Niki is an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka. It was founded in May 2015 by IIT Kharagpur graduates Sachin Jaiswal, Keshav Prawasi, Shishir Modi and Nitin Babel.
The Niki android app was launched for a limited beta in June, 2015, then released for public during YourStory's TechSparks 2015, and is a Tech30 company. The company raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Unilazer Ventures, a Mumbai-based VC firm founded by Ronnie Screwvala, in October 2015. This was followed by another seed funding round by Ratan Tata in May 2016.
Video Niki.ai
Product
The product is an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot which works as an intelligent personal assistant, named Niki. Leveraging natural language processing and machine learning, Niki presents a chat-based natural language user interface to the users where they can interact with Niki in their natural language. Niki understands how users chat in India, deciphers the words, in the context of product/services that they would like to purchase, and comes up with apt recommendations.
Initially it was only available on the Android platform as a mobile app. The company has expanded its operations to the Facebook messenger and Apple iOS platforms and has introduced a better user experience and natural language processing technology. The company aims to soon be present on more messaging platforms like Slack and WhatsApp.
The company currently provides 10+ services to over 100k consumers, covering a wide spectrum ranging from utility services like mobile recharge, bill payments, travel services like cabs, buses, hotels and entertainment services like movies and events. Services such as flights and healthcare are also planned
Maps Niki.ai
Core functionality
Niki performs ordering tasks via chat such as recharge, cab booking and bill payments. Users can chat with Niki just as they would chat with a human, but the chat has to be related to the product/service being ordered. Niki currently has three major services.
Recharge
A user can ask for the best recharge plans as per his requirements such as talk-time, validity or data size. Niki then comes up with recommendations that suit the criteria. Users can choose one of the provided options and make a payment in-chat with Paytm wallet or online payment. In-chat payment in Niki is powered by Paytm integration wherein an OTP generated by Paytm is fetched to Niki to debit the user's wallet and confirm the transaction.
Cab booking
Niki.ai has partnered with Ola and Uber to offer their cab services in chat through Niki. Users can now look up all the Ola and Uber services in one app, pick the nearest or the cheapest cab or go with their preferred cab anytime. Cab booking now happens on 2G.
Bill payments
Niki helps users pay water, gas, electricity, DTH, or insurance with their Paytm wallet in chat. Users enter their billing details for the first time, then put up the bill amount and proceed with payment. Billing details are automatically saved with Niki for future transactions.
Partnerships
In August 2017, Niki.ai partnered with LazyPay to enable a 'buy now, pay later' feature for its users.
In September 2017, Infosys Finacle joined with Niki.ai to provide chat-based service to banking customers.
Press
Niki has been featured in The Economic Times, Tech in Asia, Business Standard and other magazines.
Niki was lauded as the new innovation in the artificial intelligence space and one of the very few startups in India to take it up on machine learning to develop a chatbot for ordering.
References
External links
- Official website
- Blog
- Medium
Source of article : Wikipedia
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