AI-Powered Customer Support Automation | Deon Nicholas, Forethought

In this episode, we dive into the world of AI-powered customer support with Deon Nicholas, CEO and Co-founder of Forethought. Deon shares his journey into the field of AI and how his passion for technology led him to start his own company. He explains how Forethought's natural language processing technology is transforming the customer conversation experience by providing customers with quick and accurate answers to their questions. Deon discusses the history of natural language understanding and processing, and how it has evolved over the years. He explains how chatbots have been used for customer service but were often clunky and unsatisfactory for customers. He then shares how Forethought's approach to chatbots is different and how their innovation is providing a better experience for customers.

 

The conversation delves into the differences between decision tree makers and AI-powered chatbots, with Deon highlighting the limitations of manual and keyword-based systems. He explains how Forethought's technology is based on language models that are built using historical customer inquiries and the actions taken by customer service agents, providing a more detailed and accurate understanding of customer inquiries.

 

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Founder Bio: 

Deon Nicholas is CEO & Co-Founder of Forethought, one of the leading generative AI platforms for customer support automation. The company has raised over 90 M in venture capital from 42 investors, including LL Cool Jay, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashton Kutcher, Baron Davis, Robert Downey Jr., owner of the Utah Jazz, Ryan Smith and Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood. Mr. Nicholas grew up in Toronto, Canada, where as a teenager he fell in love with computers and video games. He went on to study computer science at the University of Waterloo and interned at Facebook and Palantir. He then worked at Dropbox and Pure Storage, where he developed a passion for solving technically difficult problems. He also has ML publications and infrastructure patents, was a World Finalist at the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, and was named to Forbes 30 under 30. 

Time Stamps: 

02:12 Deon background and early career into AI

04:34 Evolution of natural language understanding and AI-powered chatbots

06:57 Difference between Chat GPT and Forethought AI technology

10:49 Integrating language models into customer service: challenges and solutions

13:39 Possibilities of applying transformer models to customer service data sets

15:23 Benefits of AI-powered support interactions for high growth companies

21:10 Semi-supervised learning for automated customer support

24:05 AI-powered chatbot solutions for improved customer support

27:19 Benefits of AI for businesses: Discussion on economies of scale and cost savings

30:31 Understanding the difference between AI and human-under-the-hood businesses

37:23 Benefits of combining deep ML research and product development

39:34 Investing in an AI business: building a team of engineers for AI product development

42:50 How to get in contact with the Forethought team

Resources:

Company website: https://forethought.ai/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forethought.tech/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forethought-ai/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/forethought_ai