PolyAI Raises $86 Million to Bolster Conversational AI Platform

Conversational artificial intelligence startup PolyAI raised $86 million in new funding.

The company’s Series D round will allow it to further develop the technology behind its Agent Studio platform, PolyAI said in a Monday (Dec. 15) news release.

“This is a living, breathing system that understands what your customers, employees and AI agents are doing in real time—and helps them all succeed together,” PolyAI co-founder and CEO Nikola Mrkšić said of the company’s technology in the release. “Like seeing a single drop of water and fixing a leak before it bursts, the agentic enterprise can detect and respond to problems and opportunities before human agents even know they exist. We’re building this future with the world’s leading enterprises, where our AI helps millions of customers every day.”

The funding round was co-led by Georgian, Hedosophia and Khosla Ventures, with Citi Ventures and NVentures (Nvidia’s venture capital arm) among the other investors, according to the release.

PolyAI has now surpassed $200 million in funding and has more than 100 enterprises among its customers, including Marriott, Caesars Entertainment, PG&E, UniCredit and Foot Locker, the release said.

“For the world’s largest brands, customer service is no longer just a cost center, it’s a massive opportunity for value creation,” Emily Walsh, lead investor at Georgian, said in the release. “PolyAI’s ability to deploy lifelike voice agents at enterprise scale unlocks significant savings and revenue.”

The funding round came as retailers treat conversational AI as a “new commerce surface” where “content, discovery and payments converge,” PYMNTS wrote last week.

PYMNTS Intelligence found that 42% of shoppers used AI assistants during Black Friday this year to find discounts, 35% to monitor prices and 31% to compare products.

Major retailers have begun integrating with OpenAI to allow for shopping inside ChatGPT. Smaller merchants are restructuring product listings to show up in AI-generated answers instead of traditional search results.

Still, there are limits to communicating with AI via voice, Mrkšić said in an interview with PYMNTS last year, as AI struggles to recreate human empathy and emotional intelligence, which can make interactions feel cold and impersonal.

“If someone crying calls an AI-powered customer service line, the AI will treat them exactly the same as any other caller because that’s what it’s programmed to do,” he said. “Additionally, as with all technology, there are security risks associated with unsecured voice AI. Those implementing voice AI must be wholly cognizant of the technology’s limitations and recognize the likely need for appropriate safeguards.”

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