Tim Gill: The Engineering Visionary Powering Josh.ai’s Smart Home Intelligence 🏡

"The best technology disappears completely, leaving only the magic behind."

This philosophy has guided Tim Gill throughout his groundbreaking career, from revolutionizing desktop publishing to leading the AI charge in modern smart homes. As co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Josh.ai, Gill has applied his formidable software engineering expertise to create AI systems that are powerful and intuitive. His work continues to reshape how we interact with technology in our most personal spaces.

Early Life, Education, and Success

Raised in Colorado, Tim discovered a love of problem-solving at Wheat Ridge High School, where his analytical nature began to take form. He went on to study applied mathematics and computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder between 1972 and 1976, developing his technical talents that would serve as the launchpad for his future innovations. During this time, he also became active in campus social justice initiatives, an early indication of the values that would later drive his philanthropic work.

In 1981, Tim founded Quark, Inc., and introduced the world to QuarkXPress, desktop publishing software that rapidly became the industry standard for newspapers, magazines, and design professionals. QuarkXPress revolutionized visual communication by prioritizing performance, usability, and elegant interface design years before such values became industry-wide benchmarks. Following his successful exit from Quark in 1999, Tim turned his focus toward advancing civil rights and social progress. He founded the Gill Foundation and Gill Action Fund, contributing over $300 million to LGBTQ+ advocacy and progressive initiatives, solidifying his legacy as both a technical visionary and a philanthropic leader.

New Ventures: Co-Founding Josh.ai

In 2015, Tim teamed up with entrepreneur Alex Capecelatro to co-found Josh.ai, an ambitious venture aimed at transforming smart home technology. At the time, voice assistants from big tech companies were non-existent or unreliable. Josh.ai was built with contextual voice understanding, and minimalistic, elegant design, centered around the home. The result was a home automation platform that was able to understand complex natural language commands, provide reliable responses, and all without ever needing to send data to the cloud.

At the heart of Josh.ai lies the advanced scripting engine that Tim engineered. This powerful software architecture enables Josh to interpret multi-layered, context-aware voice commands with ease. For instance, asking Josh a complex, natural phrase like "dim the lights a little, bring the shades up, turn on some calming music and make it a little less cold in here," it can simultaneously run all of these actions, all without the user needing to run each step individually. Because the processing occurs locally, these commands execute almost instantly, ensuring convenience and security.

Josh.ai’s success is also rooted in a series of innovative hardware solutions all made under Tim's guidance. In 2018, the company released Josh Micro, a sleek device featuring far-field voice recognition and local processing power. Two years later, Josh Nano and Josh Core entered the market, expanding the system’s capabilities. Josh Nano, designed to be embedded flush in ceilings or walls, offered discreet yet powerful voice control. Josh Core functioned as the high-performance server behind the scenes, delivering instant AI responses while eliminating reliance on the cloud. Most recently, Josh One, launched in 2024, brought the same level of intelligence and privacy to smaller homes and installations, making elite-level automation more accessible.

Leading Innovation at Josh

Currently, Tim is responsible for utilizing large language models (LLMs) for endless creative solutions, and to uniquely handle smart home commands no other system is doing today. For instance, tell Josh to “set the lights to the colors of a Caribbean sunset” and Tim's work allows Josh to identify the devices and arrangement necessary to instantly transform the space into a beach paradise. By implementing LLM technology into Josh, Tim continues to push the boundaries of what smart home control systems are capable of.

The applications to Tim’s AI-powered code goes beyond lighting. Ask Josh “play that song at the end of the popular 80s movie where the students get detention,” and Josh can identify you are trying to listen to “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds. Josh is able to use the power of LLMs to understand and accurately respond to complex requests such as the one presented.

Josh can also utilize generative AI capabilities to generate a photo for any room, scene, or building with a simple voice command. This feature allows you to instantly create a photo that works best for your home devices. For instance, tell Josh to “generate a photo for my good morning scene featuring a winter wonderland, snowing, with a luxury log cabin mansion, ski slopes in the background, and a warm fire seen through the windows along with a dog playing in the front yard,” and you’ll get the perfect image for your winter home!

Beyond the Keyboard: Personal Life and Public Impact

Apart from his contributions to engineering, Tim is known for living his values. A passionate snowboarder and lifelong Colorado resident, he lives in Denver with his husband, Scott Miller, prior U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and their dogs. In 2025, Tim was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, honoring not just his technical contributions, but also his unwavering advocacy for human rights.

Tim’s approach to artificial intelligence is refreshingly ethical. He has consistently challenged the assumption that smart technology must come at the cost of user privacy. Instead, Josh.ai proves that intelligent systems can provide advanced, personal experiences, entirely within the walls of the home, without harvesting data or relying on cloud servers. His engineering standards are exacting because he knows that trust is non-negotiable in the modern smart home. With Josh, users maintain full control over their environments and their information, setting a new industry precedent for ethical, local-first AI.

Conclusion: Tim Gill’s Lasting Legacy

Through his leadership at Josh.ai, Tim Gill has shown that the future of smart living doesn't require sacrificing privacy for convenience. His systems are engineered not to impress with flash, but to disappear into the background, allowing the magic of technology to feel natural, effortless, and secure. In a world increasingly shaped by surveillance and data extraction, Gill has proven that a better path is not only possible, it’s already here.