The provision of Massive Language Fashions (LLMs) has made it simpler for builders to make chatbots. Massive firms resembling OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, have made ChatGPT, Bard, and Bing Chat extensively accessible. Nevertheless, non-tech prosperous audiences may not pay attention to a few of these bots. Spain-based Luzia is attempting to introduce AI chatbot tech to customers by way of a WhatsApp-based bot.
The corporate, based in 2023 by Álvaro Martínez Higes, Javier Andrés, and Carlos Pérez, is attempting to deal with the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking marketplace for chatbots. Utilizing Luzia is fairly straightforward. It can save you the chatbot as a contact in your telephone and begin speaking to it on WhatsApp or Telegram.
Luzia co-founders from left: Javier Andrés, Carlos Pérez, and Álvaro Martínez Higes Picture Credit: Luzia
The starttup stated greater than 17 million customers have interacted with Luzia to this point with 8 million of them energetic on a month-to-month foundation. Whereas it didn’t point out its every day energetic customers, the startup stated it receives 13 million every day requests.
Martínez Higes advised TechCrunch that most individuals ahead Luzia as a contact to have their pals chat with the bot.
The corporate makes use of your telephone quantity to detect the nation that you simply’re in and begins speaking in Spanish or Portuguese. As the corporate is increasing within the U.S., Luzia will begin talking in English however when you speak to it in Spanish, it can default to Spanish. However provided that it depends on GPT tech, it might converse in different languages as nicely.
Luzia at present is suitable with customers in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Mexico, and now the U.S.
The concept is to introduce Luzia to customers who may not learn about AI fashions. The corporate stated that loads of first-time customers evaluate the bot with a voice assistant, resembling Siri or Alexa. Whereas the app exhibits a fundamental onboarding message with a few of the use instances, the startup just isn’t actively sending academic messages to customers to allow them to learn about completely different units of options.
The corporate makes use of a mixture of fashions resembling GPT 3.5/4, Llama, and Kandinsky to energy the interplay. Identical to some other chatbot, customers can ask Luzia to generate textual content for e-mail or reply questions. They’ll additionally ahead a voice observe or an audio file for the bot to transcribe it. Plus, Luzia can generate photographs primarily based on the given immediate.
Asking Luzia concerning the climate Picture Credit: Luzia
Luzia just lately raised $10 million in Collection A funding led by Khosla Ventures. Different traders resembling Basketball Corridor of Famer Pao Gasol, A* Capital, Summary Ventures, FJ Labs, Globo Enterprise, Mike Santos of Technisys, Sean Ryan of Sean Investments LTD, and Grupo Product. Earlier than this spherical, the corporate had raised $3 million.
The corporate is holding the bot free for the second and specializing in development and creating consumer worth.
“We have now seen monetization instruments like unlocking limitless messages, long-length transcriptions, and giving entry to higher fashions by way of paid plans. However these are rapidly changing into commoditized within the business. If we’d have gone with that route, we’d have been useless,” Martínez Higes stated.
Adina Tecklu, a accomplice at Khosla Ventures stated that Luzia is positioned nicely to deal with the non-public assistant market. Tecklu added that simply addressing the LatAm and the Iberian Peninsula market is a large alternative.
“I’ve been this house for a while — how can AI really energy shopper interactions In Luzia, we noticed a powerful workforce with a really deep understanding of their shopper base leading to thrilling early traction. Their product is really resonating with Spanish and Portuguese customers and having such early consumer traction is spectacular,” Tecklu advised TechCrunch over e-mail.
This 12 months, Khosla has invested in a number of startups engaged on AI and LLM tech together with studying coach app Ello and conversational studying app Quazel.