Artificial Intelligence Brings $ 20 Million in Returns for CloudWalk

São Paulo, March 2024 – The use of Artificial Intelligence generated around $ 20 million in savings for CloudWalk Inc., the owner of the InfinitePay financial services platform, in 2023. This figure was shared by Luis Silva, CEO and founder of CloudWalk, during his speech at the South Summit Brazil on March 21. The savings were calculated based on the volume of service requests handled by AI-based systems and the efficiency gained through time and cost reductions. Overall, these tools accounted for 75% of the total service requests handled by InfinitePay in 2023—approximately 2.6 million requests—which would have required an additional 1,100 staff members to handle.

“CloudWalk was founded 10 years ago, and we were already using Artificial Intelligence in our financial transaction platform. With the popularization of generative AI, we also adopted this technology at the forefront, serving more than 1.2 million InfinitePay customers,” states Luis Silva, CEO and founder of CloudWalk. “We found that most entrepreneurs had questions that could be answered automatically, provided it was done with an additional layer of intelligence. To achieve this, we had our best service professionals train the AI agents.”

The result of this combination between humans and artificial intelligence was a tremendous gain in efficiency. Today, an AI assistant handles the first client interaction immediately, while the queue for human assistance is just over a minute. The resolution (or case closure) is also faster. On average, clients assisted by "Claudio Walker," the AI agent’s name, complete their service requests in seven minutes, while a human analyst takes 22 minutes. The efficiency gain was also aligned with improved service quality: cases handled by “Claudio” have an average satisfaction level of 68%, similar to the human service rate of 67%.

An Ally of People

The adoption of Artificial Intelligence at CloudWalk did not result in any reduction of the workforce. On the contrary, the fintech intensified its search for technology professionals specialized in AI. A study conducted by Sling Hub using LinkedIn data between January 2022 and January 2024 shows that CloudWalk was one of the four Brazilian unicorns that grew the most in headcount during the period, with a 50% increase in employees. Currently, there are just over 530 professionals working in around 15 different countries.

“While we experienced the so-called startup winter, during which many companies unfortunately had to make significant staff cuts, CloudWalk continued hiring responsibly,” says Luis. “We intensified our search for professionals with practical knowledge in Artificial Intelligence while adopting generative AI across all areas of the company. Within CloudWalk, all employees are encouraged to learn and use the main solutions available in the market,” he says.

Other AI Initiatives

In addition to the good results in customer service, the adoption of AI solutions at CloudWalk has had an impact on several other areas, such as digital security, credit underwriting, product development, communication, and even human resources. In November 2023, the company was identified in the AI: The Coming Revolution study, published by Coatue—a fund with a portfolio of over $250 billion in investments—as the only fintech positioned among the global leaders in artificial intelligence.

Beyond customer service, entrepreneurs using the InfinitePay platform are in constant contact with AI-based technologies. The tool called “Intelligent Credit,” which uses an AI system, takes into account more than 1,000 indicators to approve a loan in real-time. In 2023, over R$ 250 million in credit was distributed through the app. Another highlight is the "Magic POS" tool, which uses technology to "read" menus, catalogs, and spreadsheets from images, automatically creating a product list with their respective prices.

The return on investment in Artificial Intelligence tools had a direct impact on CloudWalk's business, which closed the year 2023 with its first positive result. The fintech achieved a net profit of R$ 108 million and gross revenue of R$ 1.55 billion, a 40% increase compared to 2022. The unicorn also saw its client base grow by almost 204%, reaching more than 1.2 million clients.

“Many companies are starting to use generative AI and are having that first realization that it brings returns to the business. Since we were pioneers, we are one of the first global startups to practically show the figures and numbers of this impact,” concludes Luis.