- Theoretically, it is doable but technically, the amount of computation needed to do it is huge and costs can run up to millions, Verloop CEO says
- GCC is heavy on voice rather than text when compared to India.
- Targets 1,000 enterprise customers in the next one and a half years.
Dubai: Chatbots are gaining traction across the world and in many industries but can it achieve 100 per cent automation?
It is not possible in the near future; Gaurav Singh, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Verloop.io, told Tech Channel News.
“Queries can come in many ways which we haven’t predicted and one of the biggest challenges is when the customer gets irritated. The bot is not trained to handle it,” he said.
A chatbot is artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites and mobile apps or the telephone.
“Theoretically, it is doable but technically, the amount of computation needed to do it is huge. I don’t think people are going to spend millions of dollars on it because you need to merge the cost-benefit ratio and the RoI has to be right for the users to buy.
It is better for businesses to handle the most important queries and leave the rest to the bot,” he said.
However, he said that they have achieved 65 per cent automation in some businesses and in some cases have peaked it to 92 per cent.
The company has handled more than two billion queries so far.
Covid revs up digital adoption
“We want to push the upper limit. We want to improve the coverage in precision and increase the floor of how much automation we are doing and want to understand more languages. There is still a lot of work needs to be done and we are still at an early stage,” Singh said.
The customer support automation startup has seen the demand for its platform spike during Coivid-19 and accelerated the digital adoption which C-level executives had in the pipeline.
Singh said that their revenues have increased threefold in the last six months.
“Deals, which used to take six months to close, are happening in two months. Customer support hasn’t got the due attention from developers and the leadership so far. We are bringing the technology, which the marketing and other functions had, to customer support and enable businesses to delight their customers,” he said.
Gartner predicts that 70 per cent of customer interactions will involve emerging technologies such as machine learning applications, chatbots and mobile messaging by 2022.
According to Markets and Markets, the global conversational AI market size is expected to grow from $4.2 billion in 2019 to $15.7 billion by 2024, at an annual growth rate of 30.2 per cent.
Abu Dhabi is the right place to be
Verloop, which started in 2015 in Bengaluru, moved to Abu Dhabi more than a month ago after getting $5 million “Series A” funding led by Alpha Wave Incubation (AWI) Fund, the venture fund backed by Abu Dhabi’s state holding company ADQ.
The startup had raised $3 million Seed funding in India.
“We had a lot of machine learning and AI to be built into the platform and Abu Dhabi has been fostering that culture a lot with the Mohammed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence. The move has made a lot more important for us as we have a support infrastructure as well and can be close to our customers,” Singh said.
However, he said the idea floated when realising that the next set of one billion people, who come online, will access the internet through voice and when that happens, businesses will not be able to answer it.
“These people expect answers in WhatsApp and languages that are not standardised. Businesses will not be able to do it and if they wanted to, it will take a lot of manpower and the volume of conversations that business get will go up exponentially. So, we started conversational automation,” he said.
Spreading wings
First, Verloop built it as a B2C platform but felt the demand is on the B2B side. Enterprises can deploy the bot on the website, app, Facebook page and WhatsApp number.
Now, it is been used by big banks, insurance, delivery and retail companies in the region.
Singh said that they have more than 5,000 business customers and more than 150 enterprises from GCC, India and South East Asia.
“We are planning to expand into other markets in a phased manner. Our next target is to have 1,000 enterprise customers in the next one and a half years,” he said.
Verloop supports 11 languages, including all dialects of Arabic.
However, he said that the region is heavy on voice recording and sending it on WhatsApp when compared to India but the text has a lot more adoption than voice despite being more monotonous and robotic.