Avaamo, a company that specializes in conversational AI, recently built a virtual assistant to translate natural language queries about the COVID-19 pandemic into reliable insights. In other words, it's an AI-powered chatbot that can answer just about any question you have about the pandemic. Avaamo's Project COVID uses a deep learning system called natural language processing to turn our questions about the pandemic into website and database queries. It works a lot like Google or Bing, you input text and the AI tries to find the most relevant information possible. The big difference is that Avaamo carefully guards the gates against misinformation by only surfacing results from reputable websites such as CDC, NIH, WHO, and Johns Hopkins.

Intelligent conversational interfaces are the simplest way for businesses to interact with devices, services, customers, suppliers and employees everywhere. The rapid strides in AI and conversational solutions make it possible to carry on unique conversations with stakeholders at scale, delivering increasingly satisfying experiences that drive engagement and loyalty across a wide variety of business functions. In fact, according to Accenture's 2018 Digital Research Survey, 56% of respondents say that conversational AI is driving disruption in their industry. Additionally, 43% of those surveyed reported their competitors are already in-progress with their AI implementations.

Observation and creative thinking describes the personality of a successful person and through embracing this traits, one can easily prevail. Possessing such attributes, Sriram Chakravarthy, the CTO and Co-founder of Avaamo has contributed his great knowledge in the remarkable success of his company. Give a brief overview of your background and your role in the company. I am the chief technology officer and co-founder of Avaamo, also the leader in conversational AI. Before Avaamo, I spent more than 15 years designing massively scalable distributed software as vice president of products for the social computing division at TIBCO.

The smarter interactions artificial intelligence makes possible are great for consumers and drive big wins for enterprise. Avaamo has developed deep domain models for a variety of key industries that will help your company optimize its core value with AI. Avaamo is deployed around the globe and can translate voice and text from one language to another. Working with Avaamo, insurance companies are assessing thousands of claims 24% faster.

In late May, Chinese facial recognition technology developer SenseTime Group announced it had raised $620 million in a second round of funding. The raise valued the company over $4.5 billion, making it the world's most valuable AI unicorn. SenseTime reportedly became profitable last year. Meanwhile, UiPath--an enterprise robotic process automation (RPA) software company--brought in $153 million in a massive Series B round led by previous investor Accel. UiPath said the round pushed it into unicorn status and followed a record year of growth.

Artificial intelligence startup Avaamo has raised $14.2 million (about Rs 95 crore) in a series-A round of funding led by Intel Capital. Ericsson Ventures, Mahindra Partners, Wipro Ventures and WI Harper also participated in the round. The Los Altos, California and Bengaluru-based company, which specialises in conversational interfaces to solve specific enterprise problems, plans to use the funding to expand its sales and marketing. With this fundraising, the company has, so far, raised $23.5 million. "We felt we should get our ecosystem to work with us," said Avaamo CEO Ram Menon.

California-based AI startup Avaamo has successfully raised $14.2 Mn Series A funding, led by Intel Capital. Other Investors who participated in the round were Ericsson Ventures, Mahindra Partners, Wipro Ventures, and WI Harper. Intel Capital director Arun Chetty, who led the investment, will join Avaamo's board. Avaamo will use the latest funding to expand its sales and marketing channels to meet the demand in the enterprise for conversational AI solutions in the growing global market. With this, Avaamo's total funding now stands at $23.5 Mn.

Here is the fresh list of 10 startups in artificial intelligence and machine learning that are leading the race in the year 2018. These startups come from different backgrounds, such as providing AI services to healthcare, banking, fintech, diagnostics and HR, among others. Over the years startups have been striving to bring unique propositions into the market, and the developments listed by these companies prove it. While there are over 300 startups in the space in India alone, we have picked up these 10 names for this year's list. These startups are about two to three years old and have shown significant development over the years and are likely to do so in the year 2018.

Futuristic predictions of artificial intelligence in healthcare depict robots serving as doctors and nurses. But that fantasy is far from what's possible today. Even Mayo Clinic CIO Cris Ross said as much at HIMSS this year, noting that AI is "still pretty dumb" and comparing it to a 2-year-old. Still, the power of machine learning in healthcare can be leveraged in simpler ways outside the imaginative wishes of society. One startup called Avaamo is bringing AI chatbots to the space.

It's poised to be an exciting year in artificial intelligence. Last year, artificial intelligence deals topped a billion for the first time. The White House started publishing reports on AI and the economy. Samsung just announced a new $150 million fund for early-stage AI startups. Their recent acquisition of "super-Siri" Viv Labs must have whetted their appetite. There's are even AI startup incubators popping up, like deep learning mastermind Yoshua Bengio's Element in Montreal.