The Microsoft ScaleUp program is designed for Series A startups and offers access to sales, marketing and technical support. Eligible startups partake in the immersive program at one of our seven global locations followed by ongoing support from a dedicated team of success managers. One of the ScaleUp locations is Microsoft ScaleUp Berlin, where a dedicated team around Managing Director Iskender Dirik twice a year supports a batch of up to 10 startups with coaching, training and technical support. In this blog series we will introduce one of the participating startups from our third batch each Tuesday and Thursday.
Ultimate.ai was founded in 2017 by Jaakko Pasanen, Markus Rautio and Reetu Kainulainen. The company developed a platform that gives customer service agents the AI tools they need to provide faster, smarter responses. Their deep learning artificial intelligence technology works in partnership with agents, learning from historical chat data to provide reply suggestions in real time.
“We save our clients a lot of money”, says Sarah Al-Hussaini, Chief Operating Officer at Ultimate.ai. “Microsoft ScaleUp helps us to refine our go-to-market strategy and messaging to drive home the value our technology generates.” Technically, they integrate into Microsoft Dynamics and deploy on Azure to partner with Microsoft in bringing AI capabilities to their CRM business customers.
As part of the ScaleUp program, Al-Hussaini describes Microsoft’s expertise in executing strategy as the biggest benefit for the startup: “Microsoft has so much experience in large scale deployments. So, when it comes to executing the technical side, and refining the marketing pitch, they are knowledgeable and experienced at an enterprise level. The perfect partner for us.”
Watch the video interview with Sarah Al-Hussaini, Chief Operating Officer at Ultimate.ai, to find out more about how the startup helps customer service agencies to work better:
The startup’s approach is “show don’t tell”. As Al-Hussaini puts it: “We believe in applied technology; applying deep artificial intelligence to real-world problems.” Their mission is to transform the customer service industry using the most advanced technologies on the market, empowering their clients to scale their service offerings. “We measure and deliver value through hard numbers, not flashy talk”, says Al-Hussaini.
Ulimate.ai’s next step is to be Microsoft Co-Sell Ready by January 2019. “From there, we look forward to engaging with a number of new enterprise clients together with Microsoft. We are excited to escalate our major European expansion with a partner as strong as Microsoft.”