SaaS unicorn Freshworks, has announced the acquisition of AnswerIQ, a provider of ML and AI for larger enterprises that want to better serve their customers. Freshworks says that AnswerIQ’s solution will compliment the company’s existing AI engine, Freddy, by enabling enterprise organizations to fully leverage their existing customer data to scale self-service experiences and automate complex customer workflows. As a part of the acquisition, AnsweriQ CEO Pradeep Rathinam has joined the senior executive team at Freshworks as chief customer officer.
According to an official statement released by the company, Freddy will incorporate AnsweriQ’s AI to learn from ticket data and agent actions within the Freshworks Customer-for-Life Cloud and improve customer self-service capabilities. Freddy will extend its capabilities from a knowledge base dependent AI engine to learn from ticket conversations on the fly.
Combined with AnswerIQ, Freshworks says that Freddy will also be able to anticipate customer needs, make recommendations for agents based on the conversations and perform tasks such as refunds and cancellations with no manual input required—significantly improving customer self-service and freeing up agent time to handle more complex requests.
Freshworks’ founder and CEO Girish Mathrubootham said,“The integration of AnsweriQ’s technology enhances our AI/ML capability in the customer engagement space and offers significant value to our customers,”.
This is the second acquisition for Freshworks in less than an year. The company claims 60% year-over-year growth in billings, which it says has been because of ‘widespread industry recognition’. The company now has more than 2,700 employees working in 13 offices around the world. Freshworks recently closed $150M in funding that put the company at a post-financing valuation of $3.5B.
