When Marcus Schappi talks about the future of work, he does it with a mix of technical precision and commercial genius, the kind of energy that makes you believe the inbox could actually be fun again.
Marcus is the founder of Ninja AI, an AI-powered inbox that doesn’t just help you write emails; it actually does the work inside them.
Think: processing return requests, sending invoices, chasing suppliers, all from a single voice-commanded inbox.
“You just say, ‘do the thing,’ and it happens.”
The problem: professionals trapped in their inboxes
It’s a familiar story for anyone who spends their workday glued to email.
“Most professionals spend about 28% of their week doing repetitive, manual tasks in their inbox,” Marcus says. “That’s 11 hours every week, just chasing people, replying, forwarding, copy-pasting.”
For Marcus, who’s spent his career toggling between the developer world and the business world, this inefficiency wasn’t just annoying; it was unacceptable.
“Developers have all these amazing automation tools. You tell the AI what you want it to do, and it just does it. But business users? They’re stuck between ChatGPT and their actual work. It’s all copy-paste. So we’re fixing that gap.”
The turning point: when the AI surprised even him
The moment Ninja AI clicked into place was caught on film, literally. Marcus was recording a product demo using his wife’s business inbox when something unexpected happened.
“As I was filming, Ninja just… did everything. It replied to the customer, messaged the supplier, arranged a replacement, all perfectly, all at once. It was supposed to be a 15-minute job, and it was done in 10 seconds. I actually said, ‘Oh, shit, it worked!’”
That spark became the heartbeat of Ninja AI.
Faster than Superhuman, lighter than a CRM, and smarter than ChatGPT.
On the surface, Ninja AI looks like a shared inbox for Gmail, Outlook, and 12,500+ other business tools, from Shopify to Zendesk. Underneath, it’s an intelligent system that reads email context and acts accordingly. It can send tracking links, prepare invoices, or update CRM entries, all while letting users stay in control.
It’s also fully voice-powered. “You just say what you want done, and Ninja does it. Then it speaks back to you. It really is that magical,” Marcus says.
Early adopters, mostly technical e-commerce teams, are already using Ninja AI for customer service and operational workflows. Marcus describes it as “faster than Superhuman, lighter than a CRM, and smarter than ChatGPT.”
From Startmate to scale
“Closing Startmate was huge for us,” he says. "It is an environment built for speed and provides access to the world's best investors"
Speed, in fact, has become his mantra. “Speed compounds. The faster you build, the faster you learn. Especially now, when AI lets us do insane things in a short amount of time.”
During the program, Marcus quietly launched multiple iterations of Ninja AI, refining the chat interface, marketplace, and hosting layer into a single platform. Next on the roadmap: the voice-powered inbox and first enterprise contracts.
The long game: becoming the “USB-C port” for AI
Marcus’s long-term vision is bold: to make Ninja AI the operating system for AI agents and co-pilots.
“Today, all our context lives in little islands: your ChatGPT, your email, your CRM. We want to connect it all. Think of Ninja as the USB-C port for AI: the universal connector between your context, your data, and your tools.”
In five years, Marcus sees Ninja AI as the home of your work, and the home of your AI.
Ask
For now, Marcus is flying (literally, to London, to meet more customers) and inviting others to join the journey.
“We’re looking for AI-curious teams and support agencies who want to pilot Ninja’s shared AI inbox,” he says. “You can sign up for a demo at ninja.ai/demo.”
Advice to Founders
“Come in with conviction or polish. Accelerators bet on your ambition, not your deck.”
.jpeg)
