The Acquisition enables Reliance Jio to form product portfolio of AI enabled products
Reliance Industries on Wednesday announced that its subsidiary Reliance Jio acquires Haptik, which is one of the world’s largest conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms in a definitive business transfer agreement for about 700 crore rupees. Reliance will hold about 87 per cent of the business, with the rest being held by Haptik’s founders and employees via stock options. The transaction, including investment for growth and expansion, will see Rs. 230 crore as an initial business transfer. With this acquisition, Reliance Jio Digital will form its own product portfolio of voice-based and AI – enabled conversation products.
Akash Ambani, Director of Reliance Jio stated, “This strategic investment underlines our commitment to further boost the digital ecosystem and provide Indian users conversational AI-enabled devices with multi-lingual capabilities.”
Offering rich communication experiences for Indian consumers
By acquiring Haptik, Jio through its widespread reach with a subscriber base of 29 crore , will be in a formidable position to challenge global giants like Amazon, Google and Apple. Amazon, Google and Apple already have voice-enabled products including Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, and Apple’s Siri that are growing fast in the Indian market via smart home speakers and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, Haptic will focus on Indian vernacular languages.
Akash Ambani Director of Reliance Jio, stated, “We believe voice interactivity will be the primary mode of interaction for Digital India. We look forward to working with the experienced team of Haptik in realizing this vision for offering greater connectivity and rich communication experiences to the billion+ Indian consumers.”
Enhancing Haptik’s capabilities to develop innovative solutions for corporates
The transaction enables Reliance Jio to capitalize Haptik’s capabilities across various devices in the consumer’s journey with chatbots slowly becoming the default customer support solution for most services; Haptik will be one such platform that will develop applications for consumers, publishers and enterprises. Moreover, the investment focus is on enhancement and expansion of the platform, with an addressable market opportunity of over 100 crore users in India. Additionally, this partnership will also give a boost to Haptik’s existing enterprise grade business, with the company continuing to build innovative AI solutions for corporates globally
Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder and CEO, Haptik, stated, “We believe now is the opportunity to serve the next billion users who come online, and who better to partner with than one of the world’s largest digital ecosystems in Jio.”
