10 Ideas for the Twilio AI Startup Searchlight Awards 2.0 (2024)

or, "10 areas ripe for innovation in the CPaaS space"

An email from Twilio recently landed in my inbox:

We are reaching out to you as you've been selected to get an advance preview about the Twilio AI Startups Searchlight 2.0 Awards Program…

We are looking for startups to apply that have or are:

• Leveraging Emerging Technologies (e.g. LLMs, AI, Big Data) and Twilio to create compelling end user experiences &/or solutions;

• Have a market-ready product or demo, that can be showcased and demonstrate practically, how they are innovating using Twilio’s APIs (Voice, Email, WhatsApp, SMS & more);

• Redefining communications & customer Engagement, through the creation of products and/or end user solutions that disrupt the current communications and customer engagement paradigm;

• Have raised less than $200M in Venture Funding.

The Twilio AI Startups Searchlight 2.0 Awards Program is an exciting opportunity for innovative startups in the communication and customer engagement space. This program aligns with the growing trend of AI integration in various industries, particularly in customer-facing technologies. According to a report by Grand View Research, the global artificial intelligence market size is expected to reach $1,811.8 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 37.3% from 2023 to 2030.

…”less than $200M in Venture Funding” is a pretty broad umbrella to define “startup”. This high ceiling allows for a wide range of companies, from early-stage startups to more established players, to participate in the program.

Let’s see what they’re offering, who is judging, and what the judges are looking to see – then I’ll share the ideas I have.

What is Twilio offering?

The 12 Twilio AI Startup Searchlight 2.0 Honorees will:

• Be featured online by Twilio and a leading technology media outlet to celebrate their startup and the milestones they have achieved;

• Receive $10,000 USD in one time Twilio credits;

• Receive a $5,000 USD one time Apple Gift card;

• Have the opportunity for their startups to potentially be featured on the Twilio Marketplace;

• Gain the opportunity to collaborate on future co-marketing initiatives with Twilio.

This prize package offers significant value, especially for startups already working in the Twilio ecosystem. The media exposure and potential marketplace feature could be game-changers for emerging companies.

The Twilio credits and Apple gift card provide immediate tangible benefits, but getting noticed by Twilio and fast-tracked into their Marketplace along with the potential co-marketing here could be the most valuable prize in the package.

This signals to me that they want to get a fresh look at innovators in their space, and are willing to look at companies who have been working in the space for some time.

How much time do you have?

• Nominations Close: Sunday 29th September 2024;

• Judging Process: Early/Late October 2024;

• Honorees Announced: Late/Early November 2024.

This timeline gives potential applicants several months to prepare their submissions, allowing for thorough development and refinement of their products or demos.

Who are the judges?

• Thomas Wyatt - President, Twilio Segment;

• Inbal Shani - Chief Product Officer at Twilio;

• Vanessa Thompson - Vice President of Marketing at Twilio;

• Chiara Massironi - Head of Developer Network;

• Nnamdi Iregbulem - Investment Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners.

The judging panel represents a diverse mix of expertise, including product development, marketing, developer relations, and venture capital. This panel make-up suggests that entries will be evaluated from multiple perspectives, considering both technical innovation and market potential.

What are the judges looking for?

How will judges evaluate startups? startups will be evaluated based on four ‘impact factors’:

Startups will be evaluated based on four ‘impact factors’:

• Creativity: Is the startup DEMO/Prototype demonstrating creativity, unique features, or solving a complex problem in an effective way. Extra detail and attention is evident in the demo. Prototype has that ✨ something special ✨ to highlight how the startup aims to use Emerging Technologies (e.g. LLMs, Generative AI, Big Data) and Twilio APIs creatively on channels such as: Voice, Email, WhatsApp, Conversations or SMS;

• Long term Impact: By leveraging both Emerging Technologies (e.g. LLMs, Generative AI, Big Data) and Twilio APIs, will the efforts of the startup make an outsized impact for end user experiences;

• Market Impact: The DEMO/Prototype exhibits significant potential to disrupt the market, as it continues to develop and gain adoption. The innovation and ingenuity the team have demonstrated through the development of the product/end-user solution has the capability to substantially advance communications and AI, propelling them forward by a considerable magnitude;

• Scalability & Technical Impact: DEMO/Prototype integrates Emerging Technologies (e.g. LLMs, Generative AI, Big Data) alongside Twilio APIs and optimizes for the best end user solutions. Developers demonstrate consideration for various cases and feasibility of getting the DEMO/Prototype into production.

These evaluation criteria map well with current trends in the startup ecosystem. The emphasis on creativity and unique problem-solving reflects the increasing importance of differentiation in a crowded and noisy market. The focus on long-term and market impact underscores the need for startups to demonstrate sustainable value creation, not just trying to make an AI land-grab or be buzzword-compliant.

CPaaS Market Drivers

The Twilio and CPaaS space is facing innovation pressure from several areas. Let's expand on these market drivers:

1. Changing consumer behavior and expectations, especially around non-Graphical User Interfaces (non-GUIs): The rise of voice assistants, chatbots, and other conversational interfaces is reshaping how consumers interact with technology. According to Juniper Research, the number of digital voice assistants in use is expected to reach 8.4 billion by 2024.

2. Globalization & Localization: As businesses expand globally, there's an increasing need for communication solutions that can adapt to different languages and cultural contexts.

3. Advancements in traditional AI, Generative AI, and Large Language Models: These technologies are revolutionizing how businesses interact with customers. For better or worse, Gartner predicts that by 2025, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organizations will be synthetically generated.

4. Competitive pressures in a domain with high switching costs: The CPaaS market is becoming increasingly competitive. This growth is attracting new players and intensifying competition and forcing legacy players to shift their strategy and offerings.

High-noise environment with confusing signals for buyers: The rapid pace of innovation in this space can make it challenging for buyers to differentiate between solutions. Clear value propositions and demonstrated ROI are becoming increasingly important.

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Four core areas of CPaaS that AI can augment

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With that in mind, the list of 10 ideas that follows covers:

1. Sales or Support; or both

2. Contact Centers: Agent in the middle / human in the loop

3. Realtime Voice: Next gen IVR that beats the uncanny valley of voice

4. Private AI/LLMs (not-in-the-[public]-cloud)

5. Think Globally; WhatsApp

6. Be an ISV/SaaS … or not; consider an API-first product

7. Something innovative with Twilio Flex

8. Something that integrates with Twilio Segment

9. Something that integrates with Salesforce in a new way

10. Competitor Migration: Off-board from other services, onboard to Twilio

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10 Ideas in Detail

Here are ten ideas that cover those areas, along with links to some relevant reference material to provide some breadcrumbs for what already exists – and what might be able to be built upon. The acronyms and initialisms that most of them have are for the context of this post alone, and not meant to be any sort of “industry standard”.

1. Unified Sales and Support Platform (USSP)

Develop a platform that integrates sales and support interactions. This system leverages AI to analyze customer interactions, identifying sales opportunities during support calls, and vice-versa. The goal of the USSP would be to enhance customer satisfaction and increase sales conversion rates by uncovering hidden opportunities.

• AI-driven interaction analysis to identify sales opportunities.

• Sentiment analysis to gauge customer emotions in real-time.

• Real-time data analytics to optimize performance.

Learn more about AI in customer interactions from Twilio's resources on CustomerAI.

2. Human-in-the-loop/agent-in-the-middle: Hybrid AI-Powered Contact Center (HACC)

Combine AI and human agents in a contact center. Human agents would receive real-time AI-driven insights to assist them via an interface integrated with existing contact center infrastructure. HACC improves efficiency, ensures high-quality customer service through intelligent escalation, and enhances agent performance with AI support.

• AI-driven coaching for human agents during calls.

• Automated post-call summaries and action items.

• Integration with existing contact center infrastructure.

3. Natural Voice IVR System (NVIVR)

The goal here is to overcome the uncanny valley of robotic-sounding IVRs. Develop an IVR system using AI to create natural-sounding, human-like voices capable of holding seamless conversations.

This next-generation IVR system would include high-fidelity voice synthesis, advanced natural language understanding, personalized interactions based on customer history, emotional intelligence to detect and respond to emotions, and multi-language support.

NVIVR enhances the customer experience by providing a natural and engaging interaction, reduces frustration by accurately understanding queries, and supports a global customer base with its multi-language capabilities.

• High-fidelity voice synthesis and advanced natural language understanding.

• Personalized interactions based on customer history.

• Multi-language support for global reach.

4. Private AI x CPaaS

Offer on-premise LLM deployment for organizations to ensure data privacy and security while leveraging the power of modern LLMs and Generative AI through platforms like Ollama. This solution would include on-premise (or colocated) deployment, customizable AI models tailored to organizational needs, robust security measures, easy integration with existing systems, and continuous updates for model improvements.

Private AI addresses concerns around data privacy, allows full control over AI deployment, and offers the benefits of AI without reliance on public cloud infrastructure.

• Customizable AI models tailored to organizational needs.

• Robust security measures to protect sensitive data.

• Continuous updates for model improvements.

5. Global Messaging Platform (GMP)

With over 2 billion users worldwide, WhatsApp presents a massive opportunity for business communication. Leverage WhatsApp's extensive global reach to provide businesses with a powerful tool for customer engagement, communication, and support.

The platform could include seamless integration with WhatsApp, multi-language support to cater to a diverse audience, advanced analytics to track and optimize messaging campaigns, and AI-driven chatbots for instant responses. GMP would utilize WhatsApp's global presence to expand business reach, enhance customer engagement with personalized communication, and support international customers across various languages.

• Seamless integration with WhatsApp for multi-channel communication.

• Multi-language support to cater to a diverse global audience.

• AI-driven chatbots for instant responses and secure communication channels.

• Rich media messaging capabilities (images, videos, documents)

• Integration with popular CRM platforms

Learn more about integrating WhatsApp with Twilio.

6. Build a CPaaS SaaS or API-first platform and go to market as an ISV

Develop a SaaS platform that offers businesses customizable communication solutions powered by Twilio APIs, integrating SMS, voice, video, and chat functionalities as needed for your given domain and use cases.

There is further opportunity to build something that takes advantage of the no-code/low-code trend. That approach could enable users to integrate communication features into their applications without extensive coding knowledge.

• Drag-and-drop interface for creating communication workflows.

• Pre-built templates for common use cases like customer support and marketing.

• AI-powered workflow suggestions based on usage patterns

• Integration marketplace for third-party services

• Advanced analytics and A/B testing capabilities

7. AI-Enhanced Customer Sales and/or Support with Twilio Flex

Twilio Flex's programmable contact center platform provides a strong foundation for innovative AI enhancements. This idea could significantly improve both agent efficiency and customer satisfaction and be the foundation for some of the other ideas here. I call out Twilio Flex because in Twilio’s current go to market sales motion, they are not primarily using a “contact center software” message even though it is still a powerful part of their platform portfolio in the form of Flex.

8. Personalized Customer Engagement Platform

Personalization can lead to a 10-15% increase in revenue and 10-30% increase in marketing spend efficiency. Develop a platform that integrates with Twilio Segment to provide personalized customer engagement solutions using customer data for tailored communications across multiple channels. This platform could help businesses achieve these gains through data-driven engagement. Consider features in the areas of:

• Unified customer profiles with data from multiple sources.

• Personalized messaging based on customer behavior and preferences.

• Multi-channel communication including SMS, email, and push notifications.

• Predictive customer lifetime value modeling

• Real-time personalization across web and mobile apps

9. Intelligent Sales Assistant

Create an intelligent sales assistant that integrates with Salesforce to enhance sales productivity using AI for real-time insights, automating routine tasks, and optimizing sales strategies.

• AI-driven insights for lead scoring and opportunity management.

• Automation of routine tasks like data entry and follow-up reminders.

• Real-time notifications and alerts for critical sales activities.

Admittedly, this idea is on the list because of the inescapable presence of Salesforce in so many places.

10. Twilio Migration Assistant

Many new Twilio customers, especially heavy legacy IVR and call/contact center enterprises have a significant migration path in front of them when they choose to switch to Twilio.

Develop a migration assistant tool that helps businesses seamlessly transition from competitor services to Twilio using AI to analyze current setups and automate the migration process.

• Cost comparison calculator

• AI-driven analysis of existing communication setups.

• Automated migration scripts to transition data and configurations.

• API mapping tool for common competitors

• Automated testing of migrated systems

• Real-time monitoring and troubleshooting during migration.

These ideas showcase a wide range of potential applications leveraging Twilio's APIs and emerging technologies and address various aspects of customer communication, from sales and support to global messaging and AI-driven analytics.

For startups considering entering the Twilio AI Startups Searchlight 2.0 Awards Program, it's crucial to focus on how their solution not only uses Twilio's APIs creatively but also addresses real market needs and has the potential for significant impact and scalability.

To stand out in this competition, startups should consider:

1. Demonstrating clear market validation for their solution

2. Showcasing unique use cases that highlight the innovative use of Twilio APIs

3. Providing metrics or projections that illustrate the potential impact of their solution

4. Emphasizing the scalability and technical robustness of their prototype

By aligning their entries with these considerations and the judging criteria, startups can increase their chances of success in this exciting program.

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If you have ideas for this competition and would like some feedback, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Disclosures
The author of this post holds a long position in TWLO and is a partner in a company (Terazo) that is a member of the Twilio Ventures portfolio, is a leading global strategic integration partner with Twilio, and is a Twilio reseller.