Artificial Intelligence - Afrikan Heroes

Egypt’s DXwand Secures $4M Series A Funding to Drive AI Innovation and Regional Expansion

January 25, 2024

Middle East-based artificial intelligence (AI) startup DXwand has successfully concluded a Series A funding round, securing a total of $4 million in investment. The funding was led by prominent investors Shorooq Partners and Algebra Ventures, along with continued support from existing investor Dubai Future District Fund.

Founded in 2018 by Ahmed Mahmoud and Mahmoud Gomaa, DXwand has rapidly emerged as a powerhouse in the field of AI-driven software. The platform specializes in automating text and voice conversations between customers and businesses across various channels, including call centers, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, SMS, and websites.

This recent investment follows a pre-Series A round in June 2022, where DXwand raised $1 million. Huashan Capital and US-based VC firm SOSV led that round, with additional support from angel investors.

The newly acquired funds will play a pivotal role in DXwand’s expansion plans within the region. Moreover, the investment will be instrumental in accelerating the startup’s research and development initiatives, particularly in the areas of generative AI, knowledge mining, and omnichannel conversational AI.

DXwand’s unique AI-driven software is designed to facilitate seamless interactions between businesses and customers. The platform, operational in both Arabic and English, utilizes advanced language processing capabilities to automate conversations and extract valuable insights. This data is then presented on dashboards, enabling businesses to make informed decisions.

Commenting on the successful funding round, Ahmad Mahmoud, CEO of DXwand, expressed enthusiasm about the opportunities it presents: “This significant investment marks a pivotal moment for DXwand, enabling us to propel our regional expansion and intensify our commitment to advancing Gen AI and RAG technologies. We are excited about the possibilities this funding opens up for DXwand and the broader landscape of conversational AI.”

Shorooq Partners’ Tamer Azer emphasized the strategic importance of DXwand’s technology, stating, “DXwand enables companies to grow not just faster but also smarter, and enables governments to become far more efficient. Through technology that mines institutional knowledge to deliver superior access to information, DXwand enables a far more efficient engagement between governments and companies and their stakeholders, be they citizens, employees, or customers.”

Karim Hussein, Managing Partner at Algebra Ventures, highlighted DXwand’s proven track record in solving real-world problems: “The DXwand team has built a unique and comprehensive suite of AI tools that solve real-world problems for their clients at scale, as evidenced by their impressive and growing roster of satisfied customers, including many of the region’s leading corporations and government clients.”

DXwand’s AI software not only benefits businesses but also extends its capabilities to technical execution teams in sectors such as aviation ground crews and oil and gas remote crews. By harnessing institutional knowledge, these teams can enhance their efficiency and accuracy in fulfilling their duties.

Sharif El-Badawi, CEO of Dubai Future District Fund, emphasized DXwand’s alignment with Dubai’s AI strategy, stating, “DXwand has consistently demonstrated its capabilities as a world-class innovator in Gen AI with impressive growth in the team’s ability to close new sophisticated client accounts. Our continued investment reflects our confidence in their vision and alignment to Dubai’s AI strategy, as reflected in their selection into the Dubai Centre for AI.”

DXwand’s latest funding round not only positions the startup as a dominant force in the Middle East’s AI landscape but also underscores the growing recognition of the crucial role AI plays in transforming industries and enhancing efficiency across various sectors.

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard.

Why Microsoft Chief Economist Warns Against Artificial Intelligence

May 4, 2023

The chief economist of tech giant Microsoft has warned that artificial intelligence will be dangerous in the hands of unscrupulous people. According to Michael Schwarz, “I am confident AI will be used by bad actors, and yes, it will cause real damage,” Schwarz said during a World Economic Forum panel in Geneva on Wednesday. “It can do a lot damage in the hands of spammers with elections and so on.”

AI “clearly” must be regulated, he said, but lawmakers should be cautious and wait until the technology causes “real harm”.

I like to say AI changes nothing in the short run and it changes everything in the long run

AI tools have come under increased scrutiny as their use exploded in recent months following the debut of ChatGPT. Policymakers are trying to pressure companies to implement safeguards around the emerging technology.

“Once we see real harm, we have to ask ourselves the simple question: ‘Can we regulate that in a way where the good things that will be prevented by this regulation are less important?’” Schwarz said. “The principles should be, the benefits from the regulation to our society should be greater than the cost to our society.”

It could be recalled that the United States Vice President Kamala Harris recently met with the CEOs from Microsoft, Google and OpenAI to discuss ways to reduce the risk of harm from AI technologies.

Microsoft is working to erect guardrails to help mitigate the potential danger from AI tools, Schwarz said. The company is already using OpenAI’s ChatGPT in its Bing search product, and Google released its rival Bard chatbot in March.

‘Pretty disastrous’

Schwarz warned that policymakers should be careful not to directly regulate AI training sets. “That would be pretty disastrous,” he said. “If congress were to make those decisions about training sets, good luck to us.”

Despite the risks, AI can help make humans more productive, he said. “We, as mankind, ought to be better off because we can produce more stuff with less work.”

AI will revolutionise the way most businesses operate, he said, adding that it will take time.

“I like to say AI changes nothing in the short run and it changes everything in the long run,” Schwarz said. “That is true for every single technology that came before.”

AI is expected to be a key driver of turbulence in global labour markets and will play a role in changes for nearly a quarter of global jobs, according to a report published by WEF.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Musk, Others Urge Pause on AI Development

March 30, 2023

Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts are calling for a six-month pause in training systems more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.

Elon Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives are calling for a six-month pause in training systems more powerful than OpenAI’s newly launched model GPT-4, they said in an open letter, citing potential risks to society and humanity.

The letter, issued by the non-profit Future of Life Institute and signed by more than a thousand people including Musk, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, researchers at Alphabet-owned DeepMind, as well as AI heavyweights Yoshua Bengio and Stuart Russell, called for a pause on advanced AI development until shared safety protocols for such designs were developed, implemented and audited by independent experts.

“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable,” the letter said.

Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive

The letter also detailed potential risks to society and civilisation by human-competitive AI systems in the form of economic and political disruptions, and called on developers to work with policymakers on governance and regulatory authorities.

The letter comes as European Union police force Europol on Monday joined a chorus of ethical and legal concerns over advanced AI like ChatGPT, warning about the potential misuse of the system in phishing attempts, disinformation and cybercrime. Musk, whose car maker Tesla is using AI for an autopilot system, has been vocal about his concerns about AI.

Since its release last year, Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT has prompted rivals to accelerate developing similar large language models, and companies to integrate generative AI models into their products.

Sam Altman, chief executive at OpenAI, hasn’t signed the letter, a spokesman at Future of Life said. OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“The letter isn’t perfect, but the spirit is right: we need to slow down until we better understand the ramifications,” said Gary Marcus, a professor at New York University who signed the letter. “They can cause serious harm… The big players are becoming increasingly secretive about what they are doing, which makes it hard for society to defend against whatever harms may materialise.”

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

South Africa Becomes First Country to Issue Patent for AI-Made Invention

August 7, 2021

In a move that seems to have taken the world by surprise, South Africa has become the first country in the world to award a patent to an invention created by an artificial intelligence (AI). This comes against the backdrop of the award of a patent by South Africa’s Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) to a new interlocking food and beverage container based on fractal geometry.

The container, unlike the myriad other patented inventions published in the Commission’s journal on 28 July 2021, was entirely conceptualised by a non-human AI device – DABUS – the Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience.

The Commission lists the AI as the inventor of the container – “DABUS, The invention was autonomously generated by an artificial intelligence,” the journal reads. Dabus’ creator, Stephen Thaler is the owner of the patent awarded by the CIPC.

This represents a major victory for the Artificial Inventor Project (AIP) led by Ryan Abbott of the University of Surrey in the UK. The project filed its first patents in 2019 and proposes that the act which qualifies a natural human person to be an inventor can be functionally automated by a machine, or in this case, an AI, represented by DABUS.

However, DABUS inventions have failed to garner patents in the European Union, the US and the UK in recent attempts. The AIP has since appealed the dismissals at the European Patent Office (EPO), but the EPO’s board of appeals upheld DABUS’ rejection, arguing that a patent can only be awarded to an inventor that has “legal capacity.”

Reports say that more patent applications from DABUS and the AIP have been registered in at least ten other countries, including Brazil, India, China, Japan and Taiwan. SA remains the only country in the world, so far, to award a patent to the AI inventor. Australia has also recently ruled that AIs can indeed be patented inventors, though the country has yet to approve DABUS’ patent application.

Part of the AI’s success in patenting inventions in South Africa comes from the fact that the country’s Patent Act has no clear definition for an “inventor”, but the act does require a person applying on behalf of the inventor to provide proof of their authority to do so. In this case, that person is DABUS’ creator, Thaler.

“The other offices’ decisions not to grant the patents in their own countries were based on interpretations of their own laws to the effect that a non-human entity does not or cannot have inventive capacity, and therefore cannot have rights to apply for a patent or even pass those right on to someone else,” says Erik van der Vyver of intellectual property firm Von Seidels, quoted by Business Insider.

The CIPC says that it has indeed awarded a patent to DABUS’s creator Thaler, but will be looking into reviewing the Patent Act, “with a recommendation for amendment, to allow the Commission to conduct substantive searches and examinations.” This is due to recent criticisms of the CIPC’s patenting procedures in awarding the AI the patent.

In terms of legality, the questions raised by DABUS’ patent are far from being answered, but Wessel van Wyk, patent attorney at Smit & Van Wyk believes that perhaps a separate category of “inventions” made by machines should be put into place to address these.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming the World

July 23, 2021

Artificial Intelligence is having far more impact on the world as we know it and before our eyes it is causing significant changes in virtually every area of human endeavour. According to a McKinsey report which analysed some Artificial Intelligence use cases stated that ‘the impact of artificial intelligence will most likely be substantial in marketing and sales as well as supply-chain management and manufacturing’.

The same report argues that AI has the potential to create trillions of dollars of value across the economy if business leaders work to understand what it can and cannot do.

Looking at this critically, one would wonder how Africa’s manufacturing industries would be able to compete with other continents that are massively adding AI-powered tools and solutions to their production lines?

China, for example, has more or less made artificial intelligence a major priority, investing heavily so as to ensure the country stays ahead.

An increasing number of Chinese factories have resorted to investing billions in robotics and intelligent machines powered by AI.

Honestly, I am of the opinion that Nigeria and many other African countries will be on the receiving end as we don’t seem to grasp what is ahead.

How would an average African entity that has not invested in AI compete if and when singularity is achieved? It is nearly impossible except for those that are truly prepared for the AI revolution.

A number of studies have argued that AI and robots will take over 50 per cent of human jobs in the next 30 years. This is due to the exponential advancements in robotics, quantum computing and AI.

Moshe Vardi, computer science professor, Rice University, Texas, said, “Intelligent machines will take over jobs across various fields such as driving and even bank tellers. Robots would replace humans in different professions, and this will immensely affect the landscape of human productivity.”

The reality is that across the world, certain functions in various workplaces are facing huge threats and it is all thanks to advancements in technology.

More than 30 percent of humans could lose their jobs in the next few decades, according to various studies. Clerical workers for instance, who perform tedious tasks such as writing reports or working on spreadsheets are being replaced by various software solutions but, what other jobs are under threat?

Well, a lot more such as data analysis, diagnosing health conditions, carrying out criminal investigations, writing annual reports, research, receptionists etc.

Richard and Daniel Susskind, in their study titled ‘The Future of the Professions’, argued that professions such as medicine, law, accountancy and engineering could bear the first impact of the rise of the machines.

If that is the case, why would we need a medical practitioner when a robot can read our complex physiology and prescribe, manufacture and distribute the exact blend of medication necessary.

A statement credited to Bill Gates reads, “If robots powered by artificial intelligence continue to steal jobs, then they should be subjected to the same tax regime as humans.”

I find this to be an interesting proposition but if you bring it home, you’d realise that it actually means a loss of revenue for governments. Let me illustrate using company X with say 1,000 employees. Now as stipulated in our laws, state governments are entitled to collect personal income taxes. So let’s say company X decides to embrace AI to become better efficient, then they would likely need to sack 50 per cent or more of their workforce depending on the type of tasks they perform.

What this means is that though this organisation may become more profitable, the state government will end up collecting less personal income taxes even though they might pay more taxes to the Federal Government.

This may probably come across like science fiction but I have no doubt that it’ll be some of the likely problems policymakers will be confronted with in the future.

So, a proactive government should start thinking about how to implement Bill Gate’s suggestion and put policies that can sustain such advancements.

A number of experts believe that AI might spell doom for mankind depending on how it is applied. According to the late high-profile physicist, Stephen Hawking, the emergence of artificial intelligence could be the ‘worst event in the history of our civilisation’ unless society finds a way to control its development.

It is not only Hawking that has expressed fears about AI. The Founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, believes that the only way for man to survive the AI onslaught is for our brains to be merged with computers.

On the flip side, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, seems to be one of the high profile individuals not worried about AI – he is pretty optimistic about its development.

It is not all gloom if you ask me. I am of the opinion that new kinds of jobs will be created but I am not sure how the world will manage the transition and cushion the adverse effect it might have on the short run.

A Gartner report states that artificial intelligence would continue to generate millions of jobs as the technology advances. Also, many tech giants share the same opinion; for example, IBM’s Chief Digital Officer, Bob Lord, agrees that jobs will be lost but opines, “I firmly believe that augmenting someone’s intelligence is going to get rid of the mundane jobs and allow us to rise up a level that we haven’t been able to do before and solve some really, really hard problems.”

Also, it is my candid opinion that AI coupled with other emerging technologies will be beneficial to countries like Nigeria particularly in areas we have continued to record monumental failure such as dealing with corruption, managing our natural resources, e-government etc.

I have canvassed and continue to canvass that Nigeria needs to eliminate human-to-human interaction as much as possible if we must move our nation forward. That is why I find it super shameful and disgraceful that Nigerian lawmakers are arguing about electronic voting or transmitting results electronically in 2021.

Let me conclude this piece by quoting Stephen Hawking. “Success in creating effective AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization or the worst. We simply do not know. So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and side-lined, or conceivably destroyed by it,” he said

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Addressing Africa’s Artificial Intelligence Talent Gap through Scholarship

May 6, 2021

By Caesar Keluro

Artificial Intelligence (AI) could significantly widen the gap between developed and African countries. The countries at the forefront of AI research are Japan, South Korea and the United States (together accounted for almost two-thirds of AI-related patent applications).

There is also China who has recorded a remarkable increase in the number of AI patents with EU Member States contributing 12 % of the total AI-related inventions over 2010-2015.

***Caesar Keluro, Co-Founder/CEO, Nanocentric Technologies Limited***

Where is Africa in the global AI scheme of things?

Africa faces an enormous skill gap in AI alongside a lack of a huge standardized pool of data, which is an essential prerequisite for a thriving AI ecosystem.

This is worsened by the level of AI uptake by companies on the continent not to even mention a near absence of AI-related investment and scanty patent numbers.

Yet African businesses should ensure their growing value-added manufacturing and industrial base by taking advantage of AI.With AI, it is inevitable that the fierce global competition we are seeing would seep into African businesses with the likelihood to shrink our businesses’ returns as the bulk of the returns move overseas as a result of IPs, competitive talent and technology uptake.

Interestingly, AI is the most strategic technology of the 21st century. It can boost labour productivity (by up to 40 %) due to ground-breaking technologies, supporting more efficient workforce-related time management.

With the rise of the Lekki Free Zone as an industrial base, businesses there should take cognizance of AI’s ability to create a new virtual workforce. Experts have described it as ‘intelligent automation’ – with the capability of solving problems and self-learning.

In Africa’s pursuit of an economic renaissance, we must incorporate AI in every facet of the economy so we can benefit from the diffusion of innovation that is capable of affecting different sectors and creating new revenue streams for us.

Sadly, we cannot accomplish much without the human talent that drives AI’s discoveries, corporate and economic applications.

We will need African governments to pass legislation that would provide scholarships, including tuition and stipends, to undergrad and graduate students who are studying AI and related fields.

As advancements in artificial intelligence continue, Africa faces a significant threat in a fragmented global system worsened by China and US rivalry. We cannot sit back and watch the others promote ethical applications based on their values only.

Africa can provide a third and dispassionate perspective by not just prioritizes investments in this revolutionary technology but by reconstructing its fragile industry base by sponsoring AI talent, helping us to shape the world through our journey and influencing ethical applications of AI.

Supported by legislation, we can have African students studying artificial intelligence at either the undergraduate or graduate level have some of their educational cost taken care of through agreement to work with African public agencies after graduation.

African private sector players can pave the way for a coordinated framework to advance our efforts in AI through a private sector-driven AI research entity.

The contrary would be redundancy which could have far-reaching consequences for the African labour market and its economic stability.

New competitive framework

Diaspora Africans who are studying in AI and AI-related fields should be incentivized to take advantage of this AI scholarship as it will help Africa build and grow its competitiveness in the long term, helping us build economic security and most critically help ensure this technology is used ethically for the benefit of mankind.

Beneficiaries of these scholarships must be provided access to internships and jobs continentally and in countries with opportunities provided to enable them to reshape our public service and private sector.

By motivating more talent to pursue training in AI, we can help Africa develop competencies in these emerging technologies.

The McKinsey Global Institute expects that around 70 % of companies would adopt at least one type of AI technology by 2030, while less than half of large companies would deploy the full range.

McKinsey estimates that AI may deliver an additional economic output of around US$13 trillion by 2030, increasing global GDP by about 1.2 % annually.

It said that this will mainly come from the substitution of labour by automation and increased innovation in products and services, a challenge and opportunity for African policymakers to munch over.

In all, with Africa’s rapid growing population and massive youthful demographics, we need to adopt AI and other breakthrough technologies to boost economic growth for our people.

Despite the world’s worries and warnings about AI-induced economic disruption through robots and automation, the fact is new technologies will help fuel global growth as productivity and consumption will rise.

While AI could worsen the global pecking order, we can exploit it by making the right strategic investments today.

I will suggest those investments should be focused on equipping our youths with AI skillsets. This window of opportunity is not shut down on us yet.

Caesar Keluro, Co-Founder/CEO, Nanocentric Technologies Limited. He leads ‘Make In West Africa’, a regional Think-tank.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Enhancing Cybersecurity

January 4, 2021

The Cold War period fostered all sorts of technological advancements, whereas in contemporary times the more technologically advanced the world we have the more cybersecurity is at risk. Combining the quality of artificial intelligence (AI) with cybersecurity, security experts have extra assets to guard helpless systems and information against cyber assailants. After applying this innovation, it brought moment bits of knowledge, coming about in diminished reaction times.

Artificial Intelligence And Bitcoins.

We can barely avoid the role of artificial intelligence which is more beneficial in bitcoins trading. Bitcoin traders in the cryptocurrency market use the exchange framework which is automatic in nature in order to earn confined wages. Valuable metals such as silver and gold are compared with Bitcoins in cryptocurrency markets, playing a central role in considering the fact that fiat currencies are not that reliable as are related to central banks and are sometimes unstable Governments.

Bitcoins traders provide an alternative to precious metals in currency marketing in times of crisis interstate or intrastate even Investors won’t hesitate in and flee to bitcoin trading. Cybersecurity with artificial intelligence further enhanced Bitcoin’s trading market as investing in bitcoin is an equally profitable strategy in a risk adjustment context.

With the convenience of artificial intelligence and assistance provided by cybersecurity, the main reason in this regard is bitcoins trader are now using artificial intelligence has been rewarded monetarily as bitcoin traders are making millions in bitcoins trading and this also uncovered the leading highlights and reasons why more cryptocurrency traders ought to begin in exchanging with bitcoins.

Why Bitcoins trading is profitable

Bitcoins trading is one of the fastest because of the only one and foremost crucial reason is the fastest cryptocurrency market. And so assistance provided by artificial intelligence is just that bitcoins trading takes place more than ten exchanges inside a period of just two minutes. Is greatly quick and one of the reasons why bitcoin traders are so productive in nature. And so this transaction is safeguarded with cybersecurity.

The framework used by the Bitcoin trader is exceptionally straightforward in this regard, and each client can effortlessly get it how it works whereas they exchange. All the bitcoin traders who utilize Bitcoins will be secured at all times. The exchanging encounter with a Bitcoin trader is great in this respect. It is also an encounter that each financial specialist wishes to have, and it could be a steady encounter. The clients are cheerful that they can exchange and gain a benefit with the framework every day.

Contemporary times and the future of Artificial Intelligence.

While analyzing the global scenario is not wrong today, cybersecurity in contemporary times and the future of artificial intelligence provides refuge to bitcoin traders.

Artificial intelligence advances the more cybersecurity enhance, in providing refuge to bitcoin traders who use the robotized framework in fetching and buying crypto at an extremely lower cost than the customary advertised esteem.

In this attempt bitcoins, traders provide a more marvelous way to boost one’s business and become a millionaire. For instance, if an investor with the help of bitcoins traders invests $15 would sell bitcoins $1500 earns the profits $1490. With the help of artificial intelligence and more enhancements in cybersecurity bitcoins, traders are to make bitcoins trading currency, not wrong to say bitcoins trading is or just near to become a currency.

The high liquidity related to bitcoins provided by the trader makes it an incredible speculation vessel on the off chance that an investor finds for its short term investment profits whereas advanced monetary forms may moreover be a long term venture due to high demand of the market. Bitcoin traders undoubtedly provide insane returns to investors in this digital currency, bitcoins.

The complicated cyberattack and sophisticated nature of it is a major challenge to cybersecurity in contemporary times which takes place with minimal intervention of humans which with the help of artificial intelligence will soaring the skies.

Bitcoin traders in rising bitcoins have started to talk more about their future. In spite of bitcoin’s later issues, its victory since 2009 inspires the creation of elective cryptocurrencies.

There is a small question that only comes to mind of an individual that bitcoin trader and bitcoin trading victory or failures in dealing with challenges it goes through may decide the fortunes of others within the long times ahead.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Call Centres to Deploy Artificial Intelligence in Transforming Customer Service Industry

June 23, 2020

If efforts by a South African startup go according to plan, this might be the end to traditional call centres as Voyc is deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) to remodel how companies engage clients via customer service. This new programmes is expected to help organizations communicate the highest value possible to customers at the least cost, while complying with regulatory requirements. Voyc claims that it has a solution that applies machine learning to analyze all calls, checking for key phrases and highlighting insights from agent-customer conversations.

Speaking on the innovation, Voyc’s CEO Matthew Westaway said that “we want to ensure that companies and their customers are treated fairly, by getting through all the calls and making sure nothing slips through the cracks.” Westaway co-founded Voyc in 2018, with the collaboration of Lethabo Motsoaledi who is Voyc’s CTO, while they were engineering students at the University of Cape Town. He said that the idea for the startup came while both worked on an initial market research endeavour that required them to deliver insights to companies based on audio interviews with customers. He pointed out that a bank could, for example, engage 50 agents a month who make thousands of calls, but only a sample of these calls are analysed for quality assurance. The analysis is often manual and, for long calls, could be tedious. With Voyc, this is cut down to the barest minimum of time, helping organizations analyse feedbacks and improve services.

Presently, insurance is Voyc’s biggest client segment due to the regulatory pressure on companies to treat customers well, and the risk companies are exposed to from prospective/active customers who may sometimes not be truthful about pre-existing conditions or claims. But Westaway believes his service applies beyond insurance as there are quality assurance needs wherever call centres are used for telemarketing. The issue of audio transcription according to Westaway is not rocket science for many tech savvy people in 2020. There are a number of apps that are able to capture text from voice – though the range of functionalities remains possible for mostly European languages, and success varies.

The broad family of voice-to-text platforms, which includes apps like Google Translate, operate based on Natural Language Processing (NLP) principles of artificial intelligence. The same architecture underlies Voyc’s promise to “achieve expert insights infinitely faster than the manual qualitative research process.” With 100% of calls analyzed, companies have the evidence-based resources to improve the quality of their call agents and telemarketers, Westaway says. The algorithm on which this work is the identification of keywords and topics that should accompany certain calls and run quality checks based on the frequency of use by agents, as well as tone of voice. This is called sentiment analysis in NLP parlance and is an increasingly popular analytical tool among digital marketers.

Voyc, which is a web-based platform, scores each agent’s calls and where a company chooses to integrate scripts, scores are partly based on conformity to the scripts. You could, for example, search a call’s transcript to find out how an agent responded when a customer asked to speak to the manager. In essence, call centre and customer service personnel are trained through a data-driven process to become more emotionally intelligent, or to more firmly stick to the company line.

Westaway and Motsoaledi initially tried to pitch Voyc as a product for improving market research processes by providing data on audio interviews. But the low frequency of interviews even at market research agencies meant scale would be limited. They pivoted to the call centre market after participating in a Techstars programme in Germany. After a tour of accelerator programmes last year including Google’s ‘London Immersion’ (where PiggyVest, 54Gene, and PayGo Energy also featured), Voyc has doubled down on the insurance market as the sector most likely to need its services at scale.

Since beginning full operations in 2018, all of Voyc’s current clients have been in South Africa where there are about 500 companies in the sector and the insurance penetration rate was 16.99% (as of 2017). One of such clients is a company that sells travel insurance to four South African banks, among them Standard Bank, Africa’s largest lender by assets. But a 500-company addressable market in one of Africa’s top-three largest economies is hardly large. When you account for the fact that small companies may not find it operationally necessary or financially prudent to outsource quality assurance, the market does appear small.

Voyc is presently looking beyond Africa for other clients and is currently exploring the UK market, after which they hope to enter the US. Their Africa strategy is to pitch their service to telcos and they have begun trials with at least one customer experience company, Westaway says.But there is a labour cost reality to Westaway’s focus away from Africa: it is relatively cheaper to hire people to listen to and review calls for quality assurance in Africa than in the UK or US. It would be difficult to be price competitive in Africa, he says.Two years in, Voyc says they have analyzed 1.4 million minutes of calls for clients. Though founded by Africans and piloted in Africa, it might just be a product a little ahead of its time. But there is value in there and if the encouraging post-COVID fortunes of Nigeria’s insurance market is a signal, Westaway and co may find a breakthrough here while prospecting for greener landscapes.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and humans in Customer experience (CX) – not an either/or situation

July 18, 2019

In the customer journey, artificial intelligence is not set to replace human engagement, but rather to enhance and underpin it.

By Merijn te Booij

AI is by far the biggest hype I have seen in my career, and for good reason. It could revolutionize customer experience at a time when experience and service are the final frontiers in differentiation.

In the entire digital transformation of the world, we are spending over $1.2 trillion next year, and $6 trillion over the next four years. Much of this spend will focus on technologies that allow the enterprise to differentiate in the market and deliver exceptional customer experience.

An emerging Gen Z employee and customer base are changing engagement models with companies, using more channels and more self-service options. Customers around the world are using a variety of channels – with 97% of customers saying they are multi-channel users, and each customer using 5.6 channels on average.

By 2020, virtually all of the people who call into a contact center will have already been on one of the organization’s other channels. When they call you, they have been trying to self serve themselves and they are out of options, yet what contact centers still do at this point is ask them ‘who are you and what do you want?’

This is no longer good enough in an environment when customer experience makes or breaks customer loyalty. Research has found that in the last year, 51% of people have switched brands due to poor customer service.

AI presents the hope of running customer engagement more efficiently, faster and more cost-effectively. A global survey found 90% of companies are deploying AI across some aspect of their customer journey, gaining massive shifts in productivity and an ability to use valuable insights to build deeper relationships with customers.

While we have been using machine learning for years, we can now compute at a much larger scale than ever before, and AI comes into its own at large scale because, at the end of the day, it’s about data.

However, many people think AI is about a bot that will just solve everything – just plug it in a 24 hours later it will have learned everything it needs to know to solve problems. It won’t.

To deliver an exceptional customer experience, the strengths of AI are best blended with the empathy and problem-solving skills of humans. There is an opportunity to blend AI and human interaction because humans and bots are so different. Bots love replication and they are error-free, so they are ideal for invoicing and collection calls, or handling routine calls – for example, where a customer wants to change their address.

AI enables enterprises to predict call volumes and call routing needs and helps agents to work more effectively. But if a customer calls in because for example their family member just passed away and they are worried about health care or funeral arrangements, you may want a human to take the call and spend a moment consoling or showing empathy. So this is not an ‘either/or’, it’s an ‘and’.

Somewhere down the road, the main thing an agent will do is show empathy and solve problems. Despite concerns over job losses, AI will likely generate more jobs than it will take, and it will augment customer experience and bring power to your agents.

AI can help organize and automate structures, processes, and conversations, but when it becomes complex and emotional, a human should take over. We call this ‘blended AI’ – AI with a human touch.

Companies can drive exponential customer experience value by combining predictive omnichannel routing, predictive digital engagement, workforce engagement and ‘Kate’ – a virtual assistant, running on a mobile app, who is virtually training herself, to seamlessly blend the best of AI-driven self-service capabilities and real-life employees.

Merijn te Booij is the chief marketing officer (CMO) at Genesys (www.Genesys.com) he was a keynote speaker at the Genesys Blended AI Summit South Africa 2019.

Kelechi Deca

Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry.

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