Flipkart acquires AI startup Liv.ai to start the ‘voice’ revolution

BENGALURU: Online retailer Flipkart has acquired AI-led speech recognition Liv.ai, in a bid to target the next 200 million online shoppers, said the company on Tuesday. As part of this acquisition, the 20-member team of Liv will be part of Flipkart’s ‘voice solutions’ team and help accelerate an end-to- end conversational shopping experience for its users. Voice integration could be available in some parts of the Flipkart platform as early as 6-8 months.
According to a ninemonth-long research conducted by Google, consultants Bain & Company and philanthropic venture fund Omidyar Network, 54 million users stopped online transaction after their first purchase in the last year. This group comprises mostly first time internet users from lower income groups who are more comfortable with vernacular languages than English.

Experts tracking the space believe that ‘voice’ is the next revolution after the ‘touch’ revolution brought in by smartphones.

“The next wave of growth of internet users is coming from tier 2+ cities and 70% of these current internet users are vernacular language speakers with this proportion only increasing,” said Flipkart’s CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. “Given the complexities in typing on vernacular keyboards, voice will become a preferred interface for new shoppers.”

US retail giant Walmart recently completed its $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart.