Jio-backed Haptik launches generative-AI platform for building chatbots

Artificial intelligence startup Haptik, a part of Reliance Jio Infocomm, on Wednesday launched a dedicated generative-AI platform for clients to build virtual assistants and back-end information support. Called ‘Contakt’, the platform is already seeing a number of pilot deployments, which the company said would grow over time.

In an interview with Mint, Aakrit Vaish, chief executive of Haptik, said entities already piloting the platform include brokerage firm Upstox, e-commerce platform Tira, Starbucks, and the Indian School of Business.

While Haptik was already experimenting with generative AI and the demand for “smarter” conversation platforms, Vaish said that the market demand for improved chatbot offerings led to the introduction of a separate vertical for this generative AI platform. 

“We are seeing increasing business demand, and the maturity of the technology means that clients are now looking for more sophisticated chatbots and assistants—instead of basic conversation platforms that are in place so far,” he added.

Contakt will allow clients to accept text, audio and image queries through chat interfaces, Vaish confirmed. It will use OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT)-3.5 and GPT-4 models by default, but will offer clients the ability to access multiple LLMs upon discretion. 

“OpenAI’s LLMs are presently ahead of others available in the market, which is why our default deployments are based on it. As the market matures, we’ll optimize our offerings accordingly,” Vaish said.

He added that the platform would, for now, not support audio-based queries via phone calls. Support for this is likely to be rolled out some time in 2024, he said.

Haptik’s announcement comes after fellow chatbot platform Yellow.ai announced its own generative AI-powered chatbot platform in partnership with Amazon Web Services on 20 November. Such services are tipped to be a part of increasingly practical business deployments of generative AI—a trend that many stakeholders in global technology industries have projected.

Last week John Roese, global chief technology officer at Dell, said such deployments will become prevalent in the coming year, offering service providers more monetisation opportunities for generative-AI services.