American Express Ventures has invested in Voca.ai, an Israeli startup building AI virtual agents for call centres.
Amex was joined in the funding round by existing investors lool ventures and Flint Capital. Details were not disclosed.
Voca.ai uses conversational AI technology to "build the contact centre of the future", staffed with virtual agents that combine human expertise and AI capabilities.
The startup says that while other virtual agents use speech-to-text, then process text to communicate with customers, its speech-to-intent technology is built for voice to replicate human experience in two-way, intent-based conversation.
The technology can adjust the voice, language, accent, pitch and tone, as well as its responses to provide customers with a "human-like" experience".
Launched last year, Voca Agents already serve more than two million calls a month, with financial institutions, lenders, credit card providers and insurance companies all using the technology.
The latest funding will be used for product development and to bring the virtual agents to new sectors, use cases and languages.