Priya Vijayarajendran joined Asapp as CTO from Microsoft

Connecting customer data dots

Priya Vijayarajendran is ready for her next act.

After nearly 25 years with enterprise tech stalwarts like SAP, IBM and most recently Microsoft, Vijayarajendran is focused on the contact center. This week he announced that he will step down from his role as vice president of AI and data at Microsoft to join contact center company Asapp as CTO on March 1, Protocol may announce.

At its core, Vijayarajendran is a builder: “Developing scalable, modular, cloud serviceable end-to-end enterprise solutions has been my thing for a long time,” he explains.

• Vijayarajendran is also keen on using AI and data to enhance human capabilities and productivity, which he has worked hard on at both SAP and IBM.
• When given the opportunity to jump into the scorching consumer-experience-software market using AI and data, Vijayarajendran didn’t hold back the call.
• “Asapp is trying to resolve how you and I communicate, how to better improve productivity and person-to-person interaction,” he said.

The potential market for customer-service software is estimated at $ 600 billion according to Vijayarajendran, driven by the billions of interactions that happen every day. “This industry will explode and it will explode. It’s really an underserved market at the moment, ”he said.

• Those numbers are astronomical, but not entirely surprising. If anything, the pandemic underscored the critical role of good customer service.
• “This pandemic was unbelievable, because we all thought we could go online and serve ourselves,” he said. But many customers quickly discover that they need to talk to someone to explain their problems.
• As Vijayarajendran said, every CFO, CIO and CEO tries to please their customers, and the contact center is at its heart.

Customers have higher expectations than ever when it comes to service, hence technologies such as natural-language processing and data analytics can provide an advantage.

• For Vijayarajendran, Asapp already has some strategic and competitive advantages in these areas. ”Asapp [has] IP diversity in NLP, “he said, who directed the company’s research team. The company’s models also have a higher level of accuracy than” standard models such as the BERT models and the model of the GPT-3, ”he said.
• Advanced data analytics capabilities are the other side of the equation. “In order to serve our customers, we need to carry and connect the data dots coming from all the systems about that particular customer,” Vijayarajendran said.
• Together, these technologies work together to create new customer service experiences: from transcribing customer service calls and providing recommended responses to agents to spotting trends in former call data.

AI and data are the new CTOs that are indispensable. That’s why Vijayarajendran’s deep experience in AI and data, along with his interest in the space for consumer experience, made the move to Asapp perfectly fit in his mind.

“That space speaks to me, it really calls for me,” Vijayarajendran said. “And I liked the fact that we can go and shape something, and measure, and serve [it] in the market. “

– Aisha counts (email | kaba)

A MESSAGE FROM EVOY

The concept of flex work is not new, but its widespread use is. Flex work helps us all find some similarities of control in the midst of an uncontrollable pandemic. Providing choices makes people happier and less stressed. This leads to a greater desire to participate, which helps us build our communities and cultures.

Learn more

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But in Wednesday’s essay, Gelsinger offered a prediction of when the chip shortage will end: “We expect supply tightness to remain at least until 2023,” he wrote. Surprisingly, “just two years” is the same answer he offered last year, shortly after Intel announced its turnaround strategy in March 2021.

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– Max A. Cherney (email | kaba)

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Monitoring carbon emissions is a hectic business, as the Protocol reported last week. Watershed is one of many startups trying to simplify the process of monitoring, analyzing and reporting environmental data. The startup already works with tech giants like ServiceNow, Airbnb, Twitter and Shopify, and is worth $ 1 billion to Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins and other investors.

What makes Watershed unique is the startup’s new methods for calculating carbon emissions of everything from remote work and cloud computing to notorious energy-intensive cryptocurrencies. The Watershed platform also allows companies to plan future emissions, and operates a marketplace where businesses can invest in carbon removal and offset projects.

Watershed wants to be the primary platform for climate programs. But the market is hot, so the company can expect stiff competition ahead.

– Aisha counts (email | kaba)