Co-founder at Avenir AI
Maria Zou
I made my first sale at 10 and never stopped loving the craft of building. I’m a proud nerd - my people are nerds who ship real-world change. After MIT research on tech innovation for workplace wellbeing, I left Private Equity to start Avenir AI. In PE and IB, and through the early fintech revolution, I saw software rewire finance. My take is that legacy industries deserve the same overhaul - healthcare first. Also, I’m a gym rat with a 590 lb x 12 hack squat PR, I find my peace with kitesurfing and wakeboarding :)
Questions & Answers
What's a memorable 'aha' moment you've had while building your startup?
A customer chose to pay us from their full-time hire budget (FTE) instead of their software budget. We didn’t sell Avenir as a human replacement, but after seeing our agent handle the repetitive benefits ops they planned to hire for, they made that call. That moment confirmed our thesis - AI agents can take over a lot of manual work. It was exciting and, honestly, a little scary. It pushed us to deepen workflow integrations, measure hours saved, and align pricing to outcomes.
What sets you apart from others in your industry?
They highlight innovation, but 9 out of 10 competitors are built by calcified folks from healthcare incumbents. They say they focus on AI, but 0 out of 10 are truly AI-native. It’s portals + rules + people behind the curtain. Avenir team is different. We are a world-class, AI-native team from MIT’s top labs, with brains from Google DeepMind and Microsoft Copilot. We ship fast, extremely fast, hit traction in months, and our agents take over the manual grind others still staff. You won’t find this mix of research depth, operator speed, and velocity anywhere else.
What problem or opportunity inspired you to start your company, and how has your vision evolved since then?
We’ve all been there. It’s your first day on a new job and you're staring at a benefits package that feels generic, complex, and overpriced. All my friends felt the same way so I decided to investigate and I learned that benefits are the second-largest cost center, and that the people in charge of making decisions about benefits offering were pretty much flying blind! During my MIT research and 200+ conversations with HR leaders, finance teams, brokers, and TPAs, I kept hearing the same thing: too many wasted hours, too much wasted money. That showed me the industry was hungry for change. My vision for Avenir began with solving these frustrations - making benefits clear and useful for employees. It’s since evolved into re-building the benefits infrastructure for the AI age: giving employers & brokers the instant intelligence to cut costs and make smarter decisions.
