ShareChat, the social sharing platform that caters to customers throughout 15 Indian languages, is leaning on synthetic intelligence (AI) primarily based options to broaden its consumer base among the many non- English talking inhabitants. No surprise that the corporate received on the radar of the large weapons like Google, which reportedly sought an acquisition.
The firm, which discovered itself in a great house following the federal authorities’s ban on Chinese brand TikTok earlier this yr, believes that it’s ideally positioned to ship options to the second era of web customers within the nation. “This is the generation that got on to the web when data became affordable and are largely non-English speaking,” says Debdoot Mukherjee, ShareChat’s vp, who manages their knowledge science staff and AI initiatives.
Mukherjee feels that this second era of web customers have wants that are not the identical as these of the primary era. Over the previous twenty years, web customers’ wants had been totally met by the platforms created within the West, as a result of their wants had been the identical. “However, the new users, largely from the rural base, have different tastes in terms of content and their needs from the internet are different,” he says in a chat with us.
And, that is what has propelled the expansion of India-specific services corresponding to ShareChat, which presently boasts of near 200 million customers and a valuation in extra of $1 billion. The cellular utility provides options corresponding to non-public messaging, tagging, private messaging, sharing of movies, jokes and songs primarily based on one’s most well-liked language.
The post-lockdown progress
A few months after the Covid-19 lockdown struck and web utilization spiked, the corporate launched a brief video app known as Moj which generated 80 million MAUs. Users spent a median 34 minutes on the platform that had greater than 50 million downloads on Play Store. Moj can be obtainable in all of the vernacular languages that ShareChat operates in, viz., Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia, Tamil, Telugu, Haryanvi, Rajasthani, and Urdu amongst others.
ShareChat’s holding firm, Mohalla Tech Private Limited, had performed it sensible by buying not one however 4 corporations final yr throughout domains corresponding to short-video sharing, trend, meme discovery and hyperlocal knowledge. The firm used the $100 million it raised in a Series D funding in August 2019 that was led by Twitter and took part in by SAIF Capital, India Quotient and so forth. Data with Crunchbase says ShareChat has raised $222.eight million throughout eight rounds to this point.
How the AI works for ShareChat
The firm makes use of AI to profile consumer behaviour to ship participating content material to its consumer base earlier than marrying it with commerce by way of focused promoting. Mukherjee feels that ShareChat and related platforms have solely hit the tip of the iceberg. “To accurately understand the tone and tenor of a video requires a high degree of linguistic nuance. So, we are still work-in-progress,” says Mukherjee.
Imagine a video of somebody narrating a poem. The algorithm ought to be such that it figures out whether or not it’s motivational, humorous or sarcastic or sombre. This is pretty difficult even with the state-of-the-art AI at current. “And at ShareChat, we are seeking to do so in 15 languages, each of which has a different set of linguistic nuance,” he says.
The firm believes within the explore-exploit trade-off whereby it ensures {that a} share of the content material served to customers is round matters that are not explored by them. So, it isn’t at all times about giving individuals extra of what they need, but additionally exploring whether or not they’re open to among the newer stuff. “Because, users too get bored of sharing the same stuff and need change from the filter bubble,” says Mukherjee.
AI can change consumer behaviour too
So, what’s subsequent for ShareChat? The firm is exploring AI choices to marry content material with commerce. The subsequent part would contain exhibiting adverts which are extra contextual and a part of the content material itself. “For example, can I get connected to a doctor or a lawyer who shares content? Or can I shop for the dress that one of the content shares is wearing? Commerce is poised to take the next big leap and we want to be part of this,” Mukherjee says.
Another space the place ShareChat has discovered traction is on the ed-tech entrance, although not within the kind and codecs that the competitors is taking part in out. The firm has noticed byte sized content material corresponding to cheat sheets on matters lined in aggressive exams being shared. Users put it aside for later reference, which makes it very particular and area of interest. “Maybe, there is a game waiting to be played with the long tail of competitive examinations in India, especially since the current ed-tech platforms cater to only the big ones.”
To summarise, ShareChat hopes to unlock its potential by working tougher to grasp the wants of its buyer base, not simply from an leisure and social media perspective, but additionally for constructing options to their mundane challenges. “We aim to be a one-stop-window to service the needs of an India that does not communicate in English,” concludes Mukherjee.
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