EBO – A European AI leader in the making
AI Virtual Agent company, EBO, was incorporated in February 2018. “We started with a very simple idea: to automate human communications, at scale,” says its CEO, “Today, having successfully penetrated the healthcare market in the UK and expanded operatio
What inspired the company?
We exist because we believe that the benefits of AI should be available to businesses of all size: large or small. We noticed how much time is spent in traditional customer engagement without delivering positive outcomes. The world would be a better place if enterprise could connect more meaningfully and efficiently.
AI technology can allow customers to connect with businesses at any time, with zero effort and in a natural language. We set out to transform customer service by providing the right tools to improve efficiency while driving down costs. Today, EBO is a fast-growing business that is bringing the positive effects of automation, data analytics and simplicity-of-use to its customers.
How does your service operate?
Basically, we collect, interpret and use conversational big data to personalise dialogues that businesses have with their customers. Through the use of AI, this transforms the cost model behind customer conversations. Workflows, which were previously manual and riddled with bias and human error, now become smart automations.
Our goal therefore is to offer an AI service that is indistinguishable from human experience. We strive to deliver technology that understands sentiment, context and demonstrates empathy. This is the next frontier of human-AI collaboration.
EBO is backed by venture capital investment and one of Malta’s leading technology providers: BMIT Technologies plc. We have an experienced leadership team that brings together decades of experience in technology, communication and business-process reengineering. Our solutions are changing the way businesses innovate and manage their customer engagement channels.
“I believe that our solutions are changing the way businesses innovate and manage their customer engagement channels.”
Perhaps one of EBO’s major breakthroughs was its penetration in the UK’s NHS. What is the link between your technology and the health sector?
Virtually every aspect of modern life has been radically reshaped by innovation and technology – and healthcare is no exception. Sustained advances brought about by technology have driven choice and control for patients and healthcare providers. In turn, this has opened new possibilities for us. We saw potential in the UK (the NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world) and we wanted to focus deeply on solving issues around elective care recovery – which relates to the way patients manage their appointments with hospitals. We now run a fully-owned UK subsidiary and have made multiple appointments including of a senior healthcare consultant, a healthcare director and senior clinical consultant, specifically for the UK market.
What can you tell us more about EBO’s work for the NHS?
EBO is now serving six of the largest public hospitals in the UK and that number is growing very fast. We partnered with UK health informatics firm Servelec who became major AI partners to EBO in delivering innovative self-managed services to millions of patients within the UK’s National Health Service. This was possible after we integrated technology into their electronic patient record (EPR) system to give NHS patients access to their data in their channel of choice. Now UK nationals can set hospital appointments, reschedule or cancel them in real time, using their favourite communications app, instantly and 24/7.
This obviously must be very meaningful for a company like EBO
It is delightful to see our solution fitting perfectly into the NHS’s five-year plan to place data, information and technologies at the heart of its strategy – a strategy aimed to make the UK a global leader in the development and use of digital health solutions. Our partnership with Servelec is also meaningful because it shows a major international player teaming up with a Maltese company to serve the NHS in the UK better.
It is also an important step in our journey to become a European leader in conversational AI. The healthcare sector is ready for this change as it is going through a radical transformation as institutions move towards smart services using technologies that augment the patient experience while improving cost-efficiency and performance for health systems.
Your operations seem to be gaining a lot of traction also in Cyprus. Why Cyprus?
Dr Gege Gatt
Cyprus and Greece are fast becoming go-to countries for forward-facing AI and IT companies looking to increase their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and the MENA region. In this region the advancements in fintech are significant. We opened an EBO office in Limassol, Cyprus in 2021; a move which is in line with our mission to ensure a faster growth pattern and more strategic market expansion. We chose to be there because we want to aggressively target the financial services sector, which has been showing an increased interest in the application of our technology to achieve more meaningful communication with customers. In fact, we are registering high growth in the banking, forex and insurance sub-segments.
Dr GEGE GATT.
Have you registered any success since then?
Our first win was with a Cypriot multichannel contact centre, Evresis. It had been seeking to adopt AI to increase customer satisfaction and has selected EBO to add Conversational Artificial Intelligence to its offering. Evresis has implemented EBO’s technology and enterprise application for the provision of governmental and semi-governmental services to support citizens in Cyprus in over one hundred languages.
Another important result is our latest strategic alliance with business information leader Cedar Rose, a company at the forefront in the provision of worldclass business intelligence and credit risk solutions to leading firms in over 230 countries. Here, we have combined our virtual agents with Cedar Rose’s credit and compliance solutions, so that enterprises will gain the right tools to meet their regulatory requirements while improving customer experience and delivering cost-efficient productivity gains.
What future are you seeing for EBO?
The future will be even more data-driven than today and AI will focus on predictive assistance rather than real-time reactions. As society changes the way in which it communicates and works, our AI solution will become a mainstay for enterprises who need to manage – at scale – millions of customer engagements per hour. In turn, this helps them decrease costs, increase employee productivity and optimise the customer journey. EBO is constantly expanding its HR pool. This remains a priority in parallel with our geographic expansion. We do not merely hire skilled people and then motivate them; we hire already motivated people and inspire them with our mission. Indeed, a great company is a conspiracy to change the world and we are constantly on the lookout for smart individuals with perspective to join on this mission.
For more information visit: www.ebo.ai