chatbots
(11)
Voice AI Agents Are Eating the Chatbot Business Alive
In 2026 the tidy world of customer-service chatbots split in two. On one side, legacy vendors like LivePerson and Verloop.io are being sold for parts; on the other, voice-native upstarts like Retell AI and deep-pocketed enterprise players like Kore.ai race to answer your next call in under a second.
AI Customer Service Agents Are Closing Tickets Without You
Intercom's Fin, Ada, Forethought, Gupshup, Five9 and Amazon are racing to build support agents that resolve tickets on their own. As the platforms buy up the startups, here is who does what - and where the real money is going.
How boost.ai Turned Norwegian Banking Chat Into a Global AI Play
A conversational AI company from Stavanger now runs 600+ live virtual agents across 450+ organizations - and it is competing for enterprise deals against Uniphore, Intercom and Five9.
Jio Haptik Bet That Cheap AI Beats Clever AI
The Mumbai-born conversational AI platform Reliance bought for $100 million now sells enterprise-grade AI agents to corner shops for 10,000 rupees. Here is how a decade-old chatbot company reinvented itself for the agentic era.
Verloop Spent a Decade on the Chat Window. Nurix Just Bought It
The Bengaluru company built its business on automating customer support one message at a time, handling more than 20 million conversations a month. In July 2026, Mukesh Bansal's Nurix AI bought it - just as the category it helped pioneer turned into a multi-billion-dollar race.
How boost.ai Taught Norwegian Banks to Answer Their Own Phones
A team of coders in Stavanger built conversational AI for the industries that fire you for getting it wrong. Ten years on, 600-plus AI agents handle 150 million conversations a year for banks, insurers and governments.
Verloop.io Turned 100 Chat Agents Into a Bot, Then Sold the Bot
The Bengaluru company spent ten years automating the parts of customer support nobody wanted to do by hand. In July 2026, Mukesh Bansal's Nurix AI bought the whole thing.
Gupshup and Yellow.ai Race to Turn India's Chatbots Into Agents
Two of India's best-known conversational AI companies are chasing the same prize from different corners - one built on high-volume messaging, the other on enterprise voice. The gap between a bot that answers and an agent that acts is where the fight is now.
Retell AI and boost.ai Are Rewiring the Customer Call
Two companies - one a Norwegian chatbot pioneer, the other a Y Combinator voice startup - are pulling conversational AI in opposite directions. Whoever wins gets to decide how you talk to every business you deal with.
Live Chat Software Grew Up and Learned to Sell
Eight companies - from a free widget called tawk.to to Salesforce's new AI seller Piper - are fighting over the little box in the corner of your screen. The chat bubble stopped answering questions and started closing deals.
100% of Agents Use AI Every Day. Zero Think It's Essential.
UJET's Agent Survey Report, 'The Agent and AI Disconnect,' surveyed 250 U.S. frontline contact center agents at mid-market and enterprise companies to compare AI hype with the daily reality on the call center floor. The findings reveal a striking paradox: while 100% of agents use AI every single day, 78% say those tools are not transformative, 93% are confident they could do their jobs without them, and not a single agent considers AI critical to their success. The report argues that immature, bolt-on AI — especially chatbots layered onto legacy systems — is deflecting customers rather than helping them, leaving agents to clean up failed bot interactions. It closes with a seven-pillar blueprint for turning AI from a liability into a genuine agent co-pilot.