Voice AI Platform for Call Centers Observe.AI Raises $8 Mn in Funding Led by Nexus Venture

 
US and India-based Observe.AI, which is building a Voice AI platform for call centers, has raised $8 million in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners with participation from MGV, Liquid 2 Ventures, Hack VC and existing investors Emergent Ventures and Y Combinator. Observe.AI also announced its agent-first voice AI platform to improve caller satisfaction in call centers worldwide.
Started in 2017, Observe.AI is headquartered in Santa Clara, California with an office in Bangalore, India, and is funded by Nexus Venture Partners, Emergent Ventures and part of Y Combinator winter 2018 batch.
Oberserve.AI was founded by IIT-Delhi alumni – Swapnil Jain (CEO), Akash Singh (CTO) and Sharath Keshava (CRO), a Visvesvarya Tech University engineering graduate. Oberserve.AI platform provides call center agent with real-time feedback on customer sentiment and guides them on next best action during the customer call. The AI platform listens to the call stream in real time, uses deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) to understand the context and generates suggestions and guidance for the agent.
 
Before starting Oberserver.AI, Swapnil had earlier worked at Twitter and Google while Akash has worked at as software engineer at Bangalore-based InMobi. Sharath had earlier worked at Amazon India and HeathTech startup Practo as a Region Head for South east Asia.
The company, which is already working with the largest call center in the world, recently partnered with Talkdesk to launch its voice AI platform for Talkdesk customers. According to Tiago Paiva, CEO of Talkdesk, “Voice AI is a huge opportunity for call center efficiency and improving the caller experience. I’m excited to bring the Observe.AI offering to Talkdesk customers.”
While the Observe.Ai is working on “agent-first” artificial intelligence product, Google along with few big international companies are testing the Duplex AI, Google’s natural conversational AI voice calling technology, for using in call centers to answer customers’ questions. It was rumored that with the help of Duplex, call centers will be able to replace some of the work done by humans.
Swapnil Jain, founder and CEO of Observe.AI, says, “Humans like talking to humans because it gives them a sense of assurance which is at the core of a delightful customer experience. We are using the power of AI to make that voice conversation even more delightful by equipping the customer support agent with the tools needed while the call is going on. The agent no longer needs to place customers on hold, or transfer them around; continuous engagement is established until a successful resolution is reached. Our agent-first approach is all about making the job of the agent easier which translates into better productivity and higher customer satisfaction.”
Ram Gupta, managing director of Nexus Venture Partners, concludes, “Companies have been actively discouraging their customers to call their agents for the last two decades because of increasing costs even though it is a natural way for humans to get help. With the recent advances in deep learning and NLP, which will dramatically increase the productivity of agents, call centers are ready to become the first port of contact again for customer service. We are excited to partner with the team at Observe.AI as it leads this positive disruption in the call center ecosystem.”

Source: IndianWeb2