AI company founded by a Pakistani valued at $1.6 billion

Afiniti, an artificial intelligence company, is based in Washington DC but is rooted in Pakistan through its founder and CEO Zia Chisti.

Founded in 2006, Afiniti uses AI to help companies become efficient. They pair customers with employees by predicting interpersonal behaviour. The company recently came into the spotlight after it filed for an IPO. Previously, it lay low; instead of PR, it amassed customers.

According to VentureBeat, Afiniti is valued at $1.6 billion. When VentureBeat spoke to Chisti, he said he couldn’t comment on the company’s financials. According to sources, Afiniti will start making a profit in fiscal year-2018 and its revenues are said to be growing at a 100 per cent rate.

Chisti is an accomplished entrepreneur. He was previously co-founder and CEO of Align Technology, a company which is currently valued at almost $10 billion.

Afiniti’s board features veterans in the field. Chishti has gathered names like former Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenfeld, former US Treasury secretary John Snow, and former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar. The company has also raised more than $100 million in funding.

Afiniti claims companies that use their technology for revenue generation see an average revenue lift of four to six per cent. Afiniti’s confidence in their claims can be seen from the fact that they operate on margins –  instead of paying a fixed fee, clients pay a percentage of additional revenue they make through Afiniti.

According to Afiniti’s website, T-Mobile has earned an additional $70 million in funding by using Afiniti’s pairing technology.

To make its pairings, Afiniti uses information from up to 100 databases. These databases include information such as income, demography and informational from social networks. So, when a customer calls into a call centre, their phone number is run through these databases. The call is then transferred to an agent who is determined to be most effective to handle calls from the customer with those characteristics.

“It’s a little overwhelming, sometimes scary, to know how much information can be accumulated about you,” said Larry Babbio, an Afiniti board member while speaking to The Wall Street Journal. But, he added, the trade-off is a better consumer experience.

In the near future, Afiniti wants to use its technology in the retail world. Chishti hopes the AI systems he is developing will help create jobs and not destroy them. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal he said: “We are one of the examples of AI tending to increase the efficiency of humans, and therefore increase the demand for human capital.”