Espressive lands $30M Series B to build better help chatbots

Espressive, a four-year-old startup from former ServiceNow employees, is working to build a better chatbot to reduce calls to company help desks. Today, the company announced a $30 million Series B investment. Insight Partners led the round with help from Series A lead investor General Catalyst along with Wing Venture Capital. Under the terms of […] Continue reading Espressive lands $30M Series B to build better help chatbots

Rasa raises $13M led by Accel for its developer-friendly open source approach to chatbots

Conversational AI and the use of chatbots have been through multiple cycles of hype and disillusionment in the tech world. You know the story: first you get a launch from the likes of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Google or any number of other companies, and then you get the many examples of how their services […] Continue reading Rasa raises $13M led by Accel for its developer-friendly open source approach to chatbots

Salesforce and Google want to build a smarter customer service experience

Anyone who has dealt with bad customer service has felt frustration with the lack of basic understanding of who you are as a customer and what you need. Google and Salesforce feel your pain, and today the two companies expanded their partnership to try and create a smarter customer service experience. The goal is to […] Continue reading Salesforce and Google want to build a smarter customer service experience

ServiceNow teams with Workplace by Facebook on service chatbot

One of the great things about enterprise chat applications beyond giving employees a common channel to communicate, is the ability to integrate with other enterprise applications. Today, Workplace, Facebook’s enterprise collaboration and communication application, and ServiceNow announced a new chatbot to make it easier for employees to navigate a company’s help desks inside Workplace Chat. […] Continue reading ServiceNow teams with Workplace by Facebook on service chatbot

Oracle adds more AI features to its suite of sales tools

As the biggest sales and marketing technology firms mature, they are all turning to AI and machine learning to advance the field. This morning it was Oracle’s turn, announcing several AI-fueled features for its suite of sales tools. Rob Tarkoff, who had previous stints at EMC, Adobe and Lithium, and is now EVP of Oracle […] Continue reading Oracle adds more AI features to its suite of sales tools

Fresh out of Y Combinator, Leena AI scores $2M seed round

Leena AI, a recent Y Combinator graduate focusing on HR chatbots to help employees answer questions like how much vacation time they have left, announced a $2 million seed round today from a variety of investors. Company co-founder and CEO Adit Jain says the seed money is about scaling the company and gaining customers. They hope […] Continue reading Fresh out of Y Combinator, Leena AI scores $2M seed round

ServiceNow chatbot builder helps automate common service requests

When it comes to making requests inside a company for new equipment or to learn about HR policies, it can be a frustrating experience for both sides of the equation. HR and IT are probably tired of answering the same questions. Employees are tired of calling a help desk for routine inquiries and waiting for […] Continue reading ServiceNow chatbot builder helps automate common service requests

Google Cloud releases Dialogflow Enterprise Edition for building chat apps

Building conversational interfaces is a hot new area for developers. Chatbots can be a way to reduce friction in websites and apps and to give customers quick answers to commonly asked questions in a conversational framework. Today, Google announced it was making Dialogflow Enterprise Edition generally available. It had previously been in Beta. This technology […] Continue reading Google Cloud releases Dialogflow Enterprise Edition for building chat apps