Meesho Launches India’s First Generative AI-Powered Voice Bot for E-commerce Customer Support
Meesho, a Softbank-backed e-commerce startup, has introduced what it claims to be India’s first generative AI-powered voice bot for customer support, aiming to reduce expenses by 75%. The Bengaluru-based company, serving 160 million customers in India, announced on Tuesday that its AI bot currently handles 60,000 customer calls daily in both English and Hindi. With backers like Prosus and Elevation, Meesho plans to expand its bot’s support to six additional Indian languages.
Instead of developing its own large language model, Meesho has combined existing AI models with custom-built components that understand local context and language nuances. Sanjeev Barnwal, co-founder and CTO of Meesho, explained that the decision was made as off-the-shelf models were performing well in Hindi and English. The system incorporates specialized components for speech recognition and natural language processing.
During a demo with JS, Barnwal highlighted some technical challenges that the system had to overcome. Ensuring high voice quality, particularly for users with low-end smartphones and noisy backgrounds, was a priority. The bot was engineered to minimize latency, filter out background noise, and maintain natural-sounding conversations.
Meesho reported that the voice bot has reduced per-call costs by 75% and achieved a 95% query resolution rate, with only 5% of calls requiring human intervention. Customer satisfaction has also increased by 10%. The average customer call handling time has been halved, but Meesho emphasized that the technology is not meant to replace human agents. Instead, human agents are now focusing on handling more complex queries and providing support to sellers.
One of the key challenges faced during the rollout was ensuring that the AI adhered to strict guidelines regarding policies like returns and refunds. This highlights the ongoing effort by tech companies in India to leverage AI for improved efficiency while considering the balance between building proprietary models and utilizing existing ones.
Hemant Mohapatra, a partner at Lightspeed, emphasized the importance of playing to one’s strengths when it comes to AI development. He stated, “I don’t think we have enough talent today to build the foundational models. Play the war that you are capable of winning.”
