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<keyword id="20594409" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gupshup" source="keywords">Gupshup</keyword>, the conversational engagement pioneer, today announced the launch of <keyword id="20832751" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="conversation-cloud" source="keywords">Conversation Cloud</keyword>, a comprehensive suite of SaaS tools that are set to revolutionize business-to-customer interactions. AI-powered conversations represent the next major paradigm shift in user interfaces after web and app, and the Conversation Cloud provides businesses with the essential tools for customer engagement in this new era. Gupshup enables businesses to drive customer acquisition, engagement, commerce, and support, on conversational channels such as WhatsApp, RCS, Instagram, Voice, etc, helping them achieve substantial ROI increase (6-10X). The Conversation Cloud consists of three key modules, Converse, Advertise, and Communicate, that enable conversational relationship management across the full customer lifecycle. <keyword id="20832754" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gupshup-converse" source="keywords">Gupshup Converse</keyword> helps businesses build rich two-way conversational journeys across the customer lifecycle. Business users can leverage advanced no-code tools to configure customer journeys, bot flows, and auto-trigger contextual messages. Interactions across the customer funnel leverage Gupshup Customer360's unified profiles based on customer attributes and real-time conversational events. Marketers can create granular segments and engage customers better with personalized experiences. The Converse product comes packed with conversational commerce modules such as catalogs, payment integrations, and agent-assist to enable automated or human-assisted commerce. Converse also includes ACE LLM, Gupshup's domain-specific large language model to build AI bots that can handle all kinds of natural language queries while operating within safety guardrails appropriate for a business conversation. "For our 2023 Switch-off campaign, we leveraged WhatsApp in partnership with Gupshup to amplify the message and engage people through a conversational survey. The results have been quite encouraging, helping us not only connect one-on-one with customers but also gain valuable insights. Gupshup has been a great partner and enabler for us to tap into the power of conversational messaging through this innovative campaign. We wish them good luck on the launch of their Conversation Cloud", said <keyword id="20832753" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="mayank-prabhakar" source="keywords">Mayank Prabhakar</keyword>, Head of Digital Marketing at smartphone maker Vivo's India office. Gupshup Advertise enables marketers to acquire, qualify, and convert customers by leveraging Click to WhatsApp and Click to Instagram Ads. This significantly enhances new customer acquisition, and campaign ROI while empowering brands to build their first-party database. Brands leveraging Advertise have seen 60-70% lower cost per qualified lead and 1.6X sign-ups compared to traditional channels. <keyword id="20832755" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gupshup-communicate" source="keywords">Gupshup Communicate</keyword> is a significant step up from traditional CPaaS, and has smart capabilities such as Gen-AI powered automatic message translation, optimized scheduling to maximize open rates, and omnichannel message failover, in addition to its pre-existing capability to send messages across 30+ channels. "The Conversational Internet is among the biggest trends shaking up the customer experience. It is rapidly digitizing the mobile-first countries in emerging markets. Every business and brand will need new tools to build and manage conversational experiences. Gupshup builds on its reputation for innovation by launching the first such comprehensive platform, the Conversation Cloud, that transforms customer experiences and delivers substantial ROI to businesses", said Beerud Sheth, Co-founder and CEO of Gupshup. "Messaging continues to emerge as a leading channel for brands to authentically connect with customers, far and wide. We are excited to see partners like Gupshup further enhancing the tools and solutions that will help brands drive even more value in customer interactions", said <keyword id="20832752" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="ravi-garg" source="keywords">Ravi Garg</keyword>, Director, Business Messaging, Meta India. To know more about our Conversation Cloud and why brands should leverage the Conversational Internet, watch this video. Chat with Guppy, our new Gen AI-powered virtual assistant - Ask him anything about Conversation Cloud and witness Guppy in action! SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/passenger-vehicles-record-11-3-growth-in-february-2024-two-wheelers-record-35-growth/articleshow/108204817.cms">Passenger vehicles record 11.3% growth in February 2024, two-wheelers record 35% growth</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/telecom/news/reliance-jio-and-airtel-add-subscribers-as-vis-subscriber-base-continues-to-decline/articleshow/107934565.cms">Reliance Jio and Airtel add subscribers as Vi’s subscriber base continues to decline</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/from-usernames-to-secret-codes-for-locked-chats-here-are-the-upcoming-whatsapp-features/articleshow/107885651.cms">From usernames to secret codes for locked chats, here are the upcoming WhatsApp features</a>

Gupshup launches Conversation Cloud, AI-powered tool for businesses

<ul><li><keyword id="755674" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="GupShup">Gupshup</keyword> is a smart messaging platform that helps companies reach out to their consumers. </li><li>Its turnover stands upwards of ₹700 crore and is growing at the rate of upwards of 30% year-on-year. </li><li>It is founded by <keyword id="272913" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Beerud-Sheth">Beerud Sheth</keyword>, who had co-founded the now US-listed Upworks.</li></ul>In a world of Internet-led communication run by the likes of WhatsApp and WeChat, a smart messaging platform Gupshup is transforming the humble text message. From the OTP you receive as a text to the ticket confirmation you get, many tech startups and platforms like Zomato, Oyo etc., use Gupshup to reach out to their consumers. “The messaging app hasn’t changed over the years, right from the feature phones to the latest smartphones, it’s still just a simple list of plain text messages. That was okay 20 years ago, but now there’s a ton of messages that come in. Though personal messages have shifted to WhatsApp, enterprise messages still find their place in text,” said Beerud Sheth, founder, Gupshup. Gupshup was the first company that <keyword id="4936066" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="whatsapp-business">WhatsApp Business</keyword> tied up with globally as an enterprise messaging partner. Gupshup's turnover stands upwards of ₹700 crore and is growing at the rate of upwards of 30% year-on-year. For Sheth, this is not his first startup. He is a serial entrepreneur and co-founded Elance (Upwork), the poster boy of the gig economy, that recently went public on Nasdaq as Upwork. Riding on <keyword id="107950" type="TECHNOLOGY" weightage="20" keywordseo="artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</keyword> The messaging platform has now turned to AI, to clear the clutter in messaging. The AI software looks at enterprise messages and classifies them as banking, real estate, e-commerce or others and then extracts the important information to show you in a simple card. “It’s like having a personal assistant that goes through your texts and gives you the important information. Gupshup is taking the mess out of messaging,” said Sheth. It partnered exclusively with OnePlus to launch the AI-powered <keyword id="6742428" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Smart-SMS">Smart SMS</keyword>. Through this it creates buckets for people on the messaging app like OTP, transactional, promotional etc. Where’s the privacy then? But when an AI-led software is looking into your texts and extracting information out of it, it evidently raises the question of privacy. It wasn’t something that slipped Sheth’s mind. “The AI software runs entirely on the device, it does not send any data to the server whether it’s Gupshup’s or OnePlus server. Each device will have its own software,” said Sheth.

This startup is taking the mess out of messaging, and turning texts smart

In the ever-evolving communication landscape, more than 70 per cent of Indians prefer to message businesses rather than sending an email, calling or visiting their website, a new report said on Friday. Nearly 75 per cent of Indians surveyed said that they are more likely to do business with/purchase from a company that they can contact via messaging. People in <keyword id="3658" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="india" source="Orion">India</keyword> increasingly prefer messaging over other forms of communication, the same way they chat with their friends and family, according to the research by <keyword id="1199021" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="kantar" source="Orion">Kantar</keyword> commissioned by <keyword id="399907" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="meta" source="Orion">Meta</keyword> (formerly <keyword id="6354576" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Facebook" source="Orion">Facebook</keyword>). "Today, customers not only want a quick and easy way to connect with brands, but they also want to engage with a brand to learn more about their product while considering a purchase," said Ravi Garg, Director <keyword id="3807245" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="business-messaging" source="Orion">Business Messaging</keyword> at Meta. The findings of the report showed that 86 per cent of adults message a business at least once a week, which is considerably higher than the global average of 66 per cent. Majority (83 per cent) of the people surveyed expect businesses to deploy quick and easy modes of communication, such as messaging. About 72 per cent of the people surveyed in India said they message with a business more often ever since the start of the pandemic. Interestingly, 75 per cent are more likely to do business with/purchase from a company that they can contact via messaging. "Conversational messaging is not only helping brands connect with consumers but also build brand experiences that grow their business," said Ravi Sundararajan, Chief Operating Officer, Gupshup. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/metas-metaverse-app-has-several-quality-issues-admits-head/articleshow/94696811.cms">Meta's metaverse app has several quality issues, admits head</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/ecommerce/news/flipkart-group-leads-e-commerce-festive-sales-meesho-is-second-largest-contributor-in-order-volume-redseer/articleshow/94701015.cms">Flipkart group leads e-commerce festive sales, Meesho is second largest contributor in order volume: Redseer</a>

Over 7 in 10 Indians now prefer to chat with businesses: Meta report

Rohan Shravan was 24 years old when he founded Notion Ink, a <keyword id="138263" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="startup">startup</keyword> that designed India’s first tablet computer Adam. The device was launched five months before Apple placed the first version of the iPad on store shelves. 
 
At its international debut in the Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas in January 2010, one of the first to place an order for Adam was an employee at Apple headquarters in Cupertino. However, in the ensuing months as the iPad gained iconic status, Adam dropped by the wayside, felled by the lack of risk capital to grow the business. 
 “When I told venture capitalists that our product will be a challenger to <keyword id="10591" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Samsung">Samsung</keyword> and Apple, they laughed at me,” said Shravan, a mechanical engineer from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur who initially bootstrapped the firm with personal savings of around Rs 6 lakh. 
 
Shravan’s experience is hardly unique. In the midst of an unprecedented entrepreneurial boom, several of those starting up say there are more hurdles than advantages in the Indian startup sector. Apart from the red tape and the lack of policy support there is also a shortage of true risk capital that can back edgy new ideas. 
 
Customers are unwilling to pay for untested products and many entrepreneurs choose the middle path fearing failure. “I was very aggressive, arrogant and fought like a warrior, the so-called experts advised me to tone down and be nice, which led to our downfall,” said Shravan who trained engineering students to work on Adam as a way to minimise staff costs. “Around 80 per cent of the employees were final year students; they were later snatched by Samsung and Motorola.” 
 
In recent years, several ventures including short messaging service GupShup, personalised news service Frrole and language keypad maker Luna Ergonomics have altered business models when faced with regulatory hurdles or the fear of rejection from investors and customers. 
 This at a time when many global technology companies including WhatsApp, <keyword id="6354576" type="CITY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Facebook">Facebook</keyword>, caller identification service Truecaller, home rental marketplace Airbnb, and question and answer site Quora count India as one of their fastest growing markets. 
 
Nearly 40 million of WhatsApp’s global user base of 450 million is in India. “India is our largest market with about 30 million users and continues to demonstrate great opportunities for us,” said Nami Zarringhalam, cofounder of Sweden’s Truecaller. When Amarpreet Kalkat started his company Frrole in 2011, he wanted to build a product that was tailored to a user’s area of interest. 
 
“I believed it could rival Google News,” said the 35-year-old entrepreneur. Eight months later, Kalkat started looking for funds and he had to answer the dreaded question, over and over again: “How do you make money?” Two years of running the company without external funding almost made him bankrupt. Kalkat was forced to start a new by changing his model to an enterprise product. 
 
At about the same time when Frrole was launched in Silicon Valley, a text and photo sharing app called Snapchat was born. It received $60 million (Rs 361 crore) in initial funding and was handling 150 million photos every day. 
 
Last year, the company rejected a $3 billion (Rs 18,000 crore) buyout deal from Facebook. “There is a very high chance that Frrole would still have been a social newspaper, if we were based in Silicon Valley,” said Kalkat whose company now has a dozen of enterprise customers. 
 
Parag Dhol, managing director at Inventus Capital Partners, said he has some sympathy with the entrepreneurs’ point of view. “But let me throw the question back at them—let us find at least one product from India where there are at least 100 million users,” said the investor who has backed firms such as Savaari Car Rentals, online bus ticketing site redBus and technology company TELibrahma. 
 
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Angel investor Sharad Sharma, who pushed Kalkat to alter his business model, is of the view that in Silicon Valley entrepreneurs can afford to not have a paying business. “Because they have the confidence that they will get bought over, here there is no such scene. It’s all about viability of the business,” said Sharma who participated in a $245,000 angel (Rs 1.4 crore) funding round in Frrole this April. 
India has a far worse ratio of venture capital exits as compared to Israel and the US, according to data compiled by think tank iSpirt and investment bank Signal Hill. Few large companies are interested in buying out startups or using their products, impeding growth of local companies. 
 
“We had all the ingredients to become a large global company,” says Abhijit Bhattacharjee, 43-year-old founder of Luna Ergonomics, the maker of the Indian language keypad Panini. 
 
Named after an ancient Sanskrit grammarian, the technology makes it possible to type quickly and easily in all Indian languages on the mobile phone. The company which has received patents for its Korean language interface did not find takers amongst Indian telecom companies. 
 
“Supporting Indian scripts on digital devices does not suit the strengths and roadmaps of these companies,” said Bhattacharjee, whose company last released an Urdu keypad for iOS, Android, and PC in 2013. “Which large enterprise buys cutting edge technology from startups? When there are not early customers, how can you expect to have $1 billion companies?” asked Ashish Gupta, a senior managing director at Helion Venture Partners that backed group text messaging service GupShup. 
 
The Mumbai-based firm was launched just six months after microblogging site Twitter was launched in the US in July 2006. Within a year of inception the service had racked up 15 million users. 
 GupShup was a free, social, short messaging service that allowed users to communicate and connect with family, <keyword id="343" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="40" keywordseo="Friends">friends</keyword> and followers using ordinary mobile handsets. But the telecom ecosystem and policies were a problem. 
 
“The regulations did not allow advertising. The operators kept the short messaging service rates high,” said Beerud Sheth, cofounder of Webaroo maker of GupShup product. The company had to shift focus from retail consumers and instead offer the messaging platform for enterprises. 
 
“They (government) should invest money in big ideas. They need to stop protecting big industries and start encouraging disruption and risk taking,” said Rahul Sood, partner at Microsoft Ventures and a technology entrepreneur, who sold the luxury computer business VodooPC to Hewlett Packard in 2006. 
 
Compare this to China, where the startup ecosystem is accelerating faster than anywhere in the world. There are around 1300 incubators and accelerators across the country compared with about 35 active accelerators in India. Shravan of Notion Ink has not lost hope yet. 
 
The entrepreneur is placing another bet. This time a personal computing robot called EVE, which he thinks will disrupt the market and will be in the market by 2017. “I will be jealous of my kids, they will be enjoying the rewards our hard work and same is true for the next generation of entrepreneurs,” he said.

Indian Startup Sector: Why New Businesses Face More Hurdles Than Advantages

<ul><li><keyword id="9903157" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="route-mobile-600-crore-ipo">Route Mobile ₹600 crore IPO</keyword> opens tomorrow. </li><li>In an exclusive chat with Business Insider, Non-Executive Director Sandip Gupta and the Chief Strategy Officer Gautam Badalia revealed details about the company’s growth prospects, roadmap, and opportunities.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/">Check out the latest news and updates on Business Insider.</a> </li></ul>COVID-19 brought about a pause in the primary market, but the action is heating up again now. And the next one in line is <keyword id="3519758" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="route-mobile">Route Mobile</keyword>, the company behind your banking OTPs to Uber messages and automated calls. Route Mobile’s IPO opens tomorrow. The company is looking to raise ₹600 crore, which it plans to use for business expansion. This is going to be the second IPO this month. Here are the <keyword id="9903155" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="route-mobile-ipo-details">Route Mobile IPO details</keyword>: <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">IPO </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Specifics </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Opening date </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">September 9 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Closing date </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">September 11 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">IPO target </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹600 crore </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Price Band </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">₹345-350 per share </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Minimum bid </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-right:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;border-top:solid #000000 0.9907650000000001pt;vertical-align:bottom;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;"> 40 equity shares </td></tr></tbody></table> Founded in 2004, this Mumbai-based cloud communication platform services provider offers digital token services from Whatsapp to Viber and Wechat to automated calls. And now they are in talks with Apple to increase its business footprint in every corner of the world, the company told Business Insider. The Managing Director Rajdip Gupta and Non-Executive Director Sandip Gupta are the promoters of the company. Both the promoters will sell ₹180 crore worth of shares through this IPO. In an exclusive chat with Business Insider, Non-Executive Director Sandip Gupta and the Chief Strategy Officer Gautam Badalia revealed details about the company’s growth prospects and opportunities going forward. These are the edited excerpts from the chat. Can you detail us more about your company? You cater to enterprises, (OTT) and mobile network operators (MNO); what are the big brands or companies that are associated with you? We are an enterprise that provides digital communication channels to the enterprises. Our customer base is from retails, banks to cab operators, and e-commerce. And whichever company wants to communicate with its customers, we provide them with a channel. And this channel can be SMS, voice call; it may email, it may be WhatsApp, it may be Viber, or can be a video. So these are the channels we provide to the enterprises so that they can efficiently communicate with the clients. For example, when you swipe your card, you get a debit alert, so that is done mostly by our SMS channels. Or you are on their OTT platform, and you need an OTP to download the content. So that OTP goes from our channel. We also provide a second layer in that. That is a voice channel when the client opts for an OTP via voice. How are you planning to use the IPO money? So we are looking at expanding both vertically and horizontally. Either entering into new geographies or consolidating into the existing one. We are also looking at expanding our product line. How has been the lockdown period for the company? So when you say lockdown, it has propelled our business more, as a lot of digital transactions happened during the period. So lockdown has given more value addition to our portfolio. So the overall lockdown period was better for us. Even our revenue growth was much better compared to the same quarter last year. <div type="image" title="RouteMobile" msid="77996794" hostid="261"></div> You have subsidiaries globally. What percent of your operation's revenue comes from foreign, and how much of it is from Indian companies? So in terms of revenue, 20% of our billing comes in Indian currency. The rest of the billing is in foreign currency. A large part of which is in USD and Euro. Total India revenue will be somewhere around 40% export and domestic business. Rest of which is outside India in foreign places like the UAE, UK, Malta, and Nigeria. <div type="image" title="Reserves RouteMobile" msid="77996834" hostid="261"></div> Are there any directly listed peers for competition? And if there are, what makes you stand out compared to them? So we are a global player. When it comes to the competition, we compete globally with companies like Infobip and others. In India, wherever we go, we have local competitors. In India, we have competition from Gupshup and few others. As people mostly stayed home during the lockdown, and that led to the growth in your business, what are the forward-looking business strategies that you have in mind to keep the momentum going? During the COVID-19 (lockdown), digital transactions have grown. And at the same time, many businesses were shut too, like hospitality and tourism businesses. Now when the economy is opening up, digital transactions will be much more needed. So with more transactions, it will add more value to the business. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/happiest-minds-technologies-ipo-opens-today-grey-market-offering-over-60-premium/articleshow/77970729.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Happiest Minds Technologies IPO opens today — grey market offering over 60% premium</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/ashok-soota-backed-happiest-minds-techs-702-crore-ipo-what-works-for-it-and-what-doesnt/articleshow/77909427.cms" data-type="tilCustomLink">Former Wipro and Mindtree exec’s firm Happiest Minds Tech’s ₹702 crore IPO⁠ — what works for it and what doesn’t</a>

INTERVIEW: Route Mobile, the firm behind your OTPs, promoter reveals plan to tap the Apple ecosystem⁠

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">TechCrunchA screenshot from the startup Viv, which was created by the founders of Siri</div></div></div>Bots are hot in Silicon Valley. Everyone's obsessed with "conversation as a platform," or the idea that you should be able to interact with a service with natural language, spoken or written, instead of in the traditional click-an-icon way you'd interact with a computer. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-assistant-2016-5">Google</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-launches-its-messenger-platform-for-bots-2016-4">Facebook</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-on-conversations-as-a-platform-and-chatbots-2016-3">Microsoft</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-amazon-created-echo-2016-4">Amazon</a>, and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-creators-of-siri-just-unveiled-a-new-virtual-assistant-that-blows-their-old-creation-out-of-the-water-but-theres-one-thing-companies-should-be-worried-about-2016-5">a slew</a> <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/hound-voice-assistant-app-blows-siri-away-2016-3">of startups</a> all rushing to find new ways to make it easier for users to connect to all the services they need through a single interface. Just this week, The Information reported that<a href="https://www.theinformation.com/apple-opening-siri-developing-echo-rival"> Apple plans to open up its virtual assistant, Siri,</a> to third-party developers who want to integrate their services. We've entered the <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/6/10718282/internet-bots-messaging-slack-facebook-m">age of bots.</a>But with the explosion of new companies and initiatives, there are some of the challenges and lessons learned: <h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">www.flickr.com</div></div></div>Less C3PO, more R2D2</h2>Evernote founder and partner at VC firm General Catalyst, Phil Libin, believes that bots are the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/evernote-founder-phil-libin-creating-incubator-for-bots-2016-3">most exciting tech he's seen since the iPhone</a> and that they'll rewrite the tech space like apps did in 2008.Libin, who leads incubator within the firm to experiment and build bot companies and has already announced his first investment - a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/08/general-catalysts-phil-libin-eyes-bots-with-his-first-investment-in-stealth-bot-startup-begin/">company called Begin</a> - says that everything he's seen has taught him that the "first law of chatbots' ought to be that they shouldn't try to deceive you into thinking you're talking to a real person. If they do, people will just end up disappointed.In Star Wars terms, bots should be more like R2D2 than C3PO: You talk to R2D2 naturally, but it doesn't sound like a human in response, whereas C3PO does talk like a proper human despite being a robot. "I think most bot developers have this C3P0 model stuck in their heads, where they're trying to make bots speak like humans and give them jokes and personality, but I think that's really misguided," he said.Beerud Sheth, CEO of a bot developer called Gupshup, agrees:"A bot that pretends to have human-like natural language processing and AI capability raises the user's expectations, which inevitably leads to disappointment," he says. "A bot that sets clear expectations about its capabilities (and limitations) will have a better shot at engaging and delighting the customer." <h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image">Shutterstock</div></div></div>Be a guide, not a butler </h2>That underscores another problem right now: Most <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/businesses-are-skeptical-about-chat-bots-2016-4">bots aren't that smart.</a> Or, as Libin puts it, we're still stuck in the "fart and flashlight" era of usefulness. So, bots need to make it clear what their limits are and try to help people get as much use out of them as possible. In other words, they should be guides not butlers. "A chat bot shouldn't just be responsive; it should also guide the conversation in the 'right' direction," Sheth says. Right at the beginning, the bot should introduce itself explaining its capabilities. If it can't answer something, it should respond with alternative suggestions about what it can answer. <h2>Don't bother me</h2>Especially in this early period, bots that send too many notifications are likely to get blocked. "Chatbots shouldn't proactively contact users unless they are providing some really valuable insight, otherwise, they come off as spammy," says Rob Mob, CEO of a Talla, which makes intelligent assistants for business. "In general people prefer reactive bots, but proactivity is fine in cases where the information is useful."He added that the most surprising thing Talla has learned is that bots shouldn't respond too quickly. People prefer a small delay, to make the interaction feel more like normal communication. <h2>Early days </h2>Although chatbots are "very weak" right now, Mikhail Naumov, president of the bot company Digital Genius, says that with time they'll grow up and be able to learn more quickly and deeply."I think right now we are in the 'Valley of Disillusionment' part of the hype cycle," Libin agrees. "The early stuff was all trivial and disappointing, so the people who were chasing trends are now skeptical. While people who are serious haven't even begun to deliver what they're working on. I think the people who are serious about them, it's going to take another several months for even the early work to start coming out. It's an exciting time." <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pilot-smart-earpiece-translator-bluetooth-waverly-labs-indiegogo-2016-5">This smart earpiece translates languages as they are spoken</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="Q0eTdrMzE6Y7MKLq3gL6QxT3mPxisL02" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

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