Uniphore

Last updated

Uniphore Software Systems
Company type Private
IndustryConversational automation
Founded2008;16 years ago (2008)
Founders
  • Umesh Sachdev
  • Ravi Saraogi
Headquarters Palo Alto, California, U.S.
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Umesh Sachdev (CEO)
Ravi Saraogi (president, APAC)
Services Speech analytics, voice biometrics, virtual assistant
Number of employees
717(2023) [1]
Website uniphore.com

Uniphore is a conversational automation technology company. Uniphore sells software for conversational analytics, conversational assistants and conversational security. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, [1] with offices in the United States, Singapore, India, [2] [3] Japan, Spain, and Israel. [4] Its products are used by up to 75,000 customer service agents during approximately 160 million interactions per month. [5]

Contents

Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India identified Uniphore as the 17th fastest-growing technology company in India in 2012 and one of the top 500 fastest growing companies in the Asia-Pacific region in 2014. [6] In 2016, Time included Sachdev on its list of "10 millennials who are changing the world" for “building a phone that can understand almost any language”. [7] [8] NASSCOM named Uniphore to its "League of 10" emerging Indian technology companies in 2017. [9] [10] In 2020, the San Francisco Business Times ranked Uniphore as No. 7 among small companies in its list of the best places to work in the San Francisco Bay Area. [11] In 2022, the company was featured on the Forbes AI 50 list. [12]

History

Uniphore Software Systems was founded by Umesh Sachdev and Ravi Saraogi in 2008 [5] and was incubated at IIT Madras. [13] The company received an initial grant of $100,000 from the National Research Development Corporation. [13]

Initially, the company operated a call center providing voice-based internet services to people in rural areas. [14] [15] Uniphore then began working on speech recognition technology, partnering with companies that specialized in English and European languages, and adapting the technology for Indian languages and dialects. In 2014, Uniphore released its flagship product, auMina, along with two other products, Akeira and amVoice. [15]

Uniphore raised series A funding, led by Kris Gopalakrishnan (cofounder of Infosys), in April 2015. [16] [17] The next month, Uniphore received additional investment from IDG Ventures. [18] [19] With input from its investors, Uniphore changed its business model from license fee-based income to a software as a service-based subscription fee model in 2015. [15] By June 2016, it had added more than 70 global languages and expanded its services to Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and the United States. [20] The company opened operations in Singapore in October 2016. [21] The company raised Series B funding in October 2017, led by John Chambers and existing investors. [22] Series C funding of $51 million was announced in August 2019 and led by March Capital. [23]

Uniphore acquired an exclusive third-party license for robotic process automation technology from NTT DATA in October 2020. [24] In January 2021, Uniphore acquired Emotion Research Lab, [25] a startup based in Spain that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze video and interpret emotions. [26] [27] The company received $140 million in Series D funding, led by Sorenson Capital Partners, in March 2021, bringing total funding to $210 million. [28] [29] Uniphore acquired Jacada, a company that specializes in improving and automating contact center processes, in July 2021. [30] [31]

As of March 2020, Uniphore's customers included WNS Global Services, Tech Mahindra, NTT DATA, and Sitel, [24] and as of May 2021, Firstsource. [32]

Products

Uniphore's main platform offers four core services: U-Analyze, U-Self-Serve, for businesses setting up a conversational AI assistant; U-Trust, for automated voice authentication to verify the identity of an agent working remotely; and U-Assist, which provides transcriptions and alerts in real time during a call. [33] The company says its goal is to supplement, not replace, the efforts of call center staff. [34]

U-Analyze

Uniphore's speech analytics software, U-Analyze (formerly auMina), [35] helps organizations identify customer problems by analyzing customer dynamics and call center interactions using natural language processing. [36] [33] It uses artificial intelligence and data analysis to monitor agents' in-call movements and optimize training programs. [37]

U-Self Serve

U-Self Serve (formerly Akeira) [38] is an interactive voice response software [39] and virtual assistant that can help automate customer service for organizations. [13] [40] [33]

U-Trust

U-Trust (formerly amVoice) [41] is a voice biometrics platform that allows the user to authenticate their identity using their voice when working remotely. [42] [33]

U-Assist

U-Assist uses deep learning AI models [43] to provide support, including transcriptions and alerts, in real time during calls. [33] It also helps automate dispositions and other work after a call. [44]

Q for Sales

Q for Sales system uses technology including emotion AI, speech recognition, and natural language processing to interpret emotional cues. [45] It can provide real-time data to a salesperson to evaluate a potential customer's engagement and sentiment during a video call. [45] [46]

Critics including AI ethics scholar Kate Crawford and AI researcher Timnit Gebru have questioned the premise of such systems. [47] [48]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facial recognition system</span> Technology capable of matching a face from an image against a database of faces

A facial recognition system is a technology potentially capable of matching a human face from a digital image or a video frame against a database of faces. Such a system is typically employed to authenticate users through ID verification services, and works by pinpointing and measuring facial features from a given image.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NICE Ltd.</span> Surveillence and data analytics company in Israel

NICE is an American technology company specializing in customer relations management software, artificial intelligence, digital and workforce engagement management solutions. The company serves various industries, such as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, outsourcers, retail, media, travel, service providers, and utilities.

Verint Systems is a Melville, New York–based analytics company which was founded in 2002. The company sells software and hardware products for customer engagement management and business intelligence. Their products are designed to assist clients in data analysis, specifically large data sets.

[24]7.ai is a customer service software and services company based in California that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide targeted customer service.

Pegasystems Inc. (Pega) is an American software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1983, Pegasystems develops software for customer relationship management (CRM) and business process management (BPM). The company has been publicly traded since 1996 as PEGA (NASDAQ). Pega is a low-code platform for workflow automation and generative AI-powered decisioning that helps businesses move towards becoming autonomous enterprises.

LivePerson is a global technology company that develops conversational commerce and AI software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacada</span>

Jacada was a software and services company that specialized in automating and simplifying customer service operations. The firm, founded by Gideon Hollander, was incorporated December 1990 in Israel as a limited liability company. Jacada operated headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and offices in the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Nordic regions. In 2021, Jacada became a part of Uniphore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genesys (company)</span> American technology company

Genesys Cloud Services, Inc. (Genesys), formerly Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., is an American software company that sells customer experience (CX) and call center technology to mid-sized and large businesses. It sells both cloud-based and hybrid cloud software. The company was founded in 1990 and was acquired by investment firms Permira Funds and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) in February 2012.

Affectiva was a software company that built artificial intelligence, acquired by SmartEye in 2021. The company claimed its AI understood human emotions, cognitive states, activities and the objects people use, by analyzing facial and vocal expressions. An offshoot of MIT Media Lab, Affectiva created a new technological category of Artificial Emotional Intelligence, namely, Emotion AI.

Sprinklr is an American software company based in New York City that develops a SaaS customer experience management (CXM) platform. The company's software, also called Sprinklr, combines different applications for social media marketing, social advertising, content management, collaboration, employee advocacy, customer care, social media research, and social media monitoring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fuze (company)</span> American communications and software company

Fuze is a cloud communications and collaboration software platform designed for the enterprise. Fuze was acquired by 8x8. The company is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pypestream</span>

Pypestream is an American software company that offers a self-service automation platform. The company was founded in 2015 by Richard Smullen, the co-founder of Genesis Media LLC, and is headquartered in New York City.

Fractal Analytics Private Limited is an American multinational artificial intelligence company which provides services in packaged consumer goods, insurance, healthcare, life sciences, retail, technology, and the financial sector. The company has dual headquarters in Mumbai and New York City, with a presence in the United States of America, India, the United Kingdom, and fifteen other locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whatfix</span>

Whatfix is a SaaS based digital adoption platform that provides organizations with a no-code editor to create in-app guidance and self-help support on any application that looks 100% native. The platform enables companies to create interactive walkthroughs, product tours, user onboarding checklists, smart tips, field validation, self-help wikis, hotspots, and more. Its advanced product analytics empower organizations with the data to understand how users are engaging with their applications and software products.

CallMiner is a Massachusetts-based software company that develops speech analytics and interaction analytics software. It was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Waltham, MA with offices in Fort Myers, FL, Boston, MA, and the United Kingdom. The company uses Artificial Intelligence to extract insight from the conversations that occur between businesses and their customers, typically through the contact center. These conversations can be voice-based and occur over the phone, or text-based and occur over digital mediums such as online, chat, email, social media messaging, and more. As of December 2019, CallMiner has raised six rounds of venture funding. Its largest and latest investment was 2019’s funding from GS Growth, an investment unit of Goldman Sachs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UiPath</span> Romanian-American developer of robotic process automation software

UiPath is a global software company that makes robotic process automation (RPA) software. It was founded in Bucharest, Romania, by Daniel Dines and Marius Tîrcă. Its headquarters are in New York City. The company's software monitors user activity to automate repetitive front and back office tasks, including those performed using other business software such as customer relationship management or enterprise resource planning (ERP) software.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haptik</span> Indian enterprise conversational AI platform

Haptik is an Indian enterprise conversational AI platform founded in August 2013, and acquired by Reliance Industries Limited in 2019. The company develops technology to enable enterprises to build conversational AI systems that allow users to converse with applications and electronic devices in free-format, natural language, using speech or text. The company has been accorded numerous accolades including the Frost & Sullivan Award, NASSCOM's Al Game Changer Award, and serves Fortune 500 brands globally in industries such as financial, insurance, healthcare, technology and communications.

Coralogix is a SaaS platform that analyzes log, metric, and security data in real-time and uses machine learning to streamline delivery and maintenance processes for software providers. It was founded in 2014 by Guy Kroupp, Ariel Assaraf, and Lior Redlus and has its headquarters in California, United States.

MachEye is an American technology company that produces software using natural search and AI-powered analytics. Its software presents data insights as interactive audio-visuals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow.ai</span>

Yellow.ai, formerly known as Yellow Messenger, is an enterprise conversational AI platform founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Mateo, California. It is an artificial intelligence platform that automates conversational experiences for customers and employees. It enables businesses to deliver human-like personalized interactions in the preferred language. The platform supports more than 135 languages.

References

  1. 1 2 Arakali, Harichandan (13 May 2022). "Uniphore: Building Deep-tech Conversational AI For The World". Forbes India. Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  2. ↑ "Uniphore revolutionizes power of speech for human-machine interaction". Economic Times. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  3. ↑ Siva, Meera. "Uniphore finds its voice in speech analytics". The Hindu Business Line. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  4. ↑ "Contact Us". Uniphore. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  5. 1 2 Rai, Saritha (31 March 2021). "Uniphore Raises $140 Million to Expand AI to Video-Call Analysis". Bloomberg. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  6. ↑ "Kris Gopalakrishnan invests in Chennai-based Uniphore Software". Business Standard. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  7. ↑ "India-born Sachdev, CEO of Uniphore, on Time's list of those changing the world". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  8. ↑ "Indian among Time magazine's '10 millennials changing the world'". Indian Express. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  9. ↑ Modgil, Shweta (3 November 2017). "Nasscom Announces Emerge 50 Winners: The Top 50 Most Innovative Indian Startups". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  10. ↑ Ranipeta, Shilpa S (3 November 2017). "T-Hub startup Hug Innovations makes it to top 10 of 'Nasscom Emerge 50 2017' awards". The News Minute. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  11. ↑ King, Danny (24 April 2020). "Building a best place to work around the world". San Francisco Business Times. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  12. ↑ Popkin, Helen A. S.; Ohnsman, Alan; Cai, Kenrick (9 May 2022). "2022: The AI 50". Forbes . Archived from the original on 25 September 2022.
  13. 1 2 3 Modgil, Shweta (17 April 2017). "How Uniphore Is Leveraging Speech Analytics To Grow Towards $10 Mn ARR". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  14. ↑ Narsimhan, T E. "Speech-recognition for customer satisfaction". VC Circle. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  15. 1 2 3 Ramakrishnan, N. (19 March 2018). "The pivots that changed Uniphore". The Hindu BusinessLine. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  16. ↑ Pahwa, Akanksha (7 May 2015). "Chennai Based Speech Recognition Solutions Startup Uniphore Grabs Funding From Kris Gopalakrishnan". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  17. ↑ Chandran, Pradeesh (7 May 2015). "Infosys co-founder invests in Uniphore in Series A funding". The Hindu. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  18. ↑ "Uniphore raises money from IDG Ventures, second round in less than two months". Business Standard India. 3 June 2015. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  19. ↑ Mayhew, Stephen (5 June 2015). "Speech recognition firm Uniphore secures new investment from IDG Ventures | Biometric Update". Biometric Update. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  20. ↑ Kandavel, Sangeetha. "Recognising the voice as the future". The Hindu. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  21. ↑ Pitchiah, Vijayakumar (1 December 2017). "Uniphore operational revenue jumps 50%, loss narrows in FY17". VCCircle. Retrieved 21 June 2021.
  22. ↑ Ayyar, Ranjani (30 November 2017). "Uniphore raises Series B round, sees participation of Cicso executive chairman John Chambers - Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  23. ↑ Sawers, Paul (13 August 2019). "Uniphore raises $51 million to bring conversational AI to customer service". VentureBeat. Retrieved 20 June 2021.
  24. 1 2 "Uniphore raises $140 million". Fortune India. 31 March 2021. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  25. ↑ Council, Jared (21 January 2021). "Sound and Vision: Uniphore Buys Emotion Research Lab to Gauge Video Chat". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  26. ↑ Goled, Shraddha (22 January 2021). "Uniphore Expands Global Presence, Acquires Spain-Based Emotion Research Lab". Analytics India Magazine. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  27. ↑ Sil, Debarghya (22 January 2021). "Uniphore Acquires Emotion Research Lab; Expands In Europe". Entrepreneur India. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  28. ↑ Gupta, Yajush (31 March 2021). "Uniphore Raises $140 Mn In Series D, Eyes $100 Mn ARR In FY22". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  29. ↑ Bhalla, Tarush (31 March 2021). "Uniphore raises $140 million in Series D funding". Mint. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  30. ↑ Kerravala, Zeus (27 July 2021). "Uniphore Acquires Jacada for Contact Center Automation | No Jitter". No Jitter. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  31. ↑ "Uniphore Technologies acquires Israeli firm Jacada". The Economic Times. 27 July 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  32. ↑ "IT Science Case Study: Better Health-Care Services for Less Cost". eWeek. 24 May 2021. Retrieved 17 September 2021.
  33. 1 2 3 4 5 Sawers, Paul (31 March 2021). "Uniphore nabs $140 million for automated analysis of voice and video calls". VentureBeat. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  34. ↑ Foremski, Tom (17 December 2020). "Uniphore call center survey: People prefer people over tech". ZDNet. Retrieved 22 June 2021.
  35. ↑ "Speech Analytics Software & Solutions". Uniphore. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  36. ↑ "Chennai-based Uniphore launches speech analytics software for contact centres". First Post. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  37. ↑ Bahirwani, Krishna. "Speech Analytics Software detects Indian languages with 95% accuracy". DNA India. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  38. ↑ "Enterprise Virtual Assistant & Ai Chatbot". Uniphore. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  39. ↑ Advani, Shonali. "Social impact 2.0: Technology enters social arena, new-age entrepreneurs embrace it to increase reach". Economic Times. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  40. ↑ "How Uniphore Is Leveraging Speech Analytics To Grow Towards $10 Mn ARR". INC42. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  41. ↑ "Voice Biometrics Software - Voice Authentication Software". Uniphore. Retrieved 2 July 2021.
  42. ↑ Pitchiah, Vijaykumar. "Uniphore strengthens top deck with two key hires". VC Circle. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
  43. ↑ Gutierrez, Daniel (24 July 2021). "insideBIGDATA Latest News – 7/24/2021". insideBIGDATA. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  44. ↑ Daily, Ryan (15 July 2021). "Uniphore Boosts Deep Learning AI for Agent Assistance | No Jitter". No Jitter. Informa Tech. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
  45. 1 2 Kaye, Kate (13 April 2022). "Companies are using AI to monitor your mood during sales calls. Zoom might be next". Protocol . Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  46. ↑ Kerravala, Zeus (1 March 2022). "Uniphore Rolls Out Conversational AI for Sales". eWeek . Retrieved 7 August 2022.
  47. ↑ Crawford, Kate (27 April 2021). "Artificial Intelligence Is Misreading Human Emotion". The Atlantic .
  48. ↑ Goldman, Sharon (28 April 2022). "Emotion AI's risks and rewards: 4 tips to use it responsibly". VentureBeat .

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.