Dell is the Austin area's computing giant, a company that helped make the city's name become as synonymous with tech as it was with live music.
Now, part of the tech ecosystem Dell helped create is proving useful as Dell tries to innovate in its customer service systems. On Tuesday, the company announced it has tapped Austin artificial intelligence startup CognitiveScale, founded in 2013, to create "hyper-personalized customer journeys" using AI.
The companies didn't release any financial terms related to the new partnership. But the deal is significant in that it adds a massive tech customer to CognitiveScale's roster of clients, which includes USAA, NBC, Morgan Stanley and ExxonMobil.
The partnership is also highlights how CognitiveScale's AI software has proven useful even at a tech giant that markets its own AI solutions -- though largely through high-performance servers.
Dell highlighted the ability of CognitiveScale's AI "to understand declared, observed and inferred customer behavior across channels and devices." Those insights help the company make new plans for sales, marketing and customer service efforts.
"The future of customer engagement will need AI to scale and succeed,” Akshay Sabhikhi, CEO of CognitiveScale, said in a news release. “Our Cortex software will help Dell bring AI powered experiences within reach for millions of customers while empowering marketing, sales and service professionals to deliver new experiences to improve customer conversion and lifetime value.”
Ganesh Padmanabhan, CognitiveScale's vice president of market development, told the Austin Business Journal that his company and Dell were in talks on this deal for about six months. The company isn't profitable, but it told the ABJ its annual revenue is somewhere in the eight figure zone.
CognitiveScale has raised $62 million from investors including Norwest Venture Partners, USAA and Microsoft Ventures.
