Because the chief product officer for AI customer support startup TalkDesk, Charanya “CK” Kannan mentioned that enterprises usually say they need to automate completely different workflows however that it’s actually exhausting to implement AI. Enterprises are coping with clunky, legacy software program, that always doesn’t have APIs, creating a frightening activity their IT departments weren’t prioritizing.
“Each firm that we talked to had wherever from 50 to 1,000 automation requests from completely different groups of their backlog that they only by no means received to,” Kannan (pictured above on the best) instructed TechCrunch. “This simply doesn’t make sense. This present day, you shouldn’t have a 1,000-line merchandise automation backlog. You must be capable to do it actually quick.”
This realization turned the impetus behind Kannan’s new startup Pinkfish, which helps enterprise prospects construct AI brokers and different AI-driven workflows by means of pure language prompts. The software program has greater than 200 integrations, like Salesforce and Zendesk, and is concentrated on deterministic execution, which suggests the identical consumer immediate produces the identical outcome every time.
Kannan mentioned that Pinkfish has tried a unique method than rivals when promoting to enterprises. As a substitute of pitching its platform as a golden ticket to automate each workflow, Pinkfish tells the businesses to strive the software program simply to automate one or two completely different workflows at first. “In order that’s the place they begin, after which they go from two to 4, from 4 to 10, from 10 to twenty, and hopefully 1,000 [automations through Pinkfish],” she mentioned.
To date, that technique has paid off. Pinkfish launched in stealth in January 2024 with Kannan as CEO and co-founder Ben Rigby as chief product and expertise officer (CPTO). The corporate focuses on just a few areas, together with retail and providers, and has landed tons of of customers and enterprise prospects together with Ipsy, Elevate, and TalkDesk, amongst others.
Kannan mentioned that whereas many workflow automation startups want to assist firms minimize out a number of the extra “further” points of a job like automating market analysis, or pulling potential gross sales leads, Pinkfish is concentrated on mission-critical workflows.
She gave the instance of Ipsy, a make-up subscription service. One of many first workflows Ipsy used Pinkfish to automate was its value request characteristic, which was beforehand taken care of by a three-person staff. This staff must attend to every request manually no matter whether or not it got here in in a single day or on the weekend. Kannan mentioned now, that complete course of runs by means of Pinkfish.
“It’s so mission essential,” Kannan mentioned. “If Pinkfish screws up someplace, guess what, your costs usually are not in your web site. You permit cash on the desk. “
Now Pinkfish instructed TechCrunch completely that it’s rising from stealth and has raised a $7.6 million pre-seed spherical led by Norwest Enterprise Companions with participation from Storm Ventures and angel buyers.
Scott Beechuk, a accomplice at Norwest who will likely be taking a board seat at Pinkfish, instructed TechCrunch that he has recognized Kannan since her time at TalkDesk and would faucet Kannan to be an adviser for numerous Norwest portfolio firms.
Beechuk instructed TechCrunch that he was excited to again the corporate as a result of he thinks Kannan and Rigby have the best steadiness of understanding the underlying expertise and understanding the shopper base to face out in a crowded AI agent panorama.
“They’re launching with a bunch of serious logos and paying prospects who’re discovering actual ROI, you again these seed-stage firms, they might take years to ship actual ROI,” Beechuk mentioned.
Kannan additionally thinks Pinkfish stands out from rivals as a result of it lets prospects use pure language to immediate the system whereas utilizing full code within the background to construct these AI workflows. She mentioned that whereas low code was in style for years, and nonetheless is for a few of their rivals, she thinks in immediately’s surroundings its turn out to be too limiting and is successfully “lifeless.”
She added that firms don’t need to choose from a set of pre-coded constructing blocks, however reasonably would have an answer that provides them entry to a full-code again finish however with a simpler-to-use interface. Because the AI agent market will get growing crowded, she hopes that message resonates.
“How can we go carry tangible worth to the mission essential, complicated use circumstances? By grounding it with the agent and determinism, and bringing in a single platform with the best stage of guardrails for all of those connections,” Kannan mentioned. “I believe these are the 2 areas we’re considering in a different way.”
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