Gupshup launches video AI agents for businesses
IA en un minuto newsroom · Editor: Jon Elgezabal
In 30 seconds
Gupshup has unveiled Avatar Agent, which lets a company build its own AI agent that talks with customers through a video avatar. The agents handle questions, show products or guide someone through a process, and pass the chat to an employee when needed. There is a free option bearing the Gupshup brand and another one charged by usage.
Gupshup, a software company that businesses use to serve their customers over WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, the web, voice and video, has launched Avatar Agent, a platform for building AI agents that talk to customers face to face over video through a digital avatar. It announced the product on Wednesday, October 14, according to The Economic Times, and the company says it is already available on its website.
Each business sets up and launches its own agents, with no integration work involved. The agents can answer questions, explain products, gauge how interested potential customers are and walk users step by step through tasks on websites, phones, tablets and self-service terminals. They can also present products and webinars, take questions from audiences in different time zones and hand the conversation over to a person when the customer needs it.
Companies can adjust the layout, the visual style, their brand elements and the messages, or start from templates for each sector. The agent is set up by describing in everyday language what is wanted, either from SuperAgent, Gupshup's own tool, or from ChatGPT, Claude and other AI assistants. Messaging agents a business already has can be taken to voice and video across its channels.
Among the sectors that could use it, Gupshup lists education, travel and hospitality, real estate, online retail, and banking and financial services.
There is a free version that carries the Gupshup brand, and a pay-per-use option for those who need more volume. The announcement does not give the rates for that paid option. Avatar Agent arrives a few weeks after the company's voice agent platform.
"Avatar agents bring back the personal touch: the feeling that someone is present, listening, understanding and helping. That's what builds trust," Beerud Sheth, Gupshup's founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Why it matters · analysis and opinion
Until now, companies' automated customer service moved between chat and the phone call; Gupshup adds a face, and does so without asking for technical work, which is usually the brake for a small business. The free version makes it possible to see whether an avatar helps or puts off your own customers before spending anything, and that is the test that counts: someone seeming present does not mean they solve things better. Data needed to decide is missing, such as the pay-per-use rates, the languages the avatar speaks or how the data from those conversations is handled. Anyone who tries it would do well to start with a narrow task, such as showing a product, and to always keep the handoff to a person in plain sight.
Source: Analytics India Magazine · Written with the help of AI: how we make the news
