11x.ai raises $50M to drive Conversational AI agents into enterprise
11x is one to keep an eye on.
I've been doing so for a little while. Cracking the "agentic" or "agent" concept sufficiently to be able to sell digital workers to companies could unlock a heck of a lot of revenue potential.
Equally, there's quite a gulf between what you and I understand from the term Digital Worker and the term 'autonomous agent'.
At its most basic, an autonomous agent could technically consist of 80 lines of Python code, quite a lot of ChatGPT API calls and some Zapier webhooks. We see a lot of that at the moment. So getting toward – or even near the idea of a 'Digital Worker' is focusing a lot of minds in the industry, not least those at 11x.ai.
The 11x team are offering two digital workers right now - Alice, a Sales Development Representative ("SDR") and Jordan an AI Phone Agent.
Here's an example screenshot of Alice and Jordan at work:
When it comes to Golden Path customers - that is, customers who naturally follow the perfect path, this could be really helpful. The customer visits the website, they register, give their details, your Digital Workers then send them some automated follow-ups. The customer asks a few easy questions that Alice answers. Jordan throws them a few phone call follow-ups – and because it's a perfect path, a call is scheduled and your human can close the sale effortlessly.
I can see this working really nicely. The question in my mind is what happens when it's not Golden Path.
I would recommend reading the 11x manifesto. It makes for inspirational reading. I like the thinking, I like the energy, I like the belief and enthusiasm.
Try this on for the beginning of a manifesto...
I like that energy! It continues...
The world drowns in incremental, useless software. Every company is burdened with dozens of tools that create more problems than they solve. Knowledge workers are reduced to data entry robots. Salespeople are shackled to mechanical tasks instead of building real relationships—72% of a sales team's time is spent on non-selling activities. This is a disaster.
You can't disagree with this. Think of any knowledge worker you know. How much of their time is spent doing knowledge things? Much of the time, they are reduced to human meat sacks bashing keyboards and clicking on dialogue boxes.
We don't build software. We build digital workers.
We don't sell tools. We deliver outcomes.
We're turning code into labor.
There are some interesting case study quotes on the site – alas there's no detail yet as I was keen to double-click to find out more.
There was an option to get Jordan to call me....
So I gave it my number and a moment later, I got a call from Jordan.
It was good. There was a little gapping – that is, some silence while the processing was happening – but it was amongst the best I've heard. He was breathing. He used different intonation. He was conversational. He reacted to what I was saying. He was friendly.
He asked if I wanted a demo. I suggested that might not be an effective use of his colleagues' time given I was writing an article. He accepted that gracefully and wished me good luck with my writing. I would go so far as to say that he came across as compelling. Try it yourself via their website. This technology will only get better and better - so I can see the promise of this.
Keep an eye on 11x! Good luck team.
If you're looking for some contacts at 11x, you might start with the Founder & CEO Hasan Sukkar:
Or you might try the company's Partnership Manager Guillaume Roux-Romestaing:
Guillaume Roux-Romestaing
