Sebastian Thrun, one of the best known entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, is taking on a new challenge that's a big shift from his work in autonomous transportation or online education: Thrun, who founded Google's research lab X and its autonomous car project, education start-up Udacity, and electric aircraft company KittyHawk, is a co-founder and chairman of a stealthy enterprise company called Cresta AI. He's the elder statesman of the founding team, which includes Zayd Enam and Tim Shi, who are both in their late 20s. Cresta's artificial intelligence-powered system is designed to help automate mundane office jobs, allowing users to get work done more efficiently. "If we train AI to take over boring repetitive tasks, we can free humanity and reach new heights," Thrun told CNBC. Enam, Cresta's CEO, describes an unusual situation that he counts as a sign of the success.