Rounded’s Journey into AI Voice Agents: Pioneering a Customizable Future
Imagine interacting with companies not through endless menus and hold music, but with smart AI voice agents that streamline your experience. French startup Rounded sees this as the future of customer interactions. Rather than offering ready-made solutions, Rounded provides an orchestration platform that empowers companies to create their own bespoke AI voice agents.
Initially, Rounded ventured into the web3 space but pivoted to AI voice agents in June 2023. “Our initial thought was to simply place ChatGPT between a transcriber and a synthesizer,” co-founder Aymeric Vaudelin shared with TechCrunch. However, the team soon realized the market wasn’t quite ready for this innovation, prompting them to develop and package their first product.
Introducing Donna: An AI Voice Agent for Anesthetists
Rounded’s maiden product, Donna, targets anesthetists—a seemingly niche market choice driven by the high volume of transactional calls anesthesia secretaries manage daily in France. These calls typically involve scheduling appointments or checking availability, tasks that don’t require persuasive human interaction.
“In the early days, we struggled with latencies of sometimes 4, 5, 6 seconds,” Vaudelin said. Yet, Donna’s deployment in 15 private hospitals proved successful, handling hundreds of thousands of conversations.
{Aymeric Vaudelin}
Improving Speed and Precision
Rounded has continuously enhanced its product’s accuracy and speed. “With a web call, for example, we now get a latency of less than 700 milliseconds,” Vaudelin explained. This improvement makes the communication feel almost instantaneous and seamlessly integrated with existing systems.
The Orchestration Platform: Building Your Own Voice Agent
Stepping beyond Donna, Rounded has launched an orchestration platform allowing companies to construct their own voice agents. Businesses can select various pre-existing AI models—for instance, using Azure for transcription and GPT-4o mini for language processing—to tailor an agent suited to their needs. This flexibility is key to creating reliable and effective AI interactions.
“Our pitch is that we’re going to enable everyone to create great prompts or great agents,” Vaudelin emphasized.
{Aymeric Vaudelin}
Rounded’s innovative approach has attracted €600,000 in funding from UC Berkeley’s SkyDeck and other investors. As AI continues to captivate industries worldwide, there’s little doubt this burgeoning startup will secure additional investment soon.
