Salesforce has announced plans to amass Airkit.ai, a low-code platform that helps e-commerce corporations construct AI-powered customer support brokers.
Phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed.
Based in 2017, Redwood Metropolis, California-based Airkit was created by Adam Evans and Stephen Ehikian, who bought a earlier massive information startup known as RelateIQ to Salesforce for $390 million in 2014.
In its original guise, Airkit was a self-serve buyer engagement platform that allowed companies to combine information silos and assist with use circumstances reminiscent of onboarding new customers. However final month, the corporate relaunched as Airkit.ai and launched its first out-of-the-box built-in product, a GPT-4-based platform that permits corporations reminiscent of OpenTable and ShipBob to construct specialised customer support chatbots that may take care of queries round order standing, refunds, product data and extra.
Airkit. Picture Credit: Airkit
Airkit.ai’s reference to Salesforce doesn’t cease on the founders’ earlier startup. The duo launched their new firm in 2020 with $28 million in funding from buyers together with Accel and Salesforce Ventures, which additionally invested in follow-on rounds, taking Airkit.ai’s complete funding to $68 million in its six-year historical past.
After which final yr, Airkit also landed on Salesforce’s enterprise cloud market, AppExchange.
The hype spurred by ChatGPT and the broader generative AI motion is palpable, with buyers falling over themselves to again the subsequent massive factor. Thus, a generative AI startup with such sturdy connections to Salesforce already was all the time going to be a lovely proposition, notably provided that Salesforce had just lately pledged to speculate $500 million in generative AI startups.
When the deal closes, anticipated by January, 2024, Salesforce says that Airkit.ai will likely be merged into its customer support platform Service Cloud, with Evans persevering with to guide the enterprise.