SendBird adds voice and video to popular chat API

SendBird has built a highly successful business with a chat API, but the company never intended to stop there, and today it announced it was adding voice and video capabilities to its communications platform.

“We’re creating more of an interaction platform to allow not just text messaging, but also voice calling and video recording capabilities on top of our platform. So it becomes a more comprehensive offering,” CEO and co-founder John Kim told TechCrunch.

The new tools are built on an IP-based delivery system, so it doesn’t touch telephony, according to Kim. That should help give it some differentiation from another popular communications platform, Twilio.

Kim says that his company is currently number one in the chat API space, delivering 100 million interactions per month. This involves primarily powering chat in on-demand services like ride hailing and food delivery, and also online marketplaces and communities. More recently, Kim says he is seeing an uptick in digital health applications, something that is bound to continue as telehealth options abound as a practical way to get medical advice during the COVID-19 crisis.

Adding voice and video will definitely add to the resources required to deliver these services, but Kim says they have built the platform to handle it. “One of the things that clearly differentiate us from the rest of the market was our ability to scale. So we haven’t had any issues from the technical side of things with the increasing demand,” he said.

The company plans to bill for these services by the minute, which Kim says is an industry best practice for voice and video. SendBird lets developers add these capabilities with just a couple of lines of code, offering a similar value proposition to companies like Plaid (recently sold to MasterCard), Twilio and Stripe. It saves developers from having to build these capabilities themselves.

The company was founded in 2013, and was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2016 cohort. The company has over 200 employees today and has raised over $120 million, according to PitchBook data. Pitchbook pegged the company’s valuation at more than $287 million as of last May when it announced a $50 million Series B extension that brought the total Series B to $102 million.

SendBird snags additional $50M for messaging API tool, as it extends Series B to $102M

from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/3akibcB
via IFTTT

Apple’s AI Push: Everything We Know About Apple Intelligence So Far

Apple’s WWDC 2025 confirmed what many suspected: Apple is finally making a serious leap into artificial intelligence. Dubbed “Apple Intelligence,” the suite of AI-powered tools, enhancements, and integrations marks the company’s biggest software evolution in a decade. But unlike competitors racing to plug AI into everything, Apple is taking a slower, more deliberate approach — one rooted in privacy, on-device processing, and ecosystem synergy. If you’re wondering what Apple Intelligence actually is, how it works, and what it means for your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you’re in the right place. This article breaks it all down. What Is Apple Intelligence? Let’s get the terminology clear first. Apple Intelligence isn’t a product — it’s a platform. It’s not just a chatbot. It’s a system-wide integration of generative AI, machine learning, and personal context awareness, embedded across Apple’s OS platforms. Think of it as a foundational AI layer stitched into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and m...

The Silent Revolution of On-Device AI: Why the Cloud Is No Longer King

Introduction For years, artificial intelligence has meant one thing: the cloud. Whether you’re asking ChatGPT a question, editing a photo with AI tools, or getting recommendations on Netflix — those decisions happen on distant servers, not your device. But that’s changing. Thanks to major advances in silicon, model compression, and memory architecture, AI is quietly migrating from giant data centres to the palm of your hand. Your phone, your laptop, your smartwatch — all are becoming AI engines in their own right. It’s a shift that redefines not just how AI works, but who controls it, how private it is, and what it can do for you. This article explores the rise of on-device AI — how it works, why it matters, and why the cloud’s days as the centre of the AI universe might be numbered. What Is On-Device AI? On-device AI refers to machine learning models that run locally on your smartphone, tablet, laptop, or edge device — without needing constant access to the cloud. In practi...

Max Q: Psyche(d)

In this issue: SpaceX launches NASA asteroid mission, news from Relativity Space and more. © 2023 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only. from TechCrunch https://ift.tt/h6Kjrde via IFTTT

Best Tech News Site

Search This Blog