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Warmwind AG -- Company & Product

Warmwind (Jena, Germany) builds the first AI-native operating system -- a cloud-based platform where autonomous AI agents interact with desktop software visually, the same way a human would. Founded 2022, €1.5M seed, 83K+ waitlist.

What They Build

Warmwind OS creates "cloud employees" -- AI agents that automate office work by seeing screens, clicking buttons, typing text, navigating UIs. No APIs needed; the agent operates at the pixel level using vision-language models.

graph LR
    Browser["Browser"] -->|WebSocket| Backend["NestJS"]
    Backend --> AI["AI Agent"]
    Backend --> DB["PostgreSQL"]
    AI -->|sees screen| VNC["WayVNC"]
    AI -->|clicks/types| Sway["Sway"]
    Sway --- Apps["Desktop Apps"]
    VNC -->|VNC stream| Browser

Tech Stack (from job postings)

Layer Technology
OS Custom Debian-based Linux distro, tuned kernel
Display Sway (wlroots Wayland compositor)
Streaming WayVNC (compositor → VNC → browser)
Browser Customized Chromium (kiosk mode)
Containers Kubernetes, Docker, cgroups, namespaces
Backend NestJS (TypeScript), GraphQL, WebSockets
Database PostgreSQL (TypeORM)
AI Proprietary + fine-tuned open-source LLMs
Systems C, C++, Rust
Infrastructure German cloud, GDPR compliant

Why Their Architecture Matters

They chose Wayland (Sway) over X11 because each application renders into its own buffer. This enables clean per-app frame capture without the shared-framebuffer problems of X11. The AI agent "sees" individual window contents by reading compositor surfaces.

They chose VNC over RDP because VNC's simple framebuffer model integrates naturally with Wayland's surface-oriented architecture. WayVNC captures compositor output via wlr-screencopy and streams it.

They run each user session in an isolated Kubernetes container with a full Linux desktop environment. The OS boots in seconds, the compositor starts, and the VNC stream begins -- all containerized.

On leaving X11

Daniel Stone (Wayland co-maintainer): "We spent years trying to fix X11 and eventually realized we'd built a terrible IPC bus with a display server strapped to the side." This is exactly why Warmwind started clean with Wayland.

Company Details

  • Legal: Warmwind AG (formerly EVA AG), HRB 519308
  • Address: Lobstedter Str. 49a, 07749 Jena
  • Founded: March 2022, renamed November 2024
  • Funding: €1.5M seed (bm-t, BRT Ventures)
  • Team: ~10, actively hiring
  • Founders: Maximilian Schilling (CEO), Richard Wieduwilt
  • Award: ThEx Award 2025 (Thuringian Founding Prize)
  • Website: warmwind.space

Glossary

Vision-language model (VLM)
An AI model that processes both images and text. Warmwind's agent takes screenshots, "sees" UI elements, and decides what to click/type.
WayVNC
A VNC server specifically for wlroots-based Wayland compositors. Captures compositor frames via wlr-screencopy, encodes as RFB (Remote Framebuffer) protocol, streams to clients.
wlr-screencopy
A wlroots protocol extension that lets a client request a copy of the compositor's output buffer. WayVNC uses this to capture frames.
Sway
A tiling Wayland compositor, drop-in replacement for i3. Built on wlroots. Warmwind uses it as the window manager in their custom OS.