Enterprise Conversational AI Startup Observe.AI Raises $125M
Contact center AI platform Observe.AI has raised $125 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and joined by Zoom. Observe.AI and its enterprise transcription and analytics platform last raised $54 million in the fall of 2020 and has raised $213 million in total.
Observing Conversation
Observe.AI offers companies insight into voice and text conversations with customers using natural language understanding. The company’s artificial intelligence parses the calls based on language and emotion, even identifying when and why there are silences. The AI can then coach employees for future interactions as a way of improving customer experiences. The company can then employ the data for regulatory and other compliance tasks. The ‘omnichannel conversation intelligence’ aims to bring far more visibility and proactive strategy to what the company claims is often a scattershot and poorly understood aspect of a business.
“Observe.AI has risen to meet this crossroads for the contact center industry, in which the market is undergoing massive transformation. Investment in the right technologies will make or break business outcomes,” Observe.AI CEO Swapnil Jain said. “This fresh funding is validation for Observe.AI’s leadership in product innovation and go-to-market traction as we shape a new category. We not only lead in tangible business metrics, but in our approach to actionable AI that drives value for contact centers.”
Conversing AI
Observe.AI has been reporting record growth for a while but is only one of the many firms raking in cash for bringing conversational AI to call centers. Last month, customer relations management AI startup Glia raised $45 million and hit unicorn status. But, while Glia’s raise falls far short of Observe.AI, $125 million is still well below funding rounds such as the $100 million raised by Gupshup, Dialpad’s $170 million or Uniphore’s $400 million.
Zoom’s participation in the round is notable after the communications platform’s explosive growth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Integrating Observe.AI’s tech will likely help accelerate Zoom’s plans to build its enterprise business as it can connect its video calls to Observe’s analytics services. That’s especially the case after Zoom’s failed attempt to buy digital contact center Five9 for $14.7 billion.
“We recently announced Zoom Contact Center, a category-redefining solution that sets new standards for customer service experiences,” Zoom chief product officer Oded Gal said. “We’re excited to work with the team at Observe.AI and leverage their technology to help empower modern contact center agents to deliver the new standard of customer experiences we envision.”
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