-built vision-language models for browser automation — and built a coherent product arc around it, from free consumer extension to enterprise platform. The technical foundation is credible, the regulatory footing is clean, and the open-source contributions (Holo-1, Surfer-H-CLI) provide independent validation of the core claims. The weak points are also real: enterprise-only pricing with no transparency, a 90-person team still maturing its support and documentation, and agentic automation that requires careful scoping to avoid runaway errors. For European enterprises ready to invest in AI-native automation infrastructure rather than incremental RPA improvements, H Company is the most technically coherent European option in the field.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is H Company GDPR compliant?

Yes. H Company is incorporated at 8 rue Sainte-Cécile, 75009 Paris, and operates under French and EU law. The company has a designated Data Protection Officer and offers GDPR-ready Data Processing Agreements to enterprise customers. All data processing is subject to EU GDPR by default.

What is Runner H and how does it work?

Runner H was H Company's first agentic API platform, launched in November 2024. It combined a large language model with a 2-billion parameter vision-language model optimised for UI understanding — enabling AI agents to interpret browser screenshots and complete tasks in digital environments. Runner H has since evolved into the Holo3 model family and Holo Models API.

How does H Company compare to ChatGPT?

H Company and ChatGPT serve fundamentally different purposes. ChatGPT is a conversational assistant for text-based tasks — writing, analysis, Q&A. H Company builds computer-use agents that autonomously navigate browsers, fill forms, and complete multi-step digital workflows. The comparison is less "which chatbot is better" and more "which approach to AI automation fits your use case." H Company is closer to an RPA platform than a chat product.

Is HoloTab free to use?

Yes. HoloTab is a free Chrome extension that deploys H Company's AI agent inside your browser. It can navigate websites, fill out forms, and complete tasks autonomously without requiring API access, technical setup, or a paid subscription. It is available on the Chrome Web Store.

What is Holo3 and how does it differ from earlier H Company models?

Holo3, released in March 2026, is H Company's current family of vision-language models, designed to interpret front-end digital environments and perform actions across them — clicking, typing, and navigating complex UIs. It represents a significant capability step beyond Holo-1, the 3-billion parameter open-source model released in June 2025, and is available via the Holo Models API for enterprise automation workflows.