Senseforth eyes US, UK and West Asia markets

Senseforth, an artificial intelligence platform that offers a range of bots to enterprises, plans to expand in the US, UK and West Asia, next year.

The startup, which offers 16 bots to enterprises, has 14 clients across verticals such as banks, telecom, hospitality, and ecommerce, among others.

"Our focus in 2018 is to expand to the US, UK and West Asia markets, and we are also hiring in the US now. Our clients include HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Manipal Hospitals, to name a few," said  Shridhar Marri, CEO and Founder of Senseforth.

Started in 2013, the startup built tech for three years, and in business for the last two years.

According to a new study by Juniper Research, 'Chatbots: Retail, eCommerce, Banking & Healthcare 2017-2022', chatbots will be responsible for cost savings of over $8 billion per annum by 2022, up from $20 million this year.

Senseforth sees huge business opportunities in the enterprise bot market. Instead of investing in manpower, companies prefer doing the same in chatbots. "While a person can chat only with two or three customers simultaneously, a bot can do the same with a million people," Marri said, adding AI will create more jobs and that people need different kinds of skill set.   "There is going to be massive new jobs on the table, and only dull or  unnecessary jobs would be  eliminated," he said.

A recent report by Gartner also pointed out that AI will generate 2.3 million jobs. Acknowledging that AI will eliminate millions of middle-and low-level positions, the report emphasised that more new high-skilled jobs will be created.

Senseforth, which raised $2 million in seed funding this year, will go for Series A funding next year. It also plans to break even in 2018.