Ortelan Labs Launches Praus, a U.S.-Based Sovereign AI Harness With Frontier-Level Benchmark Results at Under a Tenth of a Cent per Answer
Praus runs open-source models on Ortelan Labs’ own on-premises infrastructure, with additional capacity from cloud
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Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 03, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Ortelan Labs, an applied artificial intelligence lab, today launched Praus, a sovereign AI harness for open-source models. Praus sits between people and the models they use: for each request, it chooses the models best suited to the task and checks the result before returning it. It handles research, writing and code, and its agents, now in preview for selected accounts, carry out multistep tasks.
Praus logo
Alongside the launch, Ortelan Labs published Praus’s results on nine public AI benchmarks on Hugging Face. In the company’s own testing, Praus ranked first among the listed systems on two of them, GraphWalks and SimpleQA, and between third and sixteenth on the other seven. The company also estimates its on-premises infrastructure cost for a typical answer at $0.00069, below the list-price cost of all 17 frontier models it compared.
“Most people don’t need the biggest model for every question. They need the right one, checked, at a cost that makes sense,” said Kyle Nel, chief executive officer of Ortelan Labs. “We study AI by building with it. Every system we run teaches us something, and that carries into the next product, the next client and the next company we back.”
Praus is available now at praus.ai, and an iOS app is planned for later this month.
About Praus
Praus is a harness, the layer that sits around AI models and decides how they are used. Because it is not tied to any single model, newer open-source models can be added or swapped in as they improve, with no change for the people using it.
Its features include:
- Agents that carry out multistep tasks using tools and keep a record of each step
- Web search and deep research reports
- Projects that keep chats, files and notes together
- Group chats with friends, family or coworkers
- Coding assistance, with a reason given for each change
- Voice conversations and read-aloud answers
The agents work through tools that run in the customer’s own application or terminal, so every action takes place in the customer’s environment and leaves a result that can be checked. Developers can also apply for access to the Praus API, which Ortelan Labs opens account by account.
Beyond Praus
Praus is one part of the lab’s work, which also includes a second product, AI systems built for clients and investment in early-stage startups.
Lost Tribes: An autonomous genealogist for family-history research, Lost Tribes searches historical records, weighs possible matches against each other and shows the source behind every connection it suggests, marking what it cannot confirm.
Client systems: Ortelan Labs builds and runs AI systems for companies, using their own data. Its audit of more than 80 systems and applications at a national home services provider identified more than $12 million in potential savings, and it designed and built the core platform for an AI marketing firm that now reports more than $15 million in annual revenue.
Investments: The lab invests up to $5 million per company in early-stage AI startups and works alongside founders on product and operations.
Leadership
Ortelan Labs is led by Chief Executive Officer Kyle Nel and partners Christopher Harper and Bradden Blair. Before founding Ortelan Labs, Nel was executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, where in 2015 he helped announce a commercial 3D printer for the International Space Station with Made In Space. He co-wrote the 2019 Harvard Business Review article “When Your Moon Shots Don’t Take Off” with Nathan Furr and Jeff Dyer and has spoken at TEDx on how science fiction can guide innovation.
About Ortelan Labs
Ortelan Labs is an applied artificial intelligence lab that develops AI products, builds and operates AI systems for organizations, and invests in early-stage AI companies. For more information, visit ortelan.com.
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Forward-looking statements
This release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about product plans such as a Praus iOS app and the availability of features in preview, which may change. Benchmark scores and cost figures are self-reported estimates from Ortelan Labs’ own testing, have not been independently verified and are not guarantees of performance, accuracy or price. Client results describe specific past engagements and do not predict outcomes for other clients. This release is not an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security. References to Nel’s work before founding Ortelan Labs are for background only; Ortelan Labs is not affiliated with or endorsed by Lowe’s, Made In Space, Harvard Business Review or TEDx. All product and company names are trademarks of their respective owners.
Press Inquiries
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https://ortelan.com/
