Making Bots Chat With You Got This AI Guru Into Entrepreneur's 35under35 List Haptik bot touched the 200 million mark and is now is gunning for the 500 million Indian mobile users
By Kartik Sood
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Blenders Pride Reserve Collection presents Entrepreneur's 35U35 list, which includes some path-breaking names from the field of entrepreneurship. Conversational Artificial Intelligence start-up Haptik founder Aakrit Vaish recently forayed into voice bot space, manufacturing a bot that takes your order when you order food from KFC restaurant.
Chat application marquee players like WhatsApp is passé for enterprise-specific solutions. These days, entrepreneurs' primary need is to run business swiftly, and efficiently catering to the needs of millions of clients.
Unfortunately, the FAQs are inadequate to serve that purpose.
The Stateside entrepreneur
To resolve the problem, Aakrit Vaish, founded artificial intelligence-backed chatbot Haptik along with his friend Swapan Rajdev. He had been witnessing a trend in the US, where he completed his undergraduate studies. "While working for a mobile advertising company in the States I witnessed a paradigm shift in the trend of communications. Thus, we felt the need to employ a messaging tool for transactions, support and other tertiary uses," says the 32-year-old co-founder. Thus, he laid the foundation of Haptik in 2013. A first-generation entrepreneur, Aakrit had gained massive entrepreneurial skills in the US.
Aiming for the market leaders
"We got our first big client in 2015 and later in 2016 we touched the 100-million mark. This prompted players like Samsung to employ our services." The distinct facet of Haptik is that its data evolves over time and the depth of data gives it an edge over its competitors. Touching the 200 million mark, the bot has processed over a billion chat transactions. Haptik now is gunning for the 500 million Indian mobile users. Before grabbing attention of marquee players like Coca Cola, Samsung, IIFL, ShareKhan, Cadbury, Club Mahindra and Tata, who have been included in the roster of Haptik's clientele. Haptik in 2018 bagged one of its biggest contracts when Oyo hired its services. This turned the tide for them and they are expected to achieve the breakeven in mid of 2019.
(This article appears in the February 2019 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. To subscribe, click here. You can buy our tablet version from Magzter.com. To visit our Archives, click here.)
