Ishan Agrawal, the previous Group Chief Expertise Officer of SME digital finance platform Funding Societies, has launched into a brand new entrepreneurial journey with the co-founding of Department AI.
With over 7 years of expertise in constructing and scaling Funding Societies from seed stage to Sequence D, Agrawal, alongside co-founders Govind Chandrasekhar and Praveen Sekar, are steering their experience in the direction of constructing Department AI.
Department AI, which has obtained backing from the startup accelerator Y Combinator, goals to simplify and improve the search expertise for e-commerce companies.
The startup leverages superior synthetic intelligence fashions to grasp product catalogs and person intents, automating the method of tuning search relevance.
This innovation guarantees to remodel product searches right into a extra environment friendly and intuitive course of, probably boosting e-commerce conversions considerably.
The core drawback that Department AI addresses stems from the evolving nature of search queries, which have gotten more and more conversational and intent-based, partly as a result of affect of applied sciences like ChatGPT.
Regardless of this shift, many e-commerce platforms proceed to depend on conventional key phrase search engines like google and yahoo, which may end up in missed income alternatives.
Department AI’s resolution gives an easy three-step course of that entails connecting product catalogs, utilising massive language fashions (LLMs) for automated tuning, and offering ready-to-use search APIs that improve conversion charges.
The corporate’s strategy brings quite a few advantages, together with a discount in operational complexity and prices historically related to search tuning.
It additionally guarantees to spice up conversion for long-tail, low-click, and zero-result queries, addressing a standard problem for e-commerce platforms.
Furthermore, the know-how is designed to forestall the degradation of search high quality on account of adjustments in catalog or traits, whereas effortlessly aligning search habits with merchandising wants, enabling a extra personalised buying expertise for customers.

Ishan Agrawal
Ishan mentioned in a LinkedIn put up,
“Taking this leap into entrepreneurship comes with a mix of pleasure, anticipation and admittedly, numerous apprehension. I need to lengthen my heartfelt gratitude to all the buddies, household and mentors, whose encouragement, recommendation, and conviction in my talents through the years have enabled me to take this leap of religion.”
Featured picture credit score: Edited from Freepik