We build AI products that strengthen human judgment.
A studio, a lab, and a publication run by two brothers twelve years apart. We explore the gap between what technology makes possible and what people find useful.
Why the name exists
Brandon and Kai are brothers, separated by twelve years. Growing up at different moments gave them different reference points for the same technological changes. Brandon approaches them through engineering; Kai approaches them through product discovery and evaluation.
Why the institution exists
We build and study AI products that help people navigate machine-mediated systems without surrendering judgment or authorship. We take experiments past the demo, record what fails, and publish what changes our decisions.
Why the combination matters
Product strategy and technical experimentation often sit with different people. Working together lets Brandon and Kai connect customer research, product decisions, implementation, and evaluation without handing the problem from one discipline to another.
They already run a company together
Their career histories below show where Brandon and Kai already work together. TwelveApart is where they publish the decisions behind that work and test new product ideas in public.
Pier
| Founder | Role | When |
|---|---|---|
| Brandon | Technical Founder and Chief Technology Officer | 2023–2026 |
| Kai | Co-Founder, Product Manager | October 2025–Present |
JPMorgan Chase & Co.
| Founder | Role | When |
|---|---|---|
| Kai | Investment Banking Summer Analyst | June 2022–August 2022 |
| Kai | ABP Corporate & Investment Banking Fellow | June 2021–July 2021 |
The two territories
Building AI products that strengthen human judgment instead of replacing it.
Human-centered applied AI — products that help people navigate machine-mediated systems while strengthening their cognition, agency, and expression. I work across product engineering, agent orchestration, evaluation, and the operating systems that keep the result reliable.
Using customer research and product tests to decide what to build next.
I turn customer research into product decisions, requirements, experiments, and launches for AI products.