Gupshup, the US-based conversational messaging services company, has strengthened its Middle East presence with the acquisition of Singapore-based Knowlarity Communications, a global leader in cloud communications. With voice technology reforming the customer experience in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), this acquisition by Gupshup will ensure that with Artificial Intelligence (AI) voice technology, customers can effortlessly connect with businesses and get support or post-sales assistance. This technology will reduce response times of businesses to customers and eventually help businesses retain customers. With the addition of Knowlarity's products, Gupshup will now be able to support businesses in building seamless conversational experiences across both messaging and voice channels. "As business-to-consumer (B2C) engagement becomes conversational, Gupshup is busy enabling more ways for businesses to deliver rich experiences. With the addition of Knowlarity's products, our customers in the Middle East and across the world will now be able to build seamless conversational experiences across both messaging and voice channels. A large number of large businesses and SMEs across sectors in the Middle East are starting to integrate AI technologies into their business and we see a huge potential for our business in the Middle East market."

The News: Gupshup acquires AI-power voice leader Knowlarity Communications. The acquisition, which was announced earlier this week, will complement Gupshup's product suite of conversation messaging applications. Knowlarity offers cloud telephony, contact center automation, and AI-powered voice assistants. The combination of the two product suites will likely make an impact on the conversation engagement market. Analyst Take: We've all had interactions with customer service robots, both via voice and chat, that have, well, not worked well.

Recently, Spotify, a global music content platform, introduced a new feature, Discover Weekly, as an intelligent playlist developer for its users. Based on a listener's past history, preferences and the trends reflected by analysing data from music aficionados with similar tastes, the company implemented machine learning'best fit' algorithms to provide its users with a delectable list of latest music that kept them glued to their headphones for hours. This is one of the many instances where AI has transformed customer experience as we know it. The two most popular vowels on the internet, AI or Artificial Intelligence, are being implemented by various industries to learn from data, identify the most efficient operational processes and go beyond passive advertisements to enhance the customer engagement quotient. In fact, a report by Servion predicts that AI will power 95 per cent of all customer interactions by 2025.

When bigwigs like Google and Amazon begin to use the services of a seemingly inconspicuous Indian startup, it may be time to sit up and take notice. Launched around eight years ago, it offers cloud-based communications solutions to businesses in emerging markets. "Our platform uses AI to provide advanced telephony services to businesses," says CEO and founder of Knowlarity, Ambarish Gupta. "It enables them to deliver highly personalised messages to their customers while cutting down overall costs," he added. Headquartered in Singapore, Knowlarity claims that over 15,000 businesses across India, South-east Asia and the Middle East are currently using its services.