Conversational AI platform Ambit is preparing a Series A raise to support international market validation, expansion, and hiring new team members.
The raise is intended to capitalise on major shifts in the way consumers expect to engage with brands. These trends, accelerated by COVID-19, include the rapid adoption of messaging by consumers and 24/7 online shopping.
As retailers, financial service providers and utilities seek solutions to scale customer service, day and night, cope with unexpected spikes in demand, and introduce more automated guided selling, many are turning to conversational AI, the company says.
Investors are watching too, it says, as large trade acquisitions internationally reduce the number of independent conversational AI companies.
In August, Hootsuite announced its acquisition of Heyday, a Montreal-based conversational AI platform, for US$41M, recognising that commerce is rapidly moving onto social and messaging platforms. This deal follows one in April in which Microsoft announced it will acquire another conversational AI company Nuance for US$19.7 billion in cash.
"We are extremely well positioned as brands seek partners to respond to macro trends in consumer shopping behaviour and our own growth path to go to market for investment," says Tim Warren, chief executive and co-founder of Ambit.
"Natural language processing is evolving and chatbots are improving their understanding of the sentiment and emotions felt by customers, to provide ever more sophisticated levels of service," he says.
"The value of Ambit's dataset is increasing exponentially with each new customer as our AI learns from every chat, deepening domain knowledge and offering ever more nuanced conversations."
In recent months Ambit signed Pulse Energy as well as two major travel-related brands, Southern Cross Travel Insurance and Online Republic.
Global travel e-commerce group Online Republic, part of digital travel business Webjet Limited, has launched an Ambit conversational AI chatbot, Wheelie, to scale up and support its customer service for its two global land travel brands, Airport Rentals and Motorhome Republic. Motorhome Republic, one of the largest motorhome rental agencies in the world, and Airport Rentals, a leading player in the global car hire marketplace, will benefit from the additional 24/7 customer support and clever capabilities of Ambit's AI platform.
Read the full story here and let us know what you think in the comments section below.
