Vision Critical has acquired Vancouver-based startup Aida, which provides a platform for answering customer service questions at scale.
Aida’s platform can plug into a company’s help desk, and learn the best answers to high-volume questions. Vision Critical acquired Aida to accelerate the development and integration of machine learning and AI-based applications for its Sparq 3 customer intelligence platform.
“Adding artificial intelligence and machine learning applications to Sparq 3 enables companies to surface previously hidden insight and to create better end-to-end customer experiences based on the data they’re gathering,” said Divesh Sisodraker, president and chief product officer at Vision Critical. “We’re delighted to welcome the Aida team to Vision Critical to help us accelerate the integration of CRIS applications into Sparq 3 and get them into the hands of our customers.”
As part of the acquisition, the entire Aida data science team joins Vision Critical, including its CEO Jenny Yang, a serial entrepreneur with an exit in her prior machine learning startup.
“The Vision Critical Sparq 3 platform offers a lot of exciting possibilities for using AI to improve the customer experience – a mission that we shared at Aida,” said Yang. “We’re excited to join forces with Vision Critical and its impressive enterprise customer base to deliver highly differentiated AI solutions.”
As the Globe and Mail notes in its report, Vision Critical was mired in issues until a year ago, when ex-CEO Angus Reid and father of Vision Critical founder Andrew Reid was bought out after tensions with investors. Andrew has since left the executive team and founded a spinoff company.
“I have a very aligned investor base now, a very aligned management team pursuing this opportunity that has been surfacing for quite a while…[to] integrate the voice of the customer into all areas of the business,” current CEO Scott Miller told the publication.