Rise of AI driven conversational interfaces

Avaamo is at the forefront of AI driven conversational computing, with deployments in many countries. Ram Menon, Founder & CEO, Avaamo highlights the strategy for channel partners

Avaamo was founded in 2014 by Sriram Chakravarthy and Ram Menon. The startup is a deep-learning software company that specialises in conversational interfaces to solve specific problems in the enterprise. Avaamo technologies have been deployed in more than 40 countries, including India, 11 languages and does over two million interactions per week. It has already partnered with some of the world’s leading brands across industries, including healthcare, insurance, telco, finance and service desk automation.

The rise of conversational interfaces, whether in the enterprise or consumers, is a secular trend in human computer interaction and is the first significant change after the invention of the browser. Avaamo’s goal is to make conversational computing for the enterprise a reality.

The company has a focused strategy for channel partners. “We work specifically with Systems Integrators like Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and Accenture and KPMG who are constantly working with their customers to embark on digital transformation projects that require AI technology,” Ram Menon, Founder & CEO, Avaamo, adding that their key services partners act as “early warning systems” to seek large customer inputs, needs and for a startup this offers invaluable feedback to quickly tweak the roadmap to market outlook and customer needs.

Menon believes that tech startups need to spend the time, especially in the B2B space first, building their own customer base with reference implementations. “Once you have anchor customers, the ecosystems approach you to try to replicate digital transformation projects across verticals. Then working with various channel partners becomes easier and less time consuming,” he mentions.

Disclosing the future plans of the company in terms of expanding geographical footprint through dealers/retailers/affiliates, Menon shares, “We continue to expand our footprints in different vectors: Systems Integrators, technology companies who embed our products in their technology stack. Our plans are simple – help Avaamo become a crucial component of reinventing how business is conducted in the 21st century. Conversational AI will radically overhaul customer service and free human time and talent for different and more engaging jobs.”

To push ahead to various areas where conversational interfaces can be implanted in the enterprise Menon believes virtual assistants are going to change the way customers, employees, and stakeholders interact with one another in the business world. “We’re committed to making it incredibly easy for businesses to implement this paradigm shift in user computing,” he asserts.

Reminding that Avaamo was built for a global business audience, not a single target customer segment, Chakravarthy adds, ”We support multiple languages and multiple verticals. Our platform was created for a diverse set of users and people across the globe. Success is based in part on how businesses cater to a global audience. We’ve learned that people prefer to interact in their own languages, and they want to experience brands in their own language.”

Chakravarthy believes that there is no monolithic AI market. AI is being applied by problem and by industry and depending on the value proposition investors are looking for real tangible benefits of the technology in terms of “making” money or “saving” money.

Speaking about the future, Chakravarthy says, “Our plans are simple – help Avaamo become a crucial component of reinventing how business is conducted in the 21st century.” He is certain that conversational AI will radically overhaul customer service and free human time and talent for different and more engaging jobs.