Gupshup, a conversational messaging platform in India, became a unicorn in the first quarter of 2021 with a $1.2 billion valuation. Founded by Beerud Sheth back in 2004, the company has come a long way, back from the dead some would say. Back in 2008, Gupshup, formerly known as SMS Gupshup, raised $10 million in funding amidst the global financial meltdown. In 2010, they raised another $10 million. However, since the service is free, in 2011 they were faced with 2 major hurdles that almost brought down the entire business. Since the growth was high, the cost of subsidising the messages was also high. Beerud Sheth projected that the cost would come down as telecom companies received bigger volumes - it didn't. Secondly, they were unable to monetise. They tried putting footer advertisements but the regulations wouldn’t allow it. Here's where they were spending money but not recovering it in any way, and the VC capital wasn’t cutting it. Finally, SMS Gupshup became Gupshup, a B2B platform that allowed businesses to improve the conversational experience with their audience. This strategy gave new life to Gupshup and the rest is history. With time, Gupshup kept leveraging AI and ML to grow the business. Here's how. 

Wit.ai

A Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool is key for brands like Gupshup who need to interpret data received from chat or voice. Wit.ai is a tool integrated into the chatbot that listens and learns from every interaction. With a better understanding of human interaction and communication, Wit.ai makes developing the chatbot easier for the tech team. The tool understands the intent of the user and, in turn, allows the chatbot to take correct action. There's another feature called 'entity' that goes a little deeper and understands multiple parameters and domains from the user's request. So, instead of asking multiple questions to the bot, one can ask an elaborate question and the software will provide an answer for it. Another feature of Wit.ai is the 'understanding' feature, one that is designed to understand day-to-day lingo used by people. Natural language, be it text or voice, is turned into machine-readable data. This data is then saved and used to respond to the user. For example, if a user wants to know about the weather but frames the question as "do I need an umbrella today?", this feature will allow the tool to provide a viable answer to the user. Users can also add new words, terms or phrases to the app and the chatbot will save it and learn it, thereby making future interactions easier. 

No-code AI

Gupshup uses a no-code AI builder that allows them to design conversational chatbots for businesses without any coding or testing. After designing the bot, it can be deployed extremely quickly unlike when it has to be developed. Even with the no-code AI, the platform can have user-friendly visual interfaces, multiple templates, and pre-built integrations, among other features that allow deployment to happen in just a few hours. This has replaced the many lines of code with simple instructions that are hassle-free. The older process that involved things like data preparation and feature extraction followed by model selection, fine-tuning and training conducted by entire teams of developers has now been replaced by a simple drag-and-drop interface that allows the user to analyse data and go through multiple iterations just by following a few simple instructions. No-code AI has also allowed businesses to meet requirements by implementing intelligent automation, something that programming-based AI would be able to do only with a team of data scientists and coders. There's also a built-in human review process that will ask for human interference only when needed, thereby optimising and streamlining the process. Catering to businesses, big or small, the no-code AI tool helps businesses reach and communicate with the correct target audience, improve sales forecast, enhance brand experience and manage data in a structured way. Also, it's accessible, economical and safe. 

Conversational AI Innovation Lab

Going a step ahead, Gupshup is in the process of setting up a conversational AI innovation lab in Silicon Valley to explore the global talent pool and collaborate with significant industry players. With exceptional talent focusing on bettering the NLP, enterprise messaging can take a whole new turn in the near future. With constant innovation and redefined strategies, businesses will be able to interact, engage and transact with the customers in a more efficient manner, amplifying the customer experience and brand value. 

Conclusion

With mega-brands like Skype, Twitter, Messenger, Google Hangouts, Telegram, and many more using Gupshup's service, the company has taken conversational messaging to a whole new level. They have also recently announced the launch of a Whatsapp-based commerce solution that will allow businesses to use Whatsapp as a digital storefront. It's an extremely smart move because a catalogue can be shared on Whatsapp along with transparent communication at every step for the user - pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase. Whatsapp has 2 billion active users and 175,000 people communicating with a business account every day. Over the past decade, Gupshup has leveraged AI and ML to bring about innovation and creativity that has led to it becoming one of the most celebrated platforms in enterprise messaging.