
Before Jen Grant helped explain cloud storage, search, analytics, and AI, she toured with a children's theater company. The surprise was not that she left acting. It was that she had already found her part: building the company behind the show.
Infobip, PolyAI, Cresta, Botpress and a pack of rivals are pouring hundreds of millions into software that picks up the phone before a person can. Here is who is winning, who got bought, and what it means the next time you dial support.