4.ai (full company name ''
4.ai, Inc.'') is a customer service software and services company based in California that uses
artificial intelligence and
machine learning to provide targeted customer service.
History
4.ai was founded in April 2000 by P. V. Kannan and Shanmugam Nagarajan.
Kannan previously founded Continuum Global Solutions, a software company, which was acquired by
Kana Software
KANA Software, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Verint Systems (NASDAQ: VRNT) and provides on-premises and cloud computing hosted customer relationship management software products to many of the Fortune 500, mid-market businesses and govern ...
in 1999.
In 2003,
4.ai was privately funded in part by
Michael Moritz and his
venture capital firm
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. The firm is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, and specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. , Sequoia's total a ...
. The total venture funding was estimated at $22 million. The company was profitable by the end of 2003.
In February 2012 a deal was announced in which
4.ai and
Microsoft would combine technologies for
natural user interfaces (NUIs) and data analytics at cloud scale. Microsoft made an equity investor and transferred approximately 400 employees of the former
Tellme Networks to
4.ai. At the same time,
4.ai acquired the call center automation developer Voxify, which had been based in
Alameda, California, and was funded by investors such as
Intel.
In 2012, the company rebranded its business, adopting a new logo dropping the word "Customer" and putting square brackets around the "24". In January 2013 it announced it would market some internally developed software products for combining chat with analytics.
In May 2013 the company announced the acquisition of social commerce firm ''Shopalize'' for an undisclosed amount of money.
.ai was also listed on
Forbes list of America's Most Promising Companies in 2013.
In November 2014,
4.ai acquired ''IntelliResponse'', a provider of digital self-service technology, including virtual agent solutions.
In August 2015,
4.ai acquired ''Campanja'', a Search Engine bidding platform with offices in
Stockholm
Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
,
London, Palo Alto,
Chicago and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, adding real-time marketing capability to the
4.ai offering.
In July 2015, the company announced it had become "the world's largest provider of chat agents, with more than 5,000 dedicated chat agents operating in its contact centers."
In October 2017, the company announced a name change, adding .ai to reflect the company's use of artificial intelligence.
Corporate affairs
Structure
The company is headquartered in
San Jose, California.
Other offices are located in
Toronto,
London, and
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
.
4.ai has customers in many industries, including agencies, education, financial services, healthcare, insurance, retail & e-commerce, telecom, travel and hospitality, and utilities.
The company's contact centers were originally located in
Bangalore and
Hyderabad,
India, and in the
Philippines. In 2007 (at about 7,000 total employees) the company expanded to
Guatemala
Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...
,
Nicaragua, and
Colombia
Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...
to support Spanish-speaking customers.
Acquisitions
* 2015: ''Campanja'', a Search Engine bidding platform
* 2014: ''IntelliResponse'', a provider of digital self-service technology, including virtual agent solutions
* 2013: ''Shopaliz''e, social commerce firm
* 2012: ''Voxify'', call center automation developer
Products and services
4.ai offers sales and service-oriented software that provides services such as
predictive analytics, and
virtual agents. It integrates different channels of communication, including
web chat, mobile devices and
interactive voice response, which incorporates the company's proprietary language technology.
The company operates contact centers that outsource voice and chat agent services, for sales and support. The main demands are in telecommunications, financial services, retail, insurance, and travel industries. Its early offerings were contact center services with voice contact center agents.
Controversies
The company is reported to have monitored remote working employees via their web cameras.
When the story came out, Klarna, a customer, required the practice to be stopped for any
4.ai employee working on their cases.
Recognitions
* 2013:America's Most Promising Companies 2013 (
Forbes)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:247.ai
Business process outsourcing companies
Companies based in Campbell, California
2000 establishments in California
Software companies based in California
Software companies of the United States