Company Background

Slang AI is emerging from stealth with $20 million in funding to empower restaurants and retailers with voice AI

Slang AI is bringing AI to the phone with its easy-to-use software product designed for restaurants and retail businesses. Everyone is frustrated with the experience of calling a business. No one likes waiting on hold with a retailer to check on an order status, or calling their local restaurant to make a last minute reservation and having their call go straight to voicemail. It doesn't have to be this way. AI has the potential to fix this broken experience, and that’s exactly what Slang AI is doing.

The funding will accelerate Slang’s generative AI capabilities, advance product partnerships and integrations in the restaurant, hospitality, retail and e-commerce industries, and double down on sustained growth of the go-to-market team.

Even with the rise of apps and websites, 60 percent of customers still prefer to contact businesses over the phone. Despite this, many brick-and-mortar businesses are understaffed, causing them to miss calls and send potential customers to voicemail where they lose out on potential revenue. Slang.ai is transformative for these businesses, handling over half of inbound calls without human intervention, allowing these businesses to recover those customers.

Slang provides its clients access to previously unknown data about why customers are calling. This information empowers businesses to re-engage with their phone customers and pursue opportunities to drive additional revenue. The phone is a channel rich with data, but we had no way to access it before Slang AI.

In a recent study of a six-restaurant group, Slang AI saved 648 hours of phone time while capturing reservations and orders that otherwise might have been lost to voicemail.

Slang’s co-founders were building in the generative AI space well before the recent AI buzz. Alex Sambvani and Gabe Duncan met while on the data science team at Spotify. Their roles focused on implementing personalized voice AI at scale. Together they entered a Spotify hackathon and built a personality-forward voice AI app that went on to win the entire competition out of over a hundred ideas. This experience served as the creative spark for Slang.

“With the emergence of generative AI, businesses are searching for real-world applications for this powerful technology. For decades, customers have experienced the frustrating process of calling a business and being put on hold in order to make a new appointment or say they’re running late for a reservation. Now, there is a better way. We’re excited to help businesses use this technology to dramatically improve the phone experience, helping them serve their customers better than they ever thought possible,” shared Slang.ai CEO and Co-Founder, Alex Sambvani.

“We are impressed by Slang.ai’s focus on applying this technology to create tangible business value for their customers with a delightful product. Slang.ai’s Co-founders are technologists who have been building in the AI space for over seven years, and they have accomplished the remarkable feat of developing an AI product that customers actually want and that is easy to use. With their backgrounds building leading personalization experiences as Data Scientists at Spotify, we’re confident in their ability to continue to innovate in this space,” said Homebrew Partner, Satya Patel.

"Slang.ai has become an essential tool for our business. Our team is thrilled with the way it has decreased the disruption of phone calls while simultaneously enhancing the overall experience for our guests. With the intentional use of AI at our disposal, we don’t see ourselves going back," stated Benson Wang, CEO of Palm House Hospitality Group.