S’pore start-up Al Rudder uses AI to help firms bridge language barrier with global customers

HONG KONG – A Singapore-headquartered start-up that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide voice automation for customer service is looking at exponential revenue growth as it rolls out solutions in more languages for businesses with customers around the world.

Speaking to The Straits Times from San Mateo in the United States, AI Rudder co-founder Kevin Wu said global demand for responsive customer service brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic has benefited the firm, which has experienced fast growth. 

In 2021, AI Rudder saw a 400 per cent year-on-year increase in revenue. Its annual recurring revenue increased three times that year due to a growing client list.

In 2022, the company achieved about US$10 million (S$13.5 million) in revenue.

Mr Wu said: “We want to keep the momentum; to grow much bigger in different markets we are working on.

“With the onslaught of ChatGPT, we see more breakthroughs, and we feel we can do more and penetrate more markets earlier than planned.” 

Generative AI –

such as ChatGPT

– with its ability to create new content is giving rise to an entire ecosystem, allowing application builders like AI Rudder to develop new end-user applications, he said.

Founded in 2019, AI Rudder uses automatic speech recognition, natural language understanding and lifelike text-to-speech technologies to process conversations to receive and interpret customer intent, and communicate at near-human intelligence.

The company started off on a mission to develop its voice AI applications in multiple spoken languages beyond English, focusing on Asean with its diverse languages and dialects.

Today, Asean is AI Rudder’s largest market. Its conversational AI assistants can understand and speak more than 16 languages with regional accents and dialects.

They include English, Bahasa (Melayu and Indonesia), Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Tagalog, Tamil, Thai and Vietnamese.

Plans are in place to roll out AI assistants in more languages, such as Arabic, Cantonese, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese, to better support multinational companies.

The company is also expanding into other countries, including the United States, where it set up an office in early 2023.

Singapore’s OCBC Bank was AI Rudder’s first financial partner. It supported the start-up in its regional expansion by setting up accounts for the company in Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia.

OCBC also supported AI Rudder with its in-market cash management and transaction banking needs.

When AI Rudder raised US$50 million in early 2022 from Chinese and foreign venture-capital investors, a significant portion of the funds was parked with OCBC for working capital and expansion needs.

Beyond banking, OCBC lent its expertise and insights into local markets in the region to connect AI Rudder with potential customers.

In Indonesia, for instance, AI Rudder was among tech companies hosted by the bank and its Indonesian unit in May to showcase their solutions and capabilities to Indonesian companies. 

Some of OCBC’s entities, particularly the bank’s Indonesian subsidiary, are exploring the possibility of using AI Rudder’s products and solutions for their operations, ST understands.

Mr Wu said financial institutions account for 60 per cent to 70 per cent of AI Rudder’s business, with the rest coming from logistics and supply-chain companies, as well as e-commerce platforms. 

The technology can be used in virtual assistants, speech analytics, voice biometrics and predictive analysis.

For e-commerce players, voice AI can help automate and resolve basic, time-intensive consumer queries in real time, allowing businesses to streamline the manpower required for such repetitive tasks.

Customers such as Indonesia-based digital credit company Julo engaged Al Rudder to help cope with a surge in customer inquiries.

AI Rudder’s voice AI assistants handle customer call logs in real time to detect anomalies and non-compliance with regulatory requirements. 

Of the 5,000 daily recordings processed, only about 50 are brought to the attention of the quality assurance manager for further investigation and analysis, thus improving the efficiency of Julo’s quality assurance department without the need to hire more customer service agents. 

Another customer is Toyota Astra Finance. The Indonesia firm is using AI Rudder’s voice AI for loan collection, freeing up its collection agents to handle more complex issues that require a human touch, while leaving high-volume repetitive tasks to voice AI.

Compared with traditional technology solutions, AI Rudder’s solutions enable customers in Asean to enjoy cost savings of up to 50 per cent, Mr Wu said.

The company closed a US$50 million Series B funding round in March 2022, bringing total funding in the 12 months to March last year to US$60 million, with a post-funding valuation of US$260 million.

This funding can support AI Rudder for the next three to four years of developmental growth, said Mr Wu.