Conversation Intelligence Systems, a vital component of the modern tech landscape, play a pivotal role in deciphering and enhancing human-machine interactions. These systems employ advanced AI and natural language processing to comprehend the nuances of conversations, whether they occur between humans or involve machines. With the rising importance of personalized user experiences, startups are increasingly investing in Conversation Intelligence to refine customer support, automate tasks, and bridge the communication gap between users and technology. One such pioneering startup is Mihup.ai. 

Mihup.ai

Mihup.ai is a pioneering startup at the forefront of natural language processing and artificial intelligence, poised to revolutionize the way we interact with technology. It is a Conversation Intelligence platform that helps businesses boost their contact center performance. It is built on proprietary ASR technology that offers the best blend of accuracy, speed, and cost-effectiveness. Founded on the principle that human-machine communication should be intuitive and seamless, Mihup.ai has harnessed cutting-edge AI technologies to create a dynamic platform that understands and responds to natural language with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency. The company’s products and services are used by businesses of all sizes, across a variety of industries, including telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, and retail.

Vision to Democratize AI

Mihup.ai was founded in 2016 by Tapan Barman and Biplab Chakraborty. Currently, Barman and Chakraborty are the CEO and COO of the company, respectively.

The initial idea and foundation of Mihup.ai centered around building the most accurate voice interface for the next billion users, particularly in regions where technology adoption was on the rise but faced barriers due to the complexity of the man-machine interface. In 2016, amidst a less prevalent AI landscape, the founders recognized the untapped potential of reaching users in these regions. They identified a significant challenge: despite the growth in technology, user experience had not evolved in line with it.

Priyanka Kamdar, Head of Growth at Mihup.ai said “People, especially in India, had reservations about interacting with machines due to language proficiency concerns and a fear of judgment. Mihup’s vision was to address these barriers by offering a display-less interaction mode for various types of communication, whether between humans and machines, machines and machines, or humans and humans. The company aimed to establish a protocol for adaptive conversations, bridging language and dialect gaps to cater to diverse user preferences.” 

In nutshell, Mihup sought to create a platform where developers could leverage their technological prowess to build products tailored to the specific requirements of internet users worldwide, transcending language and cultural differences.

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AI-powered Products and Services

Priyanka Kamdar, a representative of Mihup.ai, explained the company’s three main products and services as follows:

Mihup Interaction Analytics

According to Kamdar, this product is designed for the contact center industry. It offers post-call analytics, addressing the challenges of manual quality assurance processes in call centers. While traditional methods could only sample a small percentage of calls, Mihup Interaction Analytics enables the analysis of 100% of interactions between customers and agents. It captures the voice of the customer, monitors agent performance, and generates reports for actionable insights. This ensures that valuable business insights are derived from all interactions, improving customer service and decision-making.

Mihup Agent Assist

Also serving the contact center industry, Mihup Agent Assist is a real-time assistant for call center agents. It operates during live customer-agent interactions, providing agents with guidance based on customer cues. For example, it can help agents adjust their tone when a customer is angry or suggest appropriate solutions. “This intelligent assistant enhances the agent’s performance and ensures a successful call outcome by bridging the gap between human-to-human and human-to-machine conversations,” said Kamdar. 

Mihup AVA

Mihup’s third product is Mihup Automated Voice Assistant (AVA), a voice bot tailored for the automotive industry. It resides within a vehicle’s infotainment system and operates offline as well as online, making it suitable for use with and without an internet connection. This voice bot enhances the driving experience by performing in-vehicle functions and providing assistance to users. It is designed to work in multiple languages, including Hindi, English, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Haryanvi, and Malwari, making it versatile and user-friendly for a wide range of scenarios and users.

The Future of Customer Service with AI

Mihup.ai utilizes artificial intelligence extensively in its products and services. The company’s AI technology encompasses a wide range of components that contribute to the functionality of their offerings. For instance, in their voice bot product, AI components such as speech recognition, speech-to-text conversion, dialogue management, advanced natural language processing (NLP), and text-to-speech conversion are crucial. Mihup’s Interaction Analytics and Agent Assist uses speech recognition technology to transcribe customer conversations. This allows businesses to analyze customer interactions and identify areas for improvement. Mihup.ai uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand the meaning of customer conversations. The platform also offers a chatbot platform that businesses can use to automate customer interactions.

“Importantly, Mihup.ai has developed each of these components in-house, without relying on third-party solutions. This approach allows them to have complete control over their AI models and technology stack, ensuring that their products are tailored to their specific needs and requirements,” said Kamdar.

Unique Approach to Conversational AI

Mihup.ai differentiates itself from other startups in the conversational AI space through several key aspects. Firstly, their proprietary tech stack is entirely developed in-house, granting them full control over their product direction, security, and scalability. “Unlike language-based models, Mihup.ai’s approach is vocabulary-based and even goes beyond words to consider phonetic imprints and modulation, allowing them to detect not just keywords but also the context of interactions,” explained Kamdar. 

The company’s focus is on speech-to-intent and meaning, addressing the challenge where machines are getting smarter but users struggle to use them effectively. “Mihup.ai aims to provide a horizontal platform that spans various industries, including contact centers, automotive, and government services, enabling developers to create tailored solutions,” she said. Their unique approach and adaptability position them as pioneers in the field of conversational AI, according to her. 

Mihup.ai’s Funding Journey

“Mihup.ai’s funding journey began in 2016 when the company was formally established. However, securing initial funding for a deep tech startup like Mihup was challenging, as the concept was ahead of its time in India. Despite facing multiple rejections, Mihup.ai found its early investors in Accel and IdeaSpring Capital,” said Kamdar. 

Mihup.ai has raised a total of $5 million in funding over 6 rounds. The funding has been used to expand Mihup.ai’s product offerings, grow its team, and expand into new markets, according to Kamdar.

Vision for the Future

“Mihup.ai’s future plans revolve around their larger vision, which is to become the interpreter for all types of conversations in the man-machine world,” says Kamdar. While they have short-term tactical goals related to product advancement and upgradation, their ultimate objective is to develop an interface that can handle verbal, non-verbal, written, or visual interactions between humans and machines.They foresee Mihup.ai playing a significant role in the IoT world of tomorrow, potentially becoming a key player in chatty operating systems, aligning with their vision of bridging the gap between human and machine communication.