Writer’s new AI model aims to fix the ‘sameness problem’ in generative content

Writer, the fast-rising enterprise AI startup recently valued at $1.9 billion, has launched Palmyra Creative, a specialized AI model promising to change how businesses tackle creative tasks.

Unlike traditional AI models — often criticized for their rigid, predictable outputs — Palmyra Creative introduces a new approach aimed at fostering originality and breaking free from the sameness that has begun to plague AI-generated content.

“All the AI models sound remarkably similar,” said Writer’s chief technology officer Waseem AlShikh in an interview with VentureBeat. “What’s surprising is how quickly humans have learned to spot AI-generated text — not just specialists, but everyone can now identify it almost instantly.”

By addressing this “sameness problem,” Writer is positioning itself as a key player in the $1 trillion generative AI market, offering enterprises a tool that combines creativity with domain-specific expertise — a balance that few competitors have managed to achieve.

How Palmyra Creative thinks differently

Rather than chasing the industry trend of expanding training data, Writer has developed a fundamentally different approach to AI architecture. While most AI models rely on vast datasets and fine-tuning, Palmyra Creative uses merging techniques and adaptive model layering to restructure how the model interprets and generates language.

“[We thought] let’s not actually focus on the training data,” AlShikh explained. “Can we focus on actually recreating the layering [within] the model so the model can see the token differently? We trained three different models with three different datasets and used some techniques called merging techniques.”

This innovative method reorganizes how relationships between tokens are processed within the model, resulting in outputs that are more dynamic and less predictable. The result is a model capable of generating unique, engaging content without requiring monumental amounts of new training data.

Writer’s approach is also cost-effective. Training Palmyra Creative cost just $700,000, a fraction of the $4.6 million it reportedly costs competitors like OpenAI to train similarly sized models.

Creativity meets accuracy: Guardrails for enterprise use

Palmyra Creative doesn’t just produce creative outputs — it does so while maintaining high levels of accuracy and reliability, thanks to Writer’s new “claim detection” system. This feature ensures that creative outputs generated by the model remain grounded when combined with Writer’s industry-specific models, such as Palmyra Med for healthcare or Palmyra Fin for finance.

“We had to put [in] a lot of guardrails because creative is great, but there is some limit when [what is] created actually could ruin the input,” said AlShikh. “When you have a chain of thought with multiple models, we create a cell layer to develop checks — what we call the claim system.”

This system evaluates whether claims made by the creative model align with factual inputs from domain-specific models, ensuring outputs are as reliable as they are innovative. For instance, when integrating a healthcare model with Palmyra Creative, the system flags any divergence from established medical facts, allowing enterprises to maintain compliance and trustworthiness.

Measuring creativity: A unique challenge

Unlike traditional benchmarks like Stanford’s HELM or MMLU, which evaluate models based on accuracy and reasoning, creativity doesn’t fit neatly into established metrics. To address this, Writer developed a new evaluation framework, employing a team of 20 linguists who spent three weeks analyzing Palmyra Creative’s outputs.

The company also introduced a benchmark system that measures token uniqueness across multiple generations of outputs. “We try to work differently,” AlShikh said. “We measure creativity by looking at token uniqueness and how relationships between tokens differ from the training data. It’s a way to quantify originality.”

Writer plans to publish this benchmark as an open-source tool in January, potentially setting a new industry standard for evaluating creative AI.

Real-world applications: Creativity in action

Palmyra Creative is already being used to address a variety of creative challenges in industries like marketing, finance, and product development. For example, the model can help businesses brainstorm original strategies, such as devising loyalty programs or crafting unconventional marketing campaigns, while maintaining brand distinctiveness.

In one demonstration, Palmyra Creative suggested unique ideas for a small-town bakery competing with a national chain. Among its recommendations: hosting sensory baking sessions for seniors to recreate childhood treats, organizing community bake-offs for charity, and using gamified loyalty programs to engage customers. These kinds of imaginative, tailored solutions are precisely what enterprises need to stand out in competitive markets.

A billion-dollar bet on the future of enterprise AI

The Palmyra Creative launch comes at a pivotal time for Writer, which recently raised $200 million in Series C funding co-led by Premji Invest, Radical Ventures, and ICONIQ Growth. With high-profile clients such as Salesforce, Uber, L’Oréal, and Accenture, Writer is doubling down on its enterprise-first strategy, offering tools that promise measurable ROI and scalability.

“Enterprises don’t just need AI — they need AI that works for their unique challenges,” said Patrick Stokes, EVP of product at Salesforce, in a statement. “Writer provides a refined, AI-powered solution that’s effective, easy to deploy, and has rapidly accelerated our workflows.”

Writer’s partnership with Nvidia further underscores its commitment to enterprise scalability. Palmyra Creative is packaged as a NVIDIA NIM microservice, allowing businesses to deploy it across cloud, data center, and edge environments with ease.

Can Writer outpace the competition?

By addressing the “sameness problem” in AI-generated content, Writer is staking its claim in a crowded market dominated by tech giants like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Anthropic. Its focus on creativity, coupled with cost-effective innovation and enterprise-grade reliability, gives it a unique edge.

However, the road ahead won’t be easy. Competing in generative AI requires not only technical excellence but also robust governance frameworks to address emerging issues like bias and safety. Writer’s claim detection system and open-source benchmarks are promising steps, but the company will need to continue innovating to stay ahead.

With the generative AI market projected to surpass $1 trillion in revenue within the next decade, Writer’s bet on creativity could prove to be a winning strategy.

Palmyra Creative is available now through Writer’s API, no-code tools, and the NVIDIA API catalog, with $10 in free API credits. But in a world increasingly dominated by AI, Writer’s true test is whether it can teach its machines to do what humans do best: think differently.

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