Why are the AI ​​Agent companies founded by OpenAI and Google bosses so powerful?

The market value of AI customer service may be greater than we think. The Philippines, the "World Call Center", has generated more than 38 billion US dollars in revenue in the telephone customer service industry this year. Sierra, a leading company in AI customer service, is highly favored by investors from all walks of life.

01.1 minute project overview

1. Project name: Sierra

2. Establishment time: 2023

3. Product introduction:

Sierra's product is a conversational AI customer service platform that aims to provide enterprises with customized customer experience solutions.

4. Founding team:

• Bret Taylor: Former co-CEO of Salesforce, Chairman of the Board of OpenAI

• Clay Bavor: Worked at Google for 18 years, founded AI laboratory and Workspace

5. Financing:

• In February 2024, Sequoia Capital and Benchmark led the investment of US$110 million, with a valuation of US$1 billion;

• In October 2024, Greenoaks Capital led the investment, and ICONIQ and Thrive Capital participated in the investment.

• The total amount of financing has reached 285 million US dollars, with a valuation of 4.5 billion US dollars.

02. AI Agent Company Founded by Technology Giants

Sierra is an AI startup focusing on enterprise solutions, located in the heart of Silicon Valley. From 1 billion US dollars in February to 4.5 billion US dollars today, Sierra's valuation has increased 3.5 times in just a few months.

Recently, Sierra completed another round of financing of 175 million US dollars, led by Greenoaks Capital, with participation from ICONIQ and Thrive Capital. How did Sierra achieve such a large scale and speed of financing?

Sierra's story begins with two heavyweights in the tech world - Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor.

Bret Taylor, the former co-CEO of Salesforce, is not only well-known in Silicon Valley, but also the chairman of the board of directors of OpenAI. Taylor's footprints are all over every corner of the tech world, from the creation of Google Maps to the chairman of Twitter, almost leading the transformation of the industry.

And Clay Bavor, a senior executive who has worked at Google for nearly 20 years and has led cutting-edge projects such as virtual reality and Google Labs, his innovative spirit and deep understanding of technology have undoubtedly injected strong momentum into Sierra.

With these two tech giants working together, the birth of Sierra is not so surprising.

Bret Taylor and Clay Bavor once said: "Our common vision is to use artificial intelligence technology to provide companies with a new customer service experience-a more natural, empathetic and personalized conversational AI agent."

"This AI agent can not only answer customer questions, but also solve practical problems, from processing exchanges to renewing subscriptions. "

The two founders also wrote on the official website: "Elevate your customer experience with AI."

Today, this is far more than just a slogan, but also Sierra's commitment to every customer. Whether it is helping customers solve complex problems in real time or quickly adapting to business changes, Sierra's AI agents can always provide strong support.

Sierra's success is not only due to the advancement of technology, but also to their deep understanding of customer needs and keen grasp of market trends.

They know that in this fast-changing world, companies need more than just an AI that can answer questions, but an intelligent partner that can represent the brand, convey value, and establish real connections with customers.

03. All-round conversational AI platform

Sierra's core product is an innovative conversational AI platform, which not only appears as a simple chatbot, but also an intelligent agent that can understand, predict and take action.

Standby at all times

As a professional customer service platform, Sierra's AI agent is online 24/7. Not only can it quickly answer customers' questions, but it can also show a deep understanding and empathy for customers in its answers.

From simple inquiries to complex personalized questions, Sierra has greatly improved the quality of customer experience.

Real-time support for customers

Sierra's AI agent can handle a variety of complex issues, including but not limited to handling exchanges, arranging deliveries, and renewing subscriptions.

Through integration with record systems such as order management systems and CRMs, Sierra’s AI agents can operate directly in the background to provide customers with a seamless service experience.

Quick Adaptation and Continuous Improvement

When the business changes, Sierra’s AI platform can also respond quickly, continuously improving the customer experience through analysis and reporting tools. This means that over time, Sierra’s AI agents will become smarter and more able to meet customer needs.

Opening a New Way to Communicate

In October this year, Sierra launched a revolutionary feature - AI voice function. Customers can call AI customer service directly, just like talking to a real person.

The launch of the voice function is also another major breakthrough for Sierra in the field of AI customer service. Compared to real people, Sierra's AI agents are always available, infinitely patient, and able to reason, predict, and act in real time.

Customized AI Agents

In addition to the above features, another notable feature of Sierra is its high degree of customization.

Sierra allows each customer to customize the personality of the AI ​​agent according to their brand image. This means that whether it is a clothing brand that pursues youth and fashion, or a luxury brand that pursues professionalism and high-end, Sierra can provide AI customer service that matches its brand tone.

After all, AI customer service is not only used as a transaction tool, but also represents the corresponding brand image.

Therefore, it is very important that Sierra's AI agent can convey the brand's values ​​and philosophy.

Avoid "hallucination" problems

Currently, there is a most common problem in the field of AI customer service - "hallucination deception", which means that AI may make up answers when it is not sure how to answer.

Sierra has also made some functional improvements and risk avoidance, that is, through the built-in supervision system to ensure the accuracy of AI customer service answers, real-time evaluation of topics and keywords in the conversation, to ensure that inappropriate content can be identified and blocked in time.

04. Self-development and industry competition

Currently, Sierra has cooperated with leading brands in multiple industries, such as ADT, Sonos, Weight Watchers, SiriusXM, OluKai, etc., and has completed a total of 100,000 customer conversations.

Sierra's success relies heavily on its technological innovation, which will continue in the future. The "constellation" model and "supervisor" technology used by the company, as well as its reliance on large language models, are the key to maintaining competitiveness.

This year, Sierra has adopted another major innovation - the performance billing model.

Different from traditional software subscription fees or usage-based billing, "performance billing" means that customers only need to pay when the problem is actually solved. This model not only provides greater value to customers, but also establishes a win-win partnership.

Sierra's payment method is in stark contrast to many existing SaaS providers.

Under the traditional SaaS model, customers often need to pay for resources that exceed their actual needs. Sierra's model is more flexible and fair, and in the long run, this model of paying for results will become more and more popular in the market.

Sierra's future development blueprint is undoubtedly grand.

In an interview with CNBC, Bret Taylor, co-founder of Sierra, mentioned that they hope to enable Sierra to serve the global market and expand into other industries - sales, marketing, human resources, etc. This cross-industry application will also bring new growth opportunities to Sierra.

With the advancement of globalization and the acceleration of digital transformation, Sierra's internationalization will bring it new growth points.

According to relevant statistics, it is expected that in the next five years, AI will replace a large number of call center jobs worldwide. With Sierra in the lead and Salesforce and Microsoft behind, the AI ​​customer service market is facing unprecedented development opportunities.

Brent Leary, an analyst at CRM Essentials, once expressed some opinions on this: "Sierra faces great difficulties in competing with giants like Salesforce. Although Sierra has sufficient funds, its scale is far from comparable to Salesforce."

In this regard, Ravi Gupta, a partner of Sequoia Capital who led the investment in Sierra, said: "I am very confident in Sierra's technology and potential. In the AI ​​customer service that acts as a 'brand ambassador', Sierra should have no rivals."

As Ravi Gupta emphasized, Sierra's leading position in "brand ambassador"-style AI customer service shows its potential to surpass its peers. Looking to the future, driven by the dual wheels of innovative technology and capital support, Sierra's subsequent development is worth looking forward to.