Slang.ai, a company that provides a voice-enabled phone answering service powered by generative artificial intelligence, emerged from stealth mode today with $20 million in funding to deliver a better experience for customers calling retail establishments and restaurants.

With Slang’s solution, brick-and-mortar businesses don’t need to worry about missed phone calls going to voicemail anymore. They are always answered, even if it’s by a robot concierge with a synthetic voice. With reduced workforces attending to customers at counters and workstations, there are fewer people to answer phones, so having an AI to pick up to answer questions takes the burden off human staff.

“With the emergence of generative AI, businesses are searching for real-world applications for this powerful technology,” said Slang.ai co-founder and Chief Executive Alex Sambvani. “For decades, customers have experienced the frustrating process of calling a business and being put on hold in order to make a new appointment or say they’re running late for a reservation. Now, there is a better way.”

Generative AI capabilities allow a system to understand natural language and respond in real time with humanlike synthetic voices, which makes the conversation feel more lifelike than using a button-press menu. Slang offers more than 20 different voice options for customers to speak with when calling in. And if a customer calls and the AI doesn’t have an answer to a question or can’t automate a response, it can escalate the call to an actual person.

Using the system, callers could set up or modify a reservation, or simply call to let the staff know that they’re running late, all without needing to talk to a person. It would be possible to get simpler answers such as directions to the store or hours of operation spoken back to them by the AI or sent via text, depending on their preference. A restaurant could even have the AI butter up potential guests with a seasonal promotion when they call.

“We firmly believe that AI will unlock customer experiences better than we ever thought possible,” said Sambvani.

Sambvani added that the product has been tailored for retailers and restaurants to integrate with their existing calling systems. It provides features that enable brand consistency, such as background music and other sounds that are appropriate for the venue, and messages can be customized with business information.

Not only does putting an AI on the phone offload work from beleaguered employees, but it provides another channel of data for businesses to understand why customers are calling. This information provides companies with yet another way to get to know their customers and better engage with them.

“The phone is a channel rich with data, but we had no way to access it before Slang.ai,” Paul Weinstein, senior director of restaurants at plant-based restaurant chain Planta. “We now understand categorically what our guests call for and can modify the AI verbiage to quickly address guest needs.”

The funding raised by Slang included a recent Series A round led by Homebrew with participation from Stage 2 Capital, Wing VC, Underscore VC, Active Capital and Collide Capital. Sambvani said that the funding will go toward growing the team and expanding the industries that the voice concierge capabilities support.

“This infusion of capital also allows us to make investments in new integrations, such as with reservation management platforms, and build more advanced product capabilities powered by generative AI,” said Sambvani.

Photo: guvo59/Pixabay