Q1. What was the motivation or the need in the industry that inspired you to create the company?Â
 Gnani.ai was born out of an idea to bridge the digital divide that exists in many parts of the world through Conversational AI. Though digitization and internet technologies have brought humans closer to machines, we believe the immediate need to bridge the communication barrier between them will shape its future.  Voice AI and NLU are important tools that leverage natural communication channels that humans are comfortable with to interact with machines. Back in 2016, Ananth (Co-founder and CTO) and I strategized on building automatic speech recognition and NLP engines for multiple languages that guaranteed high-level accuracy. We then started leveraging our deep tech repertoire to address multiple use cases across industries. Â
Today Gnani.ai supports 20 plus languages globally, with domain-trained speech engines. The unique thing about Gnani.ai is that unlike most players in this space, we have our in-house/homegrown tech stack, powered by multiple patents, which enables us to create highly accurate products for every domain and niche.Â
Q2. How is your AI-based technology different from other conversational AI players? What are the USPs of your technology stack?Â
We believe that building proprietary deep tech technology stack and having verticalized pre-trained intents to solve industry problems is the key to resolving problems using AI technology. We have products for the global market with specific products for domains such as BFSI, Healthcare, Automotive, etc. We have built an R&D team that’s working hard to make machines smarter thereby enabling customers to provide a top-class customer experience to their customers. Â
We have filed over 10 patents in the last 12 months and continue investing in tech and talent for IP-based work. SAMSUNG’s investment in us is a validation of our superior technology. We are also part of Nvidia’s Inception Program and were recently selected as one of the top five conversational AI companies showcased as part of their product showcase.  Â
Q.3 What do you think will be the next step for the company/ what’s your Roadmap for growth outside India?Â
We are a team of highly passionate Technologists and Solution Experts working on ASR, NLP, and AI to build Conversational AI machinery for enterprises globally. Â
The demand for automation and analytics for digital transformation has increased rapidly since the start of the pandemic in 2020. In addition, in addition, we are building a robust product roadmap and taking the SaaS route to the market to enable our customers to use the platform on a self-serve basis. Â
We are looking west towards markets like the US and Canada along with APAC and the Middle east. We’ve seeing good responses from many prospects in the US for use cases such as omnichannel automation, analytics, and voice biometrics. Â
Q4. We read that your company increased its market presence during the pandemic, what were the main factors that contributed to it?Â
From a business standpoint, the current uncertain situation has drawn up a lot of opportunities, due to the focus on digital transformation among companies worldwide. Customers are expediting their projects involving digital transformation to adapt quickly to the new normal. There has been a huge rise in awareness and interest for deep tech-based solutions that help consumer-facing companies. This is primarily since agent availability during the pandemic became a challenge plus routine customer service processes do not need human intervention. Also, AI and ML are making bots more intelligent due to continuous learning and training. The number of inbound leads and subsequent deployment that we have done in the last few months have been extraordinary. Use cases involving voice-led omnichannel automation and analytics for multiple industries across multiple channels have gained traction. Â
Q5. What are the industries witnessing demand and why?Â
Industries such as Banking, Insurance, Ed-tech, Automotive and Healthcare have started realizing there is more to automation than just cost benefits. It is all about scale, consistency, CX and round-the-clock availability.  For example, the focus of enterprises has shifted from providing customer support services through traditional channels such as call centers to AI-powered voice-bots that help enterprises enhance customer experience and engagement. With over 8 million staff manning the contact centers globally, we see a tremendous opportunity for the digital transformation for this use case. We recently clocked an important milestone of 1 million conversational AI automated voice transactions on a single day. Â
As companies increasingly invest in Digital Transformation technologies for providing better CX across multiple channels and touchpoints, we can only expect the numbers to rise in months to come. Â
Q6. How does your conversational AI make a CX satisfactory for different customers and their different needs?Â
Our bots are not only capable of thoroughly comprehending what is being spoken (the intent) but also respond to it appropriately. For example, Gnani’s voicebots also offer human-sounding bots in multiple personalities in different accents to help brands create their voice bot persona for easy connection and recall for their customers. Also, we offer ready off-the-shelf pre-trained intents for multiple domains and niches so that we can launch automation projects for customers immediately. We also offer ready integration across CRMs, connectivity products, and multiple channels. This again reduces time to market and lets us launch the product quickly.Â
Our products and solutions in omnichannel automation and analytics have enabled brands to deliver a great CX, add value to the customer journey, and enhance revenue.