Softbank-backed Meesho has rolled out what it claims to be India’s first generative AI-powered voice bot among e-commerce firms for customer sup

AI helps India’s Meesho cut customer call costs by 75%

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2024-11-26 11:00:06

Softbank-backed Meesho has rolled out what it claims to be India’s first generative AI-powered voice bot among e-commerce firms for customer support, paring down some expenses by 75%.

The Bengaluru-based e-commerce startup said Tuesday its AI bot currently handles 60,000 customer calls daily in English and Hindi. The startup, which also counts Prosus and Elevation among its backers, plans to add support for six more Indian languages.

Meesho serves more than 160 million customers in India, with 80% of them in smaller cities, towns and villages. The startup valued at $4.9 billion, processes over $5 billion in annual sales on its platform. Customer support has been a significant focus for the e-commerce group. “We get a ton of customer support calls,” said Sanjeev Barnwal, co-founder and chief technology officer, in an interview with TechCrunch. Getting it right is necessary to “create the best experience for our users,” he said.

Rather than developing its own large language model, Meesho has for now combined existing AI large language models with custom-built components that understand local context and language nuances. The system includes specialized building blocks for speech recognition and natural language processing.