Amidst the AI revolution, e27 presents a new series showcasing how organisations embrace AI in their operations.

Asnawi Jufrie is the Southeast Asia General Manager of SleekFlow, an omnichannel social commerce platform facilitating conversations across SMS, website live chat, and top social messaging apps.

From early on, Jufrie was interested in contributing positively to his surroundings, emphasising the importance of individual empowerment. With a background in sales and business development, he previously served as the ASEAN Team Lead for Business Development at Salesforce.

In this edition, Jufrie shares how SleekFlow has embraced Artificial Intelligence.

Edited excerpts:

How do you perceive the AI revolution and its potential impact on your industry and workforce?

The emergence of Generative AI, with the breakthroughs made by programs such as ChatGPT, has caused a surge of interest in chat-based AI applications. This has significantly impacted the conversational commerce industry, where this technology has become a game-changer for omnichannel sales platforms like SleekFlow.

I’ve noticed that most people tend to relate AI to chat nowadays. It’s like having Michael Jordan helping with your free throws in basketball – AI can enhance communication skills, maximise your knowledge base, and develop context-aware AI-powered chatbots. 

At SleekFlow, we’ve embraced the technology to drive business growth, leveraging its ability to enhance communication skills, expand the knowledge base, and develop remarkable context-aware AI-powered chatbots. 

Last quarter, we launched SleekFlow AI for customer support, powered by GPT-4 technology. Our AI-powered chatbots, for instance, can engage in natural, human-like conversations with customers, leading to a much smoother customer experience. 

This means maximising touchpoints with consumers by allowing businesses to upload their help documents or website to our upcoming portal to build an extensive knowledge base so that the AI can recommend accurate responses to customer inquiries through WhatsApp. 

This frees up time for customer support staff to focus on more complex enquiries that require the human touch. Its summary generator also condenses long chat threads into bite-sized notes, making interactions more productive and helping businesses achieve consistency in consumer brand experience.

In what ways has your company embraced AI technologies to improve operational efficiency or enhance business processes?

At SleekFlow, we recognise AI’s value in improving business operations and customer experience. As such, we have strategically integrated various AI tools into our workflows to help us achieve these goals.

One such built-in tool is Apollo.io, a sales engagement platform that leverages AI to help sales teams prioritise leads and personalise communication. With Apollo, our sales team can automate certain tasks, such as email sequences and follow-up reminders, freeing up time to focus on higher-level tasks, such as building customer relationships.

Another built-in tool we use is Notion.so, a productivity app that incorporates AI features such as natural language processing and machine learning. Notion helps to organise and track internal communication, making it easier for us to collaborate and share information across teams.

We also utilise standalone AI platforms like ChatGPT to enhance customer support operations. Our marketing team, for instance, has been leveraging ChatGPT to brainstorm content ideas, generate SEO blog outlines, and adapt original content for cross-channel distribution. 

This frees up time for our writers and marketers to focus on the more creative aspects of their work, such as product marketing and content strategy.

Adopting AI-powered tools not only leads to boosts in productivity but also improves our ROI for those apps we’ve already invested in. It’s a no-brainer!

Can you share specific examples of how AI has been integrated into your workforce to streamline operations or drive innovation?

Let’s take SleekFlow AI as our example.

Regarding customer service, SleekFlow AI can answer support-related inquiries in a manner that is indistinguishable from our human agents. This allows us to deflect more straightforward cases and free up time for our agents to focus on more complex issues. 

In sales, it provides a personal coach that scans the entire history of a chat conversation with a customer and provides suggestions on the best item to promote and recommended replies. This not only streamlines the sales process but also ensures a personalised, high-quality customer experience.

Similarly, in marketing, SleekFlow AI can help generate impactful marketing copy in minutes, leveraging its understanding of our company’s branding, products and services, and the goals of the copy. 

As for our customers, SleekFlow AI is a useful tool in highly specific industries, such as insurance. The chatbot can recommend personalised health insurance plans based on your customers’ budgets and needs by analysing previous conversations and support materials. This means no more navigating through multiple filters on your virtual help desk. It’s like having a personal assistant for every customer. 

What challenges or concerns did you encounter when implementing AI technologies within your organisation, and how did you address them?

To be honest, as a high-growth tech startup, we haven’t encountered many pushbacks from our team when implementing AI technology. We fully embrace it.

As a company, we strongly believe in the rise and ubiquity of AI in our everyday personal and professional lives. We recognise that to stay relevant, we must embrace this technological revolution. It feels like the dot-com era; we want to be at the forefront of this exciting time.

Of course, we understand that some people may be concerned about AI’s impact on human jobs and privacy. But AI can enhance our everyday tasks and remove possible human errors, for example, grammar. 

Again, it’s like having Michael Jordan doing the free throws for you in a basketball game – who wouldn’t want that?

That being said, we take these concerns seriously and strive to ensure that our AI technologies are implemented ethically and responsibly. We also recognise the importance of human interaction in certain areas, such as building trust and resolving complex issues.

So while we are embracing AI, we also understand the value of the human touch and are refining how we meld the two.

How do you ensure transparency and uphold ethical considerations in using AI technologies within your organisation to mitigate privacy concerns?

As a data processor and controller of our customer’s data, we take data and privacy concerns extremely seriously. To this end, we have invested significant time and effort in obtaining the required certifications, including the recent ISO/IEC 27001 certification.

This certification is widely recognised as the “gold standard” of third-party validation for security posture. This means that our platform has established a robust infrastructure to manage risks to customer data.

Regarding using AI technologies for customer support, we believe in striking a good balance between security and responsiveness. While automated support has its advantages, it is not always foolproof. There is still a chance of the AI producing inaccurate answers, especially if users try to work around the constraints we have designed.

The model and computing power required to run these systems can also be expensive. Therefore, we believe that a hybrid model that combines automated and human support would be the most effective solution.

To ensure transparency and take into account ethical considerations, we take extra precautions when using external AI platforms to ensure that zero client data and information are uploaded. Within our platform, SleekFlow AI is governed by our robust closed-loop architecture, which is regularly tested by external independent agencies and has passed the required data and security requirements.

By offering a range of AI models and prioritising accuracy and security, businesses working with SleekFlow can get the best possible AI-powered support while maintaining full transparency and meeting the highest ethical standards.

How do you ensure that AI technologies complement your workforce’s existing skills and expertise rather than replacing or displacing human workers?

I believe that while AI has its advantages, it can never fully replace humans. As Jack Ma said, “You can always make a machine to learn the knowledge. But it is difficult for machines to have a human heart.” We understand that it is the collective wisdom and experiences of people that bring a business idea to life.

In the case of entrepreneurship, if businesses could be built from theories and machines alone, every business would have already succeeded. The founders, business owners, and teammates, who are made up of people, share collective wisdom and experiences to bring life to a business idea. That’s why I think AI is not here to replace humans; it’s here to enhance them.

We take a human-centric approach to AI development to ensure that AI technologies complement our workforce’s existing skills and expertise. We should involve our workforce in the AI development process and provide training and upskilling opportunities.

We should also focus on developing AI solutions that automate repetitive tasks, allowing our workforce to focus on more strategic and creative tasks that require human skills and expertise.

How do you envision the future collaboration between humans and AI? What role do you see AI playing in augmenting human capabilities?

A hybrid model that combines the strengths of AI-powered chatbots and human workers is ideal.

We built SleekFlow AI to foster AI-human collaboration as the way forward, with AI augmenting human capabilities to provide objective and wise consultation while also being able to stand in for humans on certain occasions.

Just like Alfred can never replace Bruce Wayne as Batman, AI can never replace humans, but it can support us in our day-to-day activities and tasks – and vice versa.

What advice would you give to founders looking to leverage AI in their workforce?

Embrace it! As a founder, you are built to innovate, dream of what’s possible, and be the front-runner for change. Leveraging AI is the surest way of staying relevant and being part of the inevitable domino effect: the AI revolution.

It could transform whole industries, not just conversational commerce and society. As a founder, it’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve and explore how AI can be used to augment human capabilities. 

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Singapore-based waste management company Blue Planet has secured an undisclosed sum in funding from Malaysian PE firm Bintang Capital Partners.

The startup will utilise the capital to expand its operational teams and waste management technologies to pave the way for handling a broader range of waste types in current and emerging markets.

Founded in 2017 by Madhujeet Chimni, Prashant Singh, and Bharadwaj Chivukula, Blue Planet provides waste collection, transportation, segregation, processing, and treatment services. It has a presence in India, Malaysia, Singapore, and the UK.

Also Read: (Exclusive) Myanmar’s waste-management startup RecyGlo raising US$900K to expand into Indonesia, Singapore

Blue Planet reportedly manages 15,200 metric tonnes of waste daily, produces 10,000 normal cubic metres of biogas (as clean energy) each day from organic materials, and has recovered more than 800 acres of land (legacy landfills) for the public. It claims to have processed 3.3 million metric tonnes of waste, reducing two million metric tonnes of CO2 emissions last year.

Prior to the latest round, Blue Planet secured investments from the Neev Fund, OSK Ventures International, and Japan’s Mizuho Asia Partners. It has also acquired Disaster Restoration Singapore, Xeon Waste Managers in India, and Qube Renewable in the UK.

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Dear Pro member,

Amid a global market slowdown, Indonesian firms Modalku and Bukalapak have followed Qoala and Ayoconnect in reducing their workforce within a short two-week span.

This trend is largely attributed to the ongoing repercussions of the global financial crisis. The job cuts underscore the prevailing challenges faced by Indonesian businesses, prompting a series of staff reductions as a means of coping with financial strain and pursuing profitability.

The prevalent strategy of downsizing is seen as a pragmatic approach to curtail costs and adapt to the altered economic landscape. With numerous firms having already implemented layoffs in recent months, this trend is expected to persist in the near future as businesses strive to navigate the challenging environment and attain financial stability.

Will the advent of Generative AI tools make things worse in the jobs market? Let’s wait and see.

Singapore-based Endowus has secured US$35 million, and many exciting developments have been included in today’s Ecosystem Roundup.

Happy reading.

Sainul,
Editor.

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Funding Societies’s Modalku cuts 18% of its workforce
It laid off 38 employees in Indonesia mainly due to the current macroeconomic environment; Funding Societies said that since being established in 2015, it has served nearly 100K businesses across its markets.

Bukalapak conducts a new round of layoffs
The affected staff include those from customer service, its Mitra business, and the product and engineering team; In Q2 2023, Bulakapak generated US$40.7M net profit, a turnaround from a net loss of US$394.8M in Q2 2022.

SoftBank’s Vision Funds recover with US$426M income in Q1
It posted a US$16.3B loss in the same quarter a year ago; The recovery is primarily driven by a US$917.1M gain on investments at Vision Fund 1, reversing from the US$9.2B in loss on investments it experienced in Q1 2022.

SG wealthtech firm Endowus raises US$35M round
The investors include Citi Ventures and MUFG Innovation; The company’s losses for 2022 jumped to US$20M despite more than doubling its revenue to US$6.1M compared to the previous year.

Alibaba posts solid 70% income growth in latest quarter
The revenue grew 14% in the latest quarter compared to the same period last year; The firm attributed the growth to its recent restructuring, which has started to “unleash new energy across our business”.

Philippine venture builder AHG Lab raises US$4M in pre-Series A
The investors include the Rufino family, David Leechiu, and Seaborne Capital; The capital will help expand AHG’s support in founder-focused programmes like Founders Launchpad.

Genexyz, which provides virtual avatars for content creators, raises US$1M
The investors include East Ventures, Emtek, and MDI Ventures; Genexyz aims to overcome the scalability and unpredictability of the physical limitations of influencers by creating meta-human IPs.

Goro raises US$1M to democratise Indonesian property investment
The investors include Iterative, XA Network, and StashAway’s Angel Investing Program; Goro enables individuals to buy high-yielding Indonesian properties with no minimum purchase.

Singaporean Web3 entertainment company DEA raises funding
The investor is Global Brain’s KDDI Open Innovation Fund III; DEA is the company behind the PlayMining GameFi platform.

IDN Media said to have acquired creator payment platform Saweria
Saweria enables creators or live streamers to receive payments from fans through various Indonesian e-wallets; Saweria had around 500-700 daily active live streamers in 2020.

Carro hits US$11M in Q1 EBITDA, its highest-ever quarterly profits
Its EBITDA is now at an annualised run-rate of over US$50M, which is more than 10x what it achieved for the entire FY2023; The used-car marketplace also achieved over US$4M in EBITDA for June 2023.

Bintang Capital backs SG waste management firm Blue Planet
Blue Planet offers various solutions throughout the waste management value chain, including waste collection, transportation, segregation, processing, and treatment.

Gaming growth in APAC sluggish amid clampdown in China: report
Data from a recently released Newzoo report found that Asia Pacific only logged a 1.2% y-o-y bump in revenue to date; This is below the global market’s 2.6% increase within the same period.

Mixi launches US$50M fund for India-based entertainment startups
Outside the CVC fund, Mixi plans to allocate about US$209.6M to US$349.3M for M&As, as well as capital and business alliances between the financial years of 2023 and 2025.

Antler Malaysia appoints serial entrepreneur as associate partner
Frank Kang will be in charge of operations and investment strategy in Malaysia; Before the appointment, Kang co-founded People2, a social networking service backed by SoftBank.

These trio grew BuyMed into a B2B healthtech brand with a reach in 12K+ townships in VN
BuyMed, which recently raised US$51.5M in Series B funding, says it processes over 5K orders daily and reaches 12K+ townships across Vietnam.

The value for biz lies in how humans, AI will enhance each other’s strengths: Mixpanel CEO
Generative AI is really just the next interface of computing, unlocking huge productivity gains across various sectors, says Amir Movafaghi.

How to achieve cybersecurity independence in Southeast Asia
Fostering a cybersecurity workforce equipped with the latest skills and knowledge will be paramount in securing the region’s digital sovereignty.

Rising trend in Vietnam: Young professionals embracing social media content creation
According to the ‘Monetise the Creative Economy’ report by Adobe, 33 per cent of those surveyed engaged in part-time content development.

How to navigate the ethical landscape of Responsible AI
Responsible AI constitutes our greatest chance at cultivating a future wherein AI is wielded for a good while mitigating its risks.

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Naman Jhawar to head India and Southeast Asia ops of Picus Capital

Germany-based early-stage VC firm Picus Capital has appointed the former executive at India’s gaming unicorn Mobile Premier League, Naman Jhawar, as Partner and Head of India and Southeast Asia.

The announcement comes in the wake of the company’s plans to increase its investments in this region with a focus on fintech, enterprise software, and climate tech.

In the new role, Jhawar will scout for startups and support Picus’s 20 

existing portfolio companies in the region. Overseeing territories such as India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines, he will guide the firm’s investments in these areas. 

Also Read: Singapore’s waste management firm Blue Planet gets Bintang Capital’s backing

Jhawar will also offer early-stage founders support, networking opportunities, and operational assistance.

Prior to Picus Capital, Jhawar was the Senior Vice President of Strategy and Operations at Mobile Premier League. He has also been an angel investor and a consultant at McKinsey, with expertise in consumer tech and automotive sectors.

Picus Capital is an international, privately financed VC company with headquarters in Munich and offices in Berlin, New York, Beijing, London, São Paulo and Singapore. It has over 170 portfolio companies globally and predominantly invests in pre-seed, seed and Series A rounds.

The key focus areas are technology companies in financial services, HR, energy & climate, healthcare, logistics & mobility, real estate & construction, crypto & web3, deeptech and e-commerce. 

Its portfolio firms include Aspire, Multiplier, Crea, and WeRize. 

Picus Capital has plans to allocate 25-30 per cent of its capital to the APAC region moving forward. This aligns with its long-term strategy and will fund new and follow-on investments within its portfolio.

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Creating content on TikTok or YouTube is considered an exciting profession by Vietnamese youth because of its many followers, comfortable time, and high income.

Ninh Cong Hoang, born in 2000 and just graduated from Foreign Trade University (Hanoi, Vietnam), is a digital content creator on various platforms, such as TikTok with 1.3 million followers, or a YouTube channel with 215,000 subscribers. Hoang said he initially liked drawing short stories but then switched to making videos on TikTok. After six months, he decided to stick with it because it was no longer boring like his previous jobs.

Meanwhile, Thanh Lam, born in 1999, applied for a finance company after graduation. However, the young girl is tired of getting up early every morning, rushing to cross the seven-kilometre road to keep time, and the office environment is restrictive and inflexible.

When a close friend opened a women’s fashion store, she offered to participate in content production for promotion because she knew how to edit and make short videos. Lam’s help helps a friend’s sales channel on Facebook and TikTok quickly become effective. She decided to leave the company, set up her channel, and pursue a career in creating content on social networks.

In mid-October, software company Adobe released its Monetise the Creative Economy report. Surveys conducted in many countries have shown a new trend of Generation Z, those born in 1997. This is the generation called citizens of the digital age because they were born and raised perfectly in the era of Internet development and exposed to new technology from a young age.

33 per cent of individuals surveyed, according to Adobe, worked part-time in content development. 47 per cent of respondents said the sector accounts for more than half of their monthly income, and 77 per cent said they started monetising material on an online platform in the last year.

Also Read: How Gen Zs’ view on work-life balance can transform your business

The development of social media material, web/game programming, photography, videography, photo/video editing, and other jobs provide significant income. According to Adobe, Gen Z favours the creative economy and encourages the pursuit of non-traditional careers. 49 per cent of 16 to 18-year-old content producers say they would prefer to launch a creative business than attend college.

Tran Thi Thu Phuong, Senior Recruitment Manager of 40HRS, an American recruitment company in Vietnam, said that in recent years, creating content on social networks has become a career trend and a potential playground for creative enthusiasts. Social networks such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are bringing more career options to young people.

The difficulty for digital content producers, despite their great salary, is to consistently come up with novel and interesting concepts to draw people. “Creativity is the secret to achievement. Another difficulty young people encounter is producing interesting content quickly enough to keep up with trends. The issue of budgeting is also challenging to resolve,” Phuong commented.

However, the newfound success also inspired many young people to produce offensive videos to boost interaction and view counts. Views, followers, and comments are significant criteria for evaluating a channel’s influence and profitability, according to an insider in the advertising industry. For instance, a Vietnamese TikTok account with over 500,000 followers can earn roughly six million dong for each video.

Young people’s money-making trends on social networks

Social networking platforms like Facebook or Youtube are always the most attractive communication channels with billions of users. It is easy to understand why businesses and advertisers always look to the characters with the most attractive channels to place their ads to reach more viewers. Ninja is such a character. This person has a famous Youtube channel and attracts more views than his favourite player Cristiano Ronaldo.

A new “monetisation era” has been ushered in by the expansion of social networks, enabling users to easily make additional money from their creative contributions. Users can benefit from the chance to generate money on the Internet from anywhere with only a few clicks.

Also Read: Social media oversharing: An invitation to cybercriminals

As a result, young people have been actively utilising the work of creating content and earning money on free platforms like YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and many more international platforms in recent years.

Nguyen Hong Tu, a student at a pharmacy college in Ho Chi Minh City (born in 2003), makes between 25 and 30 million VND each month from his employment as a TikTok content creator.

Making engaging video content is currently one of the most well-known ways to earn money, and the YouTube Partner Programme is a pioneer in this area. If creators fit the requirements of the Partner Programme, which was established in 2007, they may display advertisements on the video. YouTube is responsible for 55 per cent of ad revenue, with creators keeping the other 45 per cent.

It may be argued that the development of content draws in a growing number of highly skilled workers from around the world and creates tens of billions of dollars in revenue annually. Millions of people are thought to labour in this industry in Vietnam, which annually earns a sizable sum of foreign cash for the nation.

According to data from 2022, there are 20,000 Vietnamese persons using social networking sites for financial gain, earning 1,500 billion VND in foreign currency. Currently, there are eight channels with diamond buttons (more than 10 million subscribers), and there are close to 500 gold-buttoned channels on YouTube from Vietnam.

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Indonesia-based virtual influencer and meta-human company Genexyz has secured US$1 million in seed funding led by East Ventures.

Emtek, MDI Ventures, Trinity Optima, and Massive Music also joined.

The company will use the funds to expand into Southeast Asia and develop more interactive technology to connect with relevant communities.

Also Read: Influencer marketing strategies: Driving engagement and reach in Indonesia

Established in 2022 by Belinda Luis (CEO) and Christian Melvin (CPO), Genexyz aims to overcome the scalability and unpredictability of the physical limitations of influencers by creating meta-human IPs. These virtual influencers are the new celebrities, market makers and shakers, and content creators leading the way from Web2 towards the Web3 world. They are scalable for companies and brands and can work 24×7, much like robots.

The startup utilises data-driven systems to create custom DNA IPs, control the narratives, and quickly pivot when it comes to community engagement and strategic evolution of IPs based on the voice of the market.

Genexyz currently works in the B2B and B2C sectors. It has also ventured into the D2C segment through a collaboration with Lavcaca and Eatlah, offering a special menu called Sego Iwak Pitik Endog Asin, catering to fast food enthusiasts with a unique local flavour.

The firm has partnered with several renowned brands, including Bango, Tokopedia, Tiket.com, Ismaya Group, Nivea, Pepsodent, and Ujung Ujungnya Dangdut (UUD).

Also Read: How can influencer marketing help the travel industry in a post pandemic world

Genexyz recently launched a male character with unique and intelligent traits reflecting his everyday life. This character will be reliable for various branding and educational purposes, supported by advanced and hyper-realistic technology.

It also plans to launch several new IPs.

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The image used in this picture is AI-generated.

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Digital Entertainment Asset (DEA), a Singapore-based Web3 entertainment company, today announced that it has secured undisclosed funding from Global Brain Corporation’s KDDI Open Innovation Fund III.

In a press statement, DEA co-founder and co-CEO Naohito Yoshida said that the company is “very proud” to announce its new investment and collaboration with Global Brain.

“We look forward to working together with KDDI to offer various Web3 incentives to a wider audience, including the use of PlayMining assets in the αU metaverse and joint efforts to promote DEA’s ‘GameFi-for-Good’ social impact initiatives,” he said.

Their first collaboration will be to link KDDI’s new “αU” metaverse project with the Play-and-Earn (P&E) games on DEA’s PlayMining GameFi platform.

Pronounced “Alpha U”, KDDI’s αU metaverse Web3 service launched in March with the aim of providing advanced immersive experiences that merge the real and virtual worlds.

Also Read: Achieving a communal goal: How digital tools are changing the game for the Malaysian sporting experience

Founded in 2018, DEA is the company behind the PlayMining GameFi platform. As a developer of play-and-earn (P&E) games, DEA also operates the PlayMining gaming platform, the PlayMining NFT marketplace, the PlayMining Verse metaverse project and DEAPcoin ($DEP), the first P&E token approved by the Financial Service Agency of Japan.

The team is headed by two co-CEOs, Naohito Yoshida and Kozo Yamada. Together they bring decades of experience in the tech industry, with three publicly listed companies and a number of video games and Web TV programmes.

LDA Capital, Rakuten Capital and JAFCO Asia previously funded DEA.

KDDI Open Innovation Fund is a corporate venture fund that supports a wide range of venture companies.

The currently active KDDI Open Innovation Fund III has a total investment size of approximately JPY20 billion (US$187 million) and focuses on fields such as AI, IoT, data marketing, fintech, B2B SaaS, and entertainment.

“DEA’s achievements in the rapidly growing Web3 field are a solid testament to its trustworthiness. The company has steadily produced results and achieved global expansion,” said KDDI Head of Web3 Promotions Shunpei Tatebayashi. “We also deeply empathise with their vision of promoting both entertainment and sustainable social contribution.”

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Image Credit: Digital Entertainment Asset

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Vietnam’s pharmaceutical industry is fragmented and disorganised, with numerous manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. There are noncompliance issues, inefficiencies, and a lack of knowledge sharing, which have led to higher costs, lower quality, and a general lack of development.

Peter Nguyen, Vu Vuong, and Hoang Nguyen — who came from varied backgrounds — sensed an opportunity there and embarked on a journey to solve this problem using technology.

Also Read: Revolutionising healthcare in Vietnam: The reality of healthtech unveiled

“Hoang and I were strategy and operations consultants for a boutique strategy consulting firm in Southeast Asia. During our time as consultants, we encountered a fragmented and inefficient healthcare system in Southeast Asia,” says Peter. “However, there were many specific problems to solve in the healthcare domain. We couldn’t narrow down the problem we wanted to focus on initially. We discussed various hurdles faced by the industry in the country and came up with the idea of BuyMed (Thuocsi.vn).”

Connecting different stakeholders

Established in 2018, BuyMed is an e-commerce platform to connect pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, and clinics. It aims to simplify the procurement process to guarantee quality products and competitive prices. The firm claims it is servicing over 30,000 unique pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals across Vietnam.

In the initial months, the founders faced the challenges of educating different stakeholders of the pharmaceutical industry about the benefits of BuyMed. Thankfully, the COVID-19 breakout ‘came to its rescue’. “During the lockdown-induced lockdowns, we delivered medicine to pharmacies, clinics, and hospitals. This allowed us to demonstrate our values to the community of practitioners that it is deeply ingrained in serving practitioners, patients, and all the stakeholders in the healthcare value chain,” Peter explains.

“We had a very strong and passionate team which understood the criticality of the services we provided to the country and the community. The team made a lot of incredible personal sacrifices so that our platform could continue delivering critical medicines to the entire country. Through sheer brute-force hard work and support from key stakeholders, we could continue providing medicine to the whole country during lockdowns,” he shares.

The healthtech firm follows a collaboration model for practices that supply and consigns the practitioners’ entire inventory. This way, practitioners can increase their inventory by over 50 per cent and lower their costs of goods sold by 20 per cent, which leads to improved access to medicine in urban and rural areas.

For suppliers, the startup offers a range of partnerships, from buy-and-resell models to strategic alliances, managing their entire sales, fulfilment, logistics, and payment. According to Peter, this enables better competitiveness for domestic pharmaceutical manufacturers.

The firm claims it currently processes over 5,000 orders daily, has over 30,000 unique practices using its platform, over 10,000 unique SKUs sold, and reaches over 12,000 townships across Vietnam.

BuyMed recently announced its foray into Thailand and Cambodia, where it sees immense opportunities. “Healthcare is an infinite industry where customers can never have too much. You can always live longer and live healthier. And healthcare systems are always chasing more and better coverage for cheaper costs,” he adds. “Our team will continue expanding the number of communities we serve regardless of borders and politics, which will take us to more countries across the Asia Pacific.”

The company has fulfilment and logistics hubs in every province across Vietnam. It will invest in its logistics capabilities, such as cold chain, to become a leading logistics solutions provider for pharmaceutical and personal care products.

Also Read: BuyMed nets US$8.8M to develop a healthtech e-commerce platform, expand beyond Vietnam

BuyMed also has plans to expand to other ancillary categories. According to the company, it has seen an increasing demand for more sophisticated pharmaceutical products, previously unaccessible to its practitioners because they are either in rural areas or do not have the working capital, such as increasing demand for innovator pharmaceuticals.

The startup will continue developing urban and rural healthcare, primarily focusing on developing primary care pharmacy and clinic networks across Vietnam.

“Leveraging our existing practitioner network, which now spans every township and village in Vietnam, our next area of focus is improving the amount and quality of healthcare services provided by our practitioner network beyond just basic pharmaceuticals to providing a wide range of community-improving products and services which can improve individual and societal health,” Peter says.

Leveraging AI

BuyMed recently closed a US$51.5 million Series B round led by UOB with participation from DFC, Smilegate, and Cocoon Capital. Besides expanding its services, the company will utilise the capital to enhance its platforms and infrastructure.

“We plan to integrate AI and are working with experts in AI to develop an engine to forecast demand for medicine throughout the country using a variety of data points. This would allow us to predict spikes in demand for certain medicines and work with suppliers to ensure availability. Such data can be shared with governments for their public health policies also,” he shares.

“By leveraging cutting-edge technology and strategic investments, we aspire to boost productivity, streamline processes, and play a pivotal role in fostering the expansion of the healthcare supply industry,” Nguyen wraps up.

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Image Credit: BuyMed.

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Amidst the AI revolution, e27 presents a new article series showcasing how organisations embrace AI in their operations.

Amir Movafaghi is CEO at Mixpanel. Prior to Mixpanel, he served as CFO at Spiceworks Inc., an IT network and marketplace connecting companies to technology solutions across industries.

Previously, he held various leadership roles at Twitter, where he helped it scale from 150 to 4,000+ employees and led it through its IPO.

In this edition, Movafaghi shares how his company has embraced AI.

Edited excerpts:

How do you perceive the AI revolution and its potential impact on your industry and workforce?

The potential of AI has been spoken about for some time, but it’s only since generative AI models became available to the masses that people and businesses have started to notice. That’s because generative AI is just the next interface of computing, unlocking huge productivity gains across various sectors and industries.

In the world of SaaS, the rules are changing. It has long been the case that productivity has required technical formulae or exhausting interfaces. Generative AI is unframing all of that. Have some code that you need to generate, translate, or verify? You can now click a button to get AI to write and organise it for you. New efficiencies like these, and the wow factor they bring, are things we’ve never seen before in software.

In our world of analytics, it means making everything more accessible. If anyone can now query data in plain English by asking the AI a question, it means everyone in an organisation can participate, not just a select few more technical-minded colleagues. Making it easier for anyone to gain insights from data will increase collaboration at companies, helping teams to have higher-quality conversations to solve problems more quickly and with better outcomes.

In what ways has your company embraced AI technologies to improve operational efficiency or enhance business processes?

Earlier this month, we introduced our first step into generative AI. It’s called Spark, and our focus has been to help speed up workflows and simplify how people ask questions about their data.

It works quite simply: if you have a question about your data in Mixpanel, you can just ask it in plain English. You might want to know, “Which market was responsible for website traffic yesterday?” or “How did a particular cohort of users respond to a message or push notification?” Spark will build the right report to get you the right answer, complete with the corresponding chart.

This works for any user of any type across an organisation. For example, a financial services app that has just launched a new ‘tap to pay’ feature and a nontechnical user wants to find out the performance of the feature amongst different user cohorts. With Spark, you can now get a quick answer by asking, “Which group of users have used ‘tap to pay’ the most in the last week?” And the AI would understand the question and build the query in the platform to generate a report.

Similarly, a marketer could ask a question regarding trends related to advertising periods and compare it with money spent on advertisements to understand if a campaign had been driving users to a website or had affected the use of an app. A salesperson could use AI to see revenue changes over time or understand if users were making it through the cart or abandoning it early.

Also Read: Saison Capital, Mixpanel team up to launch a product manager peer-support community

This is all very important for us at Mixpanel because we’re working hard to allow companies to understand the impact of their actions on the user experience throughout that user’s entire journey with the company. It’s becoming possible to use Mixpanel to measure how users engage with ads quickly, the actions they take in the product, and how they respond to messages.

Making this linkage for the complete understanding of the full user journey means companies can understand how their actions, like building a new feature, impact bottom-line revenues. Our vision sees every function in a company having this same view so teams can easily understand and focus on what’s working — generative AI accelerates this transition.

But this is just the start of the journey. Large Language Models (LLMs) will continue to evolve and impact analytics for years to come, and we’re excited about the potential of the technology for our users and how anyone can build better products.

Can you share specific examples of how AI has been integrated into your workforce to streamline operations or drive innovation?

At Mixpanel, we initially focused on integrating OpenAI’s enterprise model into the Mixpanel analytics tool. It helps users ask questions about their data more easily and quickly by asking the AI to build a query in Mixpanel. Mixpanel has always been easy to use and has never required complex coding, but AI takes this UI and ease of use to the next level.

What challenges or concerns did you encounter when implementing AI technologies within your organisation, and how did you address them?

Mixpanel is trusted by many of the world’s most exciting companies to look after their data. We take this responsibility extremely seriously, so we knew we needed an enterprise LLM and an initial use case for AI where we didn’t need to expose any customer data.

That’s why we’ve focused on natural language chat for analytics query building. It pushes our vision of ‘analytics for everyone’ forward by making Mixpanel even easier to use, but we don’t share any customer data.

We also needed to ensure the AI’s work could be easily verified. To achieve this, we allow users to review the query the AI has built, so they can be sure the chart it generated answers the right question. Generative AI is still developing, and it is crucial to ensure humans can review its work.

How do you ensure transparency and uphold ethical considerations in using AI technologies within your organisation to mitigate privacy concerns?

After testing a variety of LLMs, we opted to integrate OpenAI LP’s GPT-3.5 Turbo Large Language Model, a technology similar to ChatGPT, which is capable of humanlike speech and understanding, to allow its users to “chat” by simply asking a question and the AI does the work for them.

A lot has been said about the risks associated with the technology, which was an integral consideration in our decision. OpenAI LP’s GPT-3.5 Turbo is an enterprise model, so our users will not need to contribute their data to the LLM, and it will only be used to increase the speed and reduce the effort of building queries. In essence, Mixpanel analyses the underlying data, not the LLM. The LLM makes it easier to ask questions with Mixpanel.

We’ve also made transparency central to Spark. As a guiding principle, any generative AI feature we deploy in Mixpanel will be able to “show its work,” which means you’ll always be able to check for yourself exactly how analysis or other content is being generated. For example, when Spark builds a report, it’ll be viewable and editable like any other report, meaning you can go into its query builder view and see details like what events are being used.

Also Read: AI tools enhance efficiency but can never replace human creativity: Gia Ngo of Give.Asia

How do you ensure that AI technologies complement your workforce’s existing skills and expertise rather than replacing or displacing human workers?

While there are reasonable fears that technology will ultimately replace humans, I think it is often overstated and misplaced. Yes, some organisations have focused on automating specific roles once occupied by a human, but I think many of these decisions will only lead to short-term productivity gains. Those who just deploy the technology to displace or replace workers will neglect the real value and transformation that this technology can bring.

For me, the real value for businesses lies in how humans and AI will enhance each other’s strengths — the speed and scalability that AI brings, coupled with the communication, teamwork, creativity, and social skills of humans. The value is in how we as humans can collaborate with technology – how we can enhance what these machines are capable of and how those machines can augment what we do best.

Our use case is a good example. The AI does the manual element of query building, but the creative quality of the human knows the right question to ask of the company’s data.

How do you envision the future collaboration between humans and AI? What role do you see AI playing in augmenting human capabilities?

We’re going through a time when most people and organisations are consuming ‘off-the-shelf’ models and getting to grips with what these models are capable of. However, the biggest value will come when businesses and users begin customising and fine-tuning these models to address unique and specific needs.

While we’ve focused mostly on helping speed up existing workflows, the possibilities for what more customised use cases of AI can bring for human capabilities are endless, from scalability to improving decision-making to personalisation. This is already beginning to take shape, but we have a long way to go.

For example, in the future, companies might be able to use data insights from Mixpanel about different cohorts of customers to personalise the messages, images or content they display to users. Mixpanel can provide user insight, and generative AI could work with that to curate the right experience for that user. It’s an exciting future.

What advice would you give to other company founders looking to leverage AI in their workforce?

Exploring AI is not just a nice-to-have — it’s a must. Generative AI, in particular, opens up a new world of possibilities, and the technical and economic requirements are not prohibitive. The downside of not doing anything is quickly becoming that you will just fall behind competitors. However, it is important to balance this need with assessing requirements around data privacy, IP protection, security, and governance to ensure risk is well managed.

The other thing I would say is that generative AI is almost purpose-built for this community, particularly for new founders and entrepreneurs. Not just because of the limited barrier to adoption but more so about how it allows you to rapidly build, test new prototypes, test new concepts, and continually iterate at speed, which is something, particularly in software, that we’ve never had. Teams really need to be considering how generative AI can augment their own capabilities.

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Staying competitive in an ever-evolving business and economic environment is no easy feat. As businesses rapidly digitalise to ensure their strategies remain up to date, the growth of the digital economy will only continue to accelerate.

While advanced technologies such as generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) are creating limitless opportunities for brands to either excite or disappoint their customers, trust continues to be a critical factor that brands must navigate in the digital economy.

To better understand the current and future impacts of the digital economy on consumers and businesses, Adobe surveyed 13,000 consumers and 4,250 customer experience and marketing professionals globally, including respondents from Southeast Asia (SEA) across Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Unsurprisingly, Adobe’s latest Future of Digital Experiences (DX) report found the digital economy playing an increasingly prevalent and empowering role in most consumers’ lives. 60 per cent of SEA consumers say the digital economy plays a role in their lives, with 37 per cent saying it plays a significant role. Additionally, 27 per cent of SEA consumers, compared to 18 per cent globally, say that “the digital economy IS the economy.”

The sea of data and technology companies in the market today also resulted in over half of SEA consumers (58 per cent) expecting more personalised experiences that are tailored to their unique likes and needs. Against this backdrop, what are the opportunities present in the digital economy today, and how can brands lead the next wave of new and innovative digital experiences?

Fuelling possibilities with generative AI

The economic potential of generative AI serves as a hotbed of opportunities for businesses and consumers alike. In the new era of AI, generative AI is poised to be an important accelerant of the digital economy and serve as an enabler for increased productivity—unlocking immense value across roles and industries.

Also Read: Adobe Firefly aims to unlock AI’s potential for effortless design

And while consumers become increasingly aware of new technologies and expect far more from their interactions with brands, the good news is that SEA brands are already turning to generative AI for assistance with workload, creativity, and customer reach.

About nine in 10 SEA marketing and customer experience professionals believe generative AI will help increase their work volume (93 per cent) and create better content (89 per cent), enhance their creativity (92 per cent), and help reach more of the right customers (88 per cent).

The recent launch of Singapore’s AI Verify Foundation promises sustainable advancement in generative AI technologies. Alongside continued innovation among private and public entities, generative AI is poised to reshape the digital economy and push the boundaries of innovation.

With nine in 10 SEA consumers expecting to view products through virtual or augmented reality and 86 per cent wanting brands to provide new ways to engage in immersive and virtual worlds, SEA brands are ramping up to bring more innovative digital experiences to customers. This includes the ability to build virtual products and convert them into physical items (84 per cent), VIP access to virtual influencers and celebrities (84 per cent), and more.

The future of shopping is digital

Where many consumers consider digital experiences as the future, it is also telling that 73 per cent of SEA consumers indicate their preference for online shopping in the next two years—signalling a clear need for brands to ensure their omnichannel shopping experiences stack up.

As brands increasingly look to generative AI and immersive experiences as differentiating factors, the right customer journey maps and supporting tools must be in place. More than just leveraging the latest technology and trends, delivering an immersive customer experience requires a holistic approach across every step of the customer journey.

Also Read: Why the future of work at Adobe is hybrid and how we are building it

More than ever before, cross-channel customer analytics solutions are crucial in providing brands with insights to create incredible real-time experiences at scale. With an effective content supply chain that is backed by the right technological tools, businesses can more effectively deliver on their immersion initiatives.

Trust is the cornerstone of a digital-first economy

Trust is paramount in the digital economy, especially when customer expectations are heightened during uncertainty. Adobe’s report finds that SEA consumers place an outsized premium on trust in a challenging economy, where 36 per cent rank trust as the most important factor impacting their buying decisions, ahead of price and relevance.

In pushing the envelope of their digital-first strategy, brands must also strive to scale up trust in the digital economy. While harnessing the power of generative AI and data analytics solutions provides the foundation for unlocking exceptional customer experiences, delivering relevant content at the ‘right time’ is crucial for trust.

Nearly every customer experience is now touched by digital in some way. Embracing digital technologies—whether customer-facing or behind the scenes—will enable brands to meet customers where they are with memorable experiences today and be prepared to offer even more immersive experiences in the future.

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Image credit: Adobe Firefly

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