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Wharf Life Oct 9-23, 2019 wharf-life.com
by Jon Massey
T
he so-called digital unicorns and challenger banks in Canary Wharf using technology to upset the established pre-digital order in so many sectors would do well to look ust off the north-west corner of the estate. There, nestled in the honeyed brick of Cannon Workshops at the far end of West India Quay, they’ll find reative irtual – a company that lists the likes of HSBC and Lloyds Banking Group as clients and competes with names such as Microsoft on a global stage. Founded by east London-born Isle Of Dogs resident Chris Ezekiel in 2003, the business started trading a year later, expanding steadily to win a five-year ueen’s ward For Innovation in 01 and be named among the Sunday Times Tech Track 100 last year as one of the fastest growing technology companies in the UK. arlier this year, reative irtual was recognised by growth strategy consulting and research firm Frost nd Sullivan, winning its European AI-Enhanced Customer Self-Service roduct eadership Award. Frankly, it would be possible to fill the ma ority of these pages with the company’s accolades and trophies. That’s testament to the hard work of Chris and his team, a man who is both filled with bright-eyed optimism and firmly grounded in the relentless pressures of business. “If I look at all those things, obviously the ueen’s ward is the one that stands out,” he said. “But being called a product leader independently by Frost And Sullivan is ust incredible and we make a big thing about that too. “When I hear people say: ‘You’re a leader in the industry, where is the validation for that ’ – that provides a lot of the backing for that claim.” With a tagline of “the science of conversation reative irtual offers tools and services to businesses and organisations that automate parts of their interactions with customers and employees by combining the talents of humans with artificial intelligence. “We deploy an automated way for a chatbot to answer questions and even have conversations, said Chris. “It can handle all of your account service enquiries, for a bank, for example, in a very natural conversational way. “If it can’t answer a question, it can also seamlessly escalate that enquiry to a person in the contact centre. The system also learns from how the humans then answer the questions. “It’s a unique combination of artificial intelligence and natural
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The number of languages Creative Virtual’s employees support across the globe
Founder and CEO Chris Ezekiel started Creative Virtual in 2003 and has gone on to carve out a leading position in the chatbot and customer service market
how Creative Virtual has built a global empire while staying true to its East End roots
conversation developing the science of
Images by Matt Grayson – find his work at graysonphotos.co.uk or @mattgrayson_photo on Insta