Hekate AI is one of the pioneers in chatbot technology and chatbot application in Vietnam.

I. OVERVIEW:

Chatbot is a technology implemented in the model of cloud computing with intelligent processing units installed on cloud infrastructure; At the same time, the communication is installed into chat applications on smart Internet-connected devices or installed on websites. Therefore, users can connect and use anywhere through different terminals such as computers, smartphones, smart TVs, smart watches … The biggest advantage of Hekate AI is the ability to communicate with users. While foreign chatbots use the English language as the foundation and the ability to understand Vietnamese is completely based on what the bot creators build, Hekate uses the natural language base. So questions in Vietnamese will be answered naturally, more like real people. In addition, because the platform was developed with the purpose of serving businesses and the needs of Vietnamese users, many functions that domestic users often use were made available. Enterprises only need to activate the function in the Store section to be able to use immediately. 

II. BUSINESS OPERATION:

Hekate’s start was a chatbot named Sumi. This chatbot works on the Skype messaging service. At that time, Sumi was able to communicate with users in a very natural way and answered many different issues. Soon reaching 1 million users, the Sumi development team decided to build it into a bigger platform. Revealing about the idea of ​​starting a business, Minh Duc said: “A preview of the Microsoft developer conference, Microsoft’s CEO said that chatbot is a new type of application combining artificial intelligence and is revolutionary about Phone user behavior on skype platform. With the same passion for technology, we have formed a group and embarked on research and development of chatbot technology ”.

Not only stopped at Skype, noticed that the number of people interacting via Messenger messages has surpassed the number of people interacting on social networks, 3 9x boys have put their chatbot tool on Facebook’s Messenger application. “Following the Facebook Conference 8 event online, I was very impressed with the new chatbot technology that Mark Zuckerberg introduced that is shopping right on the Messenger message interface. This will be a new development trend for global startups. At the same time, the trend of young people from 13 to 17 years old now loves to interact via text messages and one-way interactions such as: shopping by themselves, looking for interactive objects themselves … realizing that this road has a lot of prospects to be determined to pursue and create new features in addition to “chatting” merely, “Nguyen Van Minh Duc said.

In the 3rd incubation program of Da Nang Business Incubator (DNES), the group convinced the judges and became the first “seed” of artificial intelligence of DNES. In addition to the usual automatic chat, this chatbot tool also integrates other functions such as photo editing, reading newspapers, matchmaking, horoscopes, hacking tips, playing games, voting, creating 8-bit avatars, …

At the end of 2016, they together founded Hekate (the name of a wise god) representing the philosophies of mysticism and the dream of artificial intelligence. The early days of establishment were very difficult, especially the finance and personnel, most importantly the start-up experience. The three thought that joining the startup community to gain more experience, as well as connecting more relationships and more importantly, a place to “hide” whole-heartedly for the product, so they joined in. Da Nang Business Incubator. This is the focus period for the product and the user to benefit the end user by analyzing the data, and then integrating the utilities for the most frequently needed users such as reading the newspaper, project. weather reports, daily horoscopes, inside Sumi. This makes the number of Sumi users grow rapidly to reach 1,000,000 users. Gradually, opportunities came, like-minded partners, received angel investment, and continued to receive sponsorship packages from both Facebook ($ 80,000) and Microsoft ($ 120,000).

Initially, Hekate AI directed its products to businesses, fashion shops, and restaurants using chatbot tools to automatically answer customers. However, thanks to the support from DNES, the company has boldly submitted to the People’s Committee of Da Nang City the project of applying chatbot technology to the e-government to enhance the promotion of Danang’s image to visitors.

“In the process of creating this platform, we only thought about how everyone can access artificial intelligence and create their own chatbots like Sumi to apply to practical needs. No programming knowledge required, and on the Hekate platform, users can create their own chatbots for the field or event they need, then train and embed them into Messenger to use. In particular, the more you communicate with chatbots, the smarter it will be, ”shared BY Minh Duc.

At the end of 2017, Hekate was constantly “mentioned” in the press for successfully developing the Danang Fantasticity chatbot application, which the city government decided to deploy in the field of tourism. This startup project has made Danang the first locality in the country to use chatbots for public services, impressing many visitors when coming to the city to attend the events of APEC 2017. .

In 2018, Hekate focused to popularize chatbot market in Vietnam, bringing real benefits of artificial intelligence to everyone. This year, Hekate also plans to enter Singapore, looking for opportunities to expand into the Southeast Asian market. In April 2018, Da Nang Tourism Department cooperated with Hekate Technology Joint Stock Company to build, develop and pilot a new automatic travel information lookup channel on the first message in Vietnam, with Chatbot Danang Fanstaticity … The representative of Chatbot Danang FantastiCity with very cute and funny expressions, creating friendliness and hospitality to visitors as soon as they have just started interacting with chatbot.

Hekate has now returned to its original orientation of focusing on developing Sumi as a virtual assistant for young people. Sumi is still “admired”, with about 225,000 users per month, the growth rate reaches 30% / month. Germany said, after expanding to the national market, Sumi will “march” to Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, from which “fight” to the whole Southeast Asia region.

III. ACHIEVEMENT:

It is known that Hekate AI Technology Joint Stock Company is currently a partner of large enterprises in the world such as Amazon, Lazada, Alibaba … In March 2017, Hekate AI was selected into Facebook’s startup acceleration program and funded 80,000 USD to develop. In addition, the Company’s products also receive angel investment for startups and are funded by Microsoft 120,000 USD to support the development of data infrastructure. In addition, the group started to create other chatbots for events such as the Da Nang 2017-SURF Startup Conference and Exhibition, chatbots for some restaurants or chatbots to promote Danang’s image at APEC 2017.

With its product, Hekate’s team hopes to be a start to the 4.0 industrial revolution in Danang. Chatbots created on the hekate platform are completely free, so these young engineers expect it to be widely used in the community. The goal of the group is to lead the Vietnamese market in chatbot creation technology, as well as toward the Southeast Asian market.

Up to now, this chatbot (AI) has supported more than 10,000 visitors from all over the world. countries around the world contribute to the Center to support visitors to reduce the workload as well as enhance the support of visitors better. Not only that, this application project has resonated with the United Nations Development Committee (UNDP) to accompany and support the application of chatbot (AI) in public administration in Danang City. In the near future, chatbot technology is proposed to be tested first in the field of tourism, promote information about Danang with functions such as information, communication, news, request transfer, statistics and analysis; Multilingual, user positioning.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

ADDRESS: 31 Tran Phu St, Da Nang, Vietnam

HOTLINE: 090 657 73 79