Ashish Nagar, an engineer, was part of Amazon’s Alexa conversational AI team when he recognized AI’s potential to significantly enhance productivity in contact centers.
“Frontline workers, such as customer service representatives, constitute the largest human capital globally,” Nagar told TechCrunch. “My idea was to use ambient computing — AI that listens in the background and responds — to support human work.”
In 2019, Nagar founded Level AI, which provides a suite of AI-powered tools to automate various customer service tasks. The platform can evaluate contact center agents on metrics like total conversations and “dead air,” generating insights for both managers and agents.
“Level AI’s software allows brands to gain insights into customer sentiment, service quality, and action plans to improve performance,” Nagar said.
So, what else can Level AI do? Depending on its configuration, the platform can offer hints to agents during customer interactions, such as reminders to verify a customer’s identity.
Level AI can also assess customer sentiment and respond accordingly, for instance, alerting an agent if a customer is upset about a late delivery. Additionally, it includes coaching tools to help managers guide agents in improving their performance in areas like response time.
Ashish Nagar highlighted several key challenges in the AI-powered customer service industry, including data privacy and security concerns, the need for seamless integration with existing systems, ensuring AI accuracy and reliability, and addressing fears of job displacement. He also mentioned the ongoing challenge of keeping up with rapidly evolving AI technologies while maintaining ethical standards and regulatory compliance. Level AI is designed from the ground up to tackle these issues.
Nagar is optimistic about the deployment of Level AI’s platform, but there are significant concerns about call center monitoring software. An op-ed in The Guardian describes how call centers can become “electronic panopticons,” where staff are constantly monitored, and minor errors can lead to immediate disciplinary actions or termination. This, combined with low pay and the psychological stress of dealing with emotional customers, contributes to high turnover rates in the contact center industry, averaging between 30% to 45% annually.
Privacy implications are another concern with tools like Level AI. Customers might not be aware that their conversations are being analyzed by sentiment-classifying algorithms, and employees may wonder if their personal data will be deleted eventually. Nagar stated that it is up to the organizations using Level AI to define their data retention policies, adding, “We provide flexibility for customers to control and manage their data.”
This flexibility appears to be well-received by customers. Companies such as Affirm, Penske, and Carta are using Level AI, which generates revenue through annual contracts based partly on the number of agents using the platform. While Nagar did not disclose revenue figures, he believes the company could surpass $50 million in annual recurring revenue within the next two years.
Considering the broader market for contact center software, this projection is plausible. According to Mordor Intelligence, the sector was valued at $61.07 billion in 2024 and could reach $145.20 billion by 2029, driven by contact center operators seeking to reduce costs.
Some venture capitalists share Nagar’s optimistic outlook. Level AI recently closed a $39.4 million Series C funding round led by Adams Street Partners, with participation from Cross Creek, Brightloop, and existing investors Battery Ventures and Eniac Ventures, bringing the startup’s total funding to $73.1 million.
Nagar mentioned that the new capital would be used to expand Level AI’s platform to new customer segments. “We’ve already shown strong traction with enterprise customers, and this funding will enable us to scale our solution to even more customers,” he said, adding that Level AI plans to grow its 135-person workforce by at least a dozen people in the next six months. “We continue to innovate with four product offerings already, and we will keep investing heavily in our people and technology to maintain this trend.”