The global rise of e-commerce transactions has also propelled the rise of chatbots. Deployed mostly for customer support and conversions, chatbots are expected to increase consumer retail spending worldwide from $2.8 billion in 2019 to $142 billion in 2024.
Kata.ai is a startup actively participating in this industry in Indonesia. The Jakarta-based company created a chatbot that can be implemented across different SMS and mobile apps, including WhatsApp. Kata.ai is leveraging on the almost 30 million Indonesian internet users who make up the ninth-largest e-commerce industry worldwide. It’s a fertile ground for e-commerce-related unicorns, including Tokopedia, JD.com, and Bukalapak.
The company’s success working with about 140 companies can be largely attributed to how conversational its chatbot has become in several Indonesian languages. Non-English speakers often find that chatbots implemented in their own language can be clunky and confusing, which is partly because research focused on language-related AI and machine learning tools was, for years, mostly done in English. Kata.ai’s different and tailored chatbots work for at least three of the most popular local languages, which are almost 700.