Latest news with #Decagon
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'AI Agents Can Be 10x Employees'—AI Customer Support Chatbot Startup Founded Two Years Ago Seeks $100 Million At A $1.5 Billion Valuation
Decagon, a two-year-old AI startup helping companies cut customer support costs, is in talks to raise $100 million at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to Forbes, which cites multiple sources familiar with the deal. Founded in 2023 by Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas, Decagon builds customer support agents powered by artificial intelligence. These agents can handle common service tasks like issuing refunds, canceling subscriptions and answering product questions. Companies including Notion, Duolingo (NASDAQ:DUOL), Bilt, Substack and Rippling already use the software. 'We think AI agents can be 10x employees,' Zhang told Forbes. Don't Miss: Hasbro, MGM, and Skechers trust this AI marketing firm — 'Scrolling To UBI' — Deloitte's #1 fastest-growing software company allows users to earn money on their phones. Decagon's rise has been driven by its performance in what insiders call "bake-offs," where companies test AI tools head-to-head. 'Decagon claims they win almost every time they go up against Sierra head to head,' one investor involved in the talks told Forbes. Sierra is a newer rival that is led by former Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) co-CEO Bret Taylor. Startups are turning to these agents to handle tedious tasks that would otherwise require large outsourced teams. Forbes reported that Bilt, for example, reduced its customer support team from hundreds of contractors to just 65 after adopting Decagon. Another unnamed client reportedly cut 80% of its support staff. ClassPass, which uses Decagon to manage more than 2.5 million customer conversations, slashed its cost per reservation by 95%, according to The Information. The potential new funding round is being led by Andreessen Horowitz and Accel, with participation from existing backers. It would bring Decagon's total funding to $200 million, following a $65 million Series B round announced in October that valued the company at $650 million. Trending: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — The company's AI agents run on top of large language models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere, and are fine-tuned using company-specific data like user manuals, how-to guides and historical customer service chats. A proprietary system helps companies keep this training data fresh and relevant. A key selling point, according to investors, is that Decagon gives businesses clear control over how its AI responds to customers. 'You as a customer can actually see what's happening, understand it, and change things,' investor Elad Gil told Forbes. 'You have control so that it really does the things that you want it to do.' Decagon has also started partnering with ElevenLabs to build voice-enabled agents that sound more human, pushing beyond typed chat Decagon has earned praise for its performance and transparency, it faces stiff competition. Salesforce recently launched Agentforce 2dx, a major update to its AI platform that allows agents to work behind the scenes, not just in chat windows. The update includes low-code and pro-code tools for building agents, real-time monitoring, and a developer edition for testing. 'We're making it easier than ever for businesses to embed agentic AI into any workflow,' Adam Evans, Salesforce's EVP and GM of AI Platform, said in a statement. Salesforce also introduced AgentExchange, a marketplace that allows developers and partners to monetize prebuilt AI actions, templates and solutions. Read Next:Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? SALESFORCE (CRM): Free Stock Analysis Report This article 'AI Agents Can Be 10x Employees'—AI Customer Support Chatbot Startup Founded Two Years Ago Seeks $100 Million At A $1.5 Billion Valuation originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
TaskUs Accelerates Agentic AI-Powered Customer Experience with Strategic Partnerships with Decagon and Regal
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas, May 13, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TaskUs, Inc. (Nasdaq: TASK), a leading provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to the world's most innovative companies, today announced strategic partnerships with Decagon and Regal. Together with these two elite agentic AI platform companies, TaskUs will aim to further transform customer support through intelligent automation. The partnerships with Decagon and Regal augments TaskUs' recently announced agentic AI consulting practice, a set of business services and expertise that help companies seamlessly integrate advanced AI technologies into their customer experience operations. Agentic AI builds on the rapid progress of generative AI to allow the technology to autonomously complete tasks, particularly in customer support and business processes. In the rush to apply agentic AI, many companies must now rethink how they typically operate. Expertise around where to use the new technology and how to start, scale, secure, and blend it with human interaction is as important as selecting the right platform. "Agentic AI from Decagon and Regal should enable us to reduce the cost of customer support by 25-50% while significantly improving quality," says Bryce Maddock, CEO, TaskUs. "Our AI deployment specialists will apply agentic AI upfront to automate many simple, repetitive customer service functions. We'll then provide human support from our talented experts. This hybrid model is the future of customer support." Comprehensive AI Transformation TaskUs will tap the Decagon and Regal platforms to apply agentic AI across digital and voice channels, using its deep knowledge of a client's workflows, training materials, and business processes to train agentic AI models and integrate them into a company's operations — all in service of the ultimate customer experience. "This isn't just about implementing technology," says Joe Anderson, leader of TaskUs' Agentic AI Consulting practice. "We're guiding our clients through a comprehensive AI transformation. We understand our clients' values, ecosystems, operations, nuances — even their quirks. When you've been working with a client for years, you get to know them extremely well. And that's critical for applying agentic AI successfully." "We see lots of fancy chatbot demos riding the AI hype," says Jesse Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Decagon. "We've built something different: AI agents that give customers a human-like customer support experience across all channels. By teaming up with TaskUs, we're able to offer fast, AI-powered support up front, and smooth handoffs to their expert teams when a human touch is needed." "We believe one of the main ways consumers will interact with brands is through calls by human-like AI voice agents. We have built an enterprise-ready platform needed to help brands seamlessly integrate AI Agents that perform as well as human agents at a fraction of the cost for everything from customer support to operations calls," says Alex Levin, CEO and co-founder of "Partnering with TaskUs will help us scale the impact of our voice capabilities." TaskUs also plans to apply these new agentic AI solutions to its own internal operations. This approach will deepen its ability to integrate the technology into workflows and customer interactions, while maintaining human oversight as it keeps building teams of savvy AI users. For more information on how TaskUs is enabling AI-driven business transformation, visit the TaskUs AI Services website. About TaskUs TaskUs is a leading provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to the world's most innovative companies, helping its clients represent, protect, and grow their brands. Leveraging a cloud-based infrastructure, TaskUs serves clients in fast-growing sectors, including social media, e-commerce, gaming, streaming media, food delivery and ride-sharing, technology, financial services, and healthcare. As of December 31, 2024, TaskUs had a worldwide headcount of approximately 59,000 people across 28 locations in 12 countries, including the United States, the Philippines, and India. About Decagon Decagon is the leading conversational AI platform that's redefining customer experience with AI agents. Designed for complete omnichannel environments, Decagon's agents automate repetitive tasks, resolve inquiries at scale, and free up human teams to focus on more strategic work. Founded in San Francisco, Decagon makes customer experience smarter, faster, and truly customer-centric. For more information, visit About Regal Regal is the leading Voice AI Agent Platform. Regal helps enterprises build AI Agents that are personalized to their company and customers to power better support, sales and operations calls–with way less effort. Founded in New York City in 2020, Regal partners with hundreds of enterprise brands like Google and Toyota to transform their customer interactions. Regal reports that it is driving over 250M AI calls, $5B in revenue, and a 50% lower cost to serve. For more information, please visit View source version on Contacts Media Contact Ramya Kumaraswamymediainquiries@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Business Wire
13-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
TaskUs Accelerates Agentic AI-Powered Customer Experience with Strategic Partnerships with Decagon and Regal
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- TaskUs, Inc. (Nasdaq: TASK), a leading provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to the world's most innovative companies, today announced strategic partnerships with Decagon and Regal. Together with these two elite agentic AI platform companies, TaskUs will aim to further transform customer support through intelligent automation. The partnerships with Decagon and Regal augments TaskUs' recently announced agentic AI consulting practice, a set of business services and expertise that help companies seamlessly integrate advanced AI technologies into their customer experience operations. Agentic AI builds on the rapid progress of generative AI to allow the technology to autonomously complete tasks, particularly in customer support and business processes. In the rush to apply agentic AI, many companies must now rethink how they typically operate. Expertise around where to use the new technology and how to start, scale, secure, and blend it with human interaction is as important as selecting the right platform. 'Agentic AI from Decagon and Regal should enable us to reduce the cost of customer support by 25-50% while significantly improving quality,' says Bryce Maddock, CEO, TaskUs. 'Our AI deployment specialists will apply agentic AI upfront to automate many simple, repetitive customer service functions. We'll then provide human support from our talented experts. This hybrid model is the future of customer support.' Comprehensive AI Transformation TaskUs will tap the Decagon and Regal platforms to apply agentic AI across digital and voice channels, using its deep knowledge of a client's workflows, training materials, and business processes to train agentic AI models and integrate them into a company's operations — all in service of the ultimate customer experience. 'This isn't just about implementing technology,' says Joe Anderson, leader of TaskUs' Agentic AI Consulting practice. 'We're guiding our clients through a comprehensive AI transformation. We understand our clients' values, ecosystems, operations, nuances — even their quirks. When you've been working with a client for years, you get to know them extremely well. And that's critical for applying agentic AI successfully.' 'We see lots of fancy chatbot demos riding the AI hype,' says Jesse Zhang, co-founder and CEO of Decagon. 'We've built something different: AI agents that give customers a human-like customer support experience across all channels. By teaming up with TaskUs, we're able to offer fast, AI-powered support up front, and smooth handoffs to their expert teams when a human touch is needed.' 'We believe one of the main ways consumers will interact with brands is through calls by human-like AI voice agents. We have built an enterprise-ready platform needed to help brands seamlessly integrate AI Agents that perform as well as human agents at a fraction of the cost for everything from customer support to operations calls,' says Alex Levin, CEO and co-founder of 'Partnering with TaskUs will help us scale the impact of our voice capabilities.' TaskUs also plans to apply these new agentic AI solutions to its own internal operations. This approach will deepen its ability to integrate the technology into workflows and customer interactions, while maintaining human oversight as it keeps building teams of savvy AI users. For more information on how TaskUs is enabling AI-driven business transformation, visit the TaskUs AI Services website. About TaskUs TaskUs is a leading provider of outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experience to the world's most innovative companies, helping its clients represent, protect, and grow their brands. Leveraging a cloud-based infrastructure, TaskUs serves clients in fast-growing sectors, including social media, e-commerce, gaming, streaming media, food delivery and ride-sharing, technology, financial services, and healthcare. As of December 31, 2024, TaskUs had a worldwide headcount of approximately 59,000 people across 28 locations in 12 countries, including the United States, the Philippines, and India. About Decagon Decagon is the leading conversational AI platform that's redefining customer experience with AI agents. Designed for complete omnichannel environments, Decagon's agents automate repetitive tasks, resolve inquiries at scale, and free up human teams to focus on more strategic work. Founded in San Francisco, Decagon makes customer experience smarter, faster, and truly customer-centric. For more information, visit About Regal Regal is the leading Voice AI Agent Platform. Regal helps enterprises build AI Agents that are personalized to their company and customers to power better support, sales and operations calls–with way less effort. Founded in New York City in 2020, Regal partners with hundreds of enterprise brands like Google and Toyota to transform their customer interactions. Regal reports that it is driving over 250M AI calls, $5B in revenue, and a 50% lower cost to serve. For more information, please visit
Forbes
02-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
AI Startup Decagon In Talks To Raise $100 Million At A $1.5 Billion Valuation
CEO Jesse Zhang (left) and CTO Ashwin Sreenivas (right) competed in science and math Olympiad competitions growing up. Now Decagon is in talks to raise $100 million in funding at a $1.5 billion valuation. AI startup Decagon, which is building customer service-focused agents, is in talks to raise $100 million in fresh funding at a $1.5 billion valuation, according to five sources familiar with the deal. Andreessen Horowitz and Accel are leading the round, with participation from existing investors, according to four of the people. The company has more than $10 million in signed contracts (often denoted using the term annual recurring revenue), according to two sources. Decagon confirmed it has been in talks to raise additional funding, but said the round hasn't been closed yet and the figures could change. Andreessen Horowitz and Accel did not immediately respond to comment requests. Decagon is building customer support chatbots and agents— software that can autonomously perform basic tasks— for things like answering questions on how a product works, processing refunds and canceling subscriptions. Companies like Notion, Bilt, Duolingo, Substack and Rippling use Decagon customer support chatbots. The latest investment comes less than a year after Decagon raised a $65 million Series B round led by Bain Capital Ventures at a $650 million valuation, Forbes reported in October. The new investment would bring Decagon's total funding to $200 million. The company, which was featured on the Forbes AI 50 list, was cofounded by 27-year-old CEO Jesse Zhang and Ashwin Sreenivas in 2023 after the duo surveyed dozens of companies to find the problem that could best be solved with AI. Customer support, a tedious but pivotal part of any business, has long been targeted for automation as a means to save millions in labor costs by eliminating largely outsourced customer support teams. Credit card provider Bilt downsized its customer support team from hundreds to 65 with Decagon, Forbes reported last year. And fitness giant ClassPass, which uses Decagon's AI agents to carry out 2.5 million conversations with its customers, has reduced its customer support costs by 95%, according to The Information. 'We think AI agents can be 10x employees,' Zhang told Forbes in March. Under the hood, Decagon's agents are built on the most advanced models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Cohere, and trained on internal data like how-to blogs, manuals and past customer service conversations. Staff rate and review responses generated by the AI to improve it. In February, Decagon partnered with audio generation startup ElevenLabs to create voice agents to have more natural, human-like conversations with customers. Customer service software is a competitive market and Decagon is up against companies like $4.5 billion-valued Sierra, helmed by former Salesforce co-CEO and OpenAI board Chairman Bret Taylor, and Salesforce, which has its own AI agents for customer support. The products themselves are also increasingly identical to each other and businesses regularly do what are called bake offs to pit one AI tool against another to see how well they perform on the job. 'Decagon claims they win almost every time they go up against Sierra head to head,' said one investor involved in the talks. 'Ultimately, they are both going to have exactly the same product and it will really be a race to see who can solve a higher percentage of the support calls with the best accuracy.' MORE FROM FORBES
