AI Call Center Platform Replicant Closes Series A Funding Round

One of the most intriguing applications for artificial intelligence is in the realm of customer service. AI-driven “virtual support agents” are already widely deployed, but the industry is making them smarter and capable of handling more complex inquiries. Once limited to simple transactions like providing customers with balances, addresses or password resets, several companies are looking to deploy truly human-sounding virtual agents who can “think,” respond and resolve customer issues.

One such company is Replicant, a three-year-old company that provides a conversation AI for contact center operations.  Replicant’s platform provides virtual customer service agents that can act on behalf of a company. The idea is to skip the need to put people on hold and just answer questions and resolve any complaints. Call centers can use the Replicant platform to authenticate callers and resolve tier-1 customer support issues over the phone using human-like conversations. The goal, according to the company, is to allow customers to bypass old-fashioned IVR interfaces and the need to wait for a human agent. With fewer calls to answer, contact centers can eliminate hold times, leave agents free to handle more complex inquiries, and make its workforce management and scheduling easier to predict.

“With Replicant, companies can provide 24/7 service, eliminate hold times, and scale elastically to meet high call volumes while improving customer satisfaction and reducing costs,” Replicant CEO Gadi Shamia wrote in a recent blog post. “We have seen incredible success with our initial customers, including some of the country’s largest call centers, and are honored by the trust they’ve placed with us. Replicant customers are reducing costs by 50 percent to 75 percent, cutting average handle times in half, resolving more than 90 percent of calls without escalations, and improving customer satisfaction as a result of shorter and more effective calls.”

Replicant recently announced that it has closed a $27 million Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners. The new round of funding includes investment from Bloomberg (News - Alert) Beta, Costanoa Ventures, and State Farm Ventures, as well as Atomic. It will be used to boost marketing and research, according to the company. 

Edited by Maurice Nagle