Tata Communications begins focus on Conversational AI with Kaleyra AI
Just over a year ago, Tata Communications completed its $100M acquisition of Kaleyra, a Conversational AI platform vendor.
Last month, the company began talking publicly about Kaleyra AI. Visit the Kalerya.com website and you'll find a little banner at the top of the homepage thus:
For the longest time I've been suggesting that many Conversational AI vendors – the ones you and I tend to refer to when we're doing beauty parades, for example – should give strong consideration to how to compete with the behemoths likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft (and now Tata - to name but a few).
It's an unpleasant reality for many of the Private Equity teams I have been advising on Conversational AI. My key question: Is the company you're about to buy for X hundred million a feature or a platform?
Think really, really carefully if it's a feature. Because it'll be integrated into the offerings of the big players.
And what's more, customer behaviour will drive this. As CIO (for example) I want one contract, not a dozen. I want one point-of-contact. I want everything integrated easily, as much as possible. And, I want economies of scale (both ways).
So, enter Tata Communications with Kaleyra AI:
The details on the Tata Communications website are par for the course. Indeed, I'd go so far as to suggest that hardly any executive will visit that website.
A few will be looking at Kaleyra AI's homepage, yes... but the majority - 99.999% of executives will be discovering Kaleyra AI from a conversation with their Tata Communications sales chap or more likely, "business partner".
Flip through the Kaleyra.com website and you'll see the familiar noises and details you expect from any Conversational AI vendor.
Only, I'd imagine the team spent the last year thinking about how they're going to integrate their services and deliver at scale to many of Tata's biggest customers.
Look at the language in this LinkedIn announcement to get an idea on their approach and focus:
With Kaleyra AI, enterprises can gain access to cutting-edge capabilities like
✔ GenAI Template Generator for WhatsApp
✔ Conversational AI Data Reporting
✔ Conversational AI No-Code Builder
From creating personalised customer experiences to delivering instant insights through natural language queries, Kaleyra AI represents the next frontier in enterprise communication.
Let's be clear: Just like many of their mega-scale competitors, Tata is everywhere already. They've already been working with each of your 2025 top target customers for the last 10+ years.
And right now, they're walking into these target offices and setting up (free) proof of concept tests and readying the variation addendums to their existing master service agreements.
So, watch this space. It's going to be fascinating to see how Kaleyra AI competes at Tata scale across the market. Good luck all.
If you're keen to find out more about Kaleyra AI, you might consider reaching out Mauro Carobene on LinkedIn. Mauro was (is) CEO of Kaleyra AI prior to its acquisition and is now Vice President of Tata Communication' Customer Interactions Suite of Services:
Mauro Carobene
