Picture-Perfect Product Help: AI Startup Brings Computer Vision to Customer Service

by Lauren Finkle

When your appliances break, the last thing you want to do is spend an hour on the phone trying to reach a customer service representative.

Using computer vision, Drishyam.AI is eliminating service lines to help consumers more quickly.

Satish Mandalika, the CEO and founder of the deep learning-based image recognition platform, spoke with AI Podcast host Noah Kravitz about the company.

“Customer support is ripe for disruption,” Mandalika said. Drishyam.AI is changing the game by giving customers an app that they use to take a picture of the product they need help with at any time of day or night, rather than calling a help line.

Using computer vision, Drishyam.AI analyzes the issue and communicates directly with manufacturers, rather than going through retail outlets. This is more efficient because a product’s lifetime warranty is usually held by the company that made it, rather than the stores selling it like Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Since Drishyam.AI’s founding two years ago, the company is only pursuing relationships with manufacturers, but that could change in the future as it collects more and more data. “We build that intelligence across product lines in a domain, and then we can turn around and help the consumer directly,” he said.

A member of the NVIDIA Inception startup incubator, Drishyam.AI’s pilot projects include two large faucet manufacturing companies, which will soon be converted into paying clients.

The home improvement domain is Drishyam.AI’s beachhead, given the numerous products in that field that have lifetime warranties and require customer support. However, they’re expanding into a variety of other areas.

Mandalika’s vision for Drishyam.AI is that eventually, “You should be able to get support for any product that you need by just pointing your mobile device at it. And platforms like ours will then help you identify the products, troubleshoot and even order parts and all that.”

To find out more about Drishyam.AI, visit their website or Twitter.

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