Say Hello to Conversation.ai
In 2013, the world of conversations was changing at an unprecedented pace. Microblogging was catching up. Messaging platforms like WeChat and WhatsApp were seeing rates of adoption unlike any other product had seen before. I had always been fascinated by the inherent desire of every human being to express themselves. From the printing press to telephones, and the internet today, technologies have enabled us to express more, much faster. And in 2013, we were seeing how affordable smartphones, cheaper internet, and mobile phone applications could enable people to exchange so much more with each other.
Chatting with each other came very naturally to everyone, and it was clear that chatting would move beyond a medium for interpersonal conversation, and that conversational interfaces are likely to be the next paradigm shift in human-computer interaction.
In 2015, I came across Haptik, an upcoming startup built around a belief in conversational interfaces, and decided that this was the place to be. I went on to join Team Haptik, and lead product and growth for our direct-to-consumer personal assistant app.
We saw how much people enjoyed the notion of just having to send a message to get something done, and so the belief that conversational AI will have a place in this world continued to be strong. In 2017, we found a bigger opportunity in Enterprise SaaS, helping businesses implement conversational applications for improving their overall end customer experience. Since then, there has been no looking back. If you would like to read more about our journey check out the blog-post here.
Our enterprise SaaS product business is going strong today and we have processed 3 billion conversations and serviced 100+ clients across the globe.
Customer support automation is one of the many use cases AI will solve for and we believe this is just the beginning of what AI in conversation can do. Today we can use rich media for expression and distances do not matter anymore. But we still live in a world where language and literacy are barriers to access information. Machines are still good enough to only interpret the basic nuances of how humans express themselves. At Haptik, we want to be committed to building technologies that shape the future of conversations. We truly believe that’s the path to building a zero-friction digital world that is all-inclusive.
Today I want to announce our latest initiative, Conversation.ai, an independent unit where we will work on moonshot initiatives outside the core Haptik business, to build the future of conversations.
Our logo represents our world as an exchange of information, much like yin-yang in the form of conversations combined with data and technology. We envision that someday, these technologies will make the world a much better place. A world, where we can talk beyond the barriers of language or literacy. A world where we can do a lot more by just a word, and a world where human bias and fatigue do not restrict us. We understand these are hard problems and need fresh thinking from the ground-up to solve them.
Conversation.ai is a fully self-sufficient and independently-run R&D extension of Haptik, where we pick challenging problems and find creative solutions for them. This is by the far the boldest commitment we have made to this space. Over the last 6 months, we have established the foundation of this division and put together a stellar team to help us achieve this vision. We are much more than just an R&D setup looking to build cool new technologies. We want to build for real impact, and success for us will mean creating new independent business lines for the company. We are definitely not the first ones to bet on a commitment to innovation, but we are probably the first ones to make this commitment within the Conversational AI space. We trace our inspiration to as far back as Thomas Edison and as recently to Google’s Moonshot Factory, and look forward to innovation that’s audacious, risky, creative, and takes a long term view.
We want to focus on picking the right problem statement against being married to a solution. Some of the key problem statements that we are working on are:
- How can we break barriers of literacy and language and build bridges?
- How can we enable machines to understand us better?
- How can we do more on conversations?
These questions guide our work at Conversation.ai and with each project, we look to build products that solve them. If these problem statements intrigue you, or if you are someone fascinated by conversations, and are building something that leverages conversational technologies, let us have a conversation :) We would love to hear what conversations mean to you. You can reach out to me on apurva@haptik.ai.
