Slang.ai Is Helping Restaurants Answer the Call

Running a brick-and-mortar business has always been a juggling act. From managing inventory and payroll to maintaining equipment and ensuring stellar customer service, small businesses operate on tight margins and even tighter schedules. The phone—once a lifeline for connecting with customers—has increasingly become a source of frustration. Phone calls interrupt crucial tasks, stretch staff resources, and, when unanswered, risk alienating customers. Restaurants, in particular, bear the brunt of this pain, with 70% of their customers still opting to call for reservations despite the availability of online booking platforms like OpenTable and Resy. Slang.ai, a company determined to transform the humble phone call from a headache into a seamless, revenue-driving asset.

The co-founders of Slang.ai, Alex Sambvani and Gabriel Duncan, are no strangers to innovation. While working at Spotify as data scientists, they specialized in using AI to scale personalized experiences. Their journey began with a Spotify hackathon, where they created a personality-driven voice AI prototype that won the competition. This experience planted the seeds for Slang.ai. But the true “aha moment” came later, when Sambvani’s aunt, a hair salon owner, shared her struggles with handling constant phone calls while trying to run her business. Her story resonated, as it illustrated a universal challenge for small businesses: phones ring incessantly, but answering them is rarely the top priority.

“A pivotal moment was when I had lunch with my aunt, who ran a hair salon, and she talked about the challenges of answering phone calls,” Sambvani recalls. “This inspired us to focus on AI for small businesses.”

The pandemic only exacerbated the problem. With reduced staff and increased demand for takeout and reservations, many restaurants chose to ditch their phone lines altogether, a decision that often frustrated loyal customers. Sambvani and Duncan saw an opportunity to bridge this gap with technology.

What Is Slang.ai?

At its core, Slang.ai is a customizable virtual phone agent designed to handle the routine, time-consuming calls that inundate small businesses. Think of it as a digital concierge that not only answers common questions like hours of operation and location but also books or modifies reservations, checks availability, and even manages customer notifications such as “running late” updates. Through integrations with platforms like OpenTable and Resy, Slang.ai enables callers to interact with businesses in a seamless, efficient way.

“Slang acts like a reliable team member that gives accurate responses and helps drive more revenue, giving businesses AI superpowers and empowering them to provide exceptional service to callers and streamline operations in a personalized manner,” Sambvani told TechCrunch.

Unlike many automated systems that frustrate callers with clunky menus or robotic responses, Slang.ai is designed to feel intuitive and natural. Businesses can even choose custom voices and add ambient noise to match the atmosphere of their establishments. For callers, the experience is seamless; for businesses, it’s transformative. Slang handles over half of customer calls, allowing staff to focus on in-person guests and operational tasks.

How It Works

Slang.ai’s Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology is a cornerstone of its success. ASR has historically struggled with diverse accents and dialects, but Slang.ai claims its system understands callers of all ages and backgrounds—a critical feature for businesses serving varied customer bases. If the AI encounters a question it can’t answer, it redirects the call to a human staff member or sends the caller a follow-up text with alternative contact information.

Moreover, Slang.ai goes beyond call handling by offering detailed analytics. Recorded calls and real-time data provide insights into why customers are calling. For instance, businesses can identify trends such as frequent complaints or recurring questions, enabling proactive problem-solving. “Slang provides its clients access to previously unknown data about why customers are calling … [And it] can surface trending reasons why customers are calling and can help operators proactively identify opportunities or issues,” Sambvani explains.

Since coming out of stealth mode in June 2023, Slang.ai has rapidly gained traction. The company boasts over 200 clients, including high-profile names like Slutty Vegan, Palm House Hospitality Group, and Studs. In 2022 alone, Slang’s revenue grew sixfold, a feat that caught the attention of investors. The company has raised $20 million across seed and Series A rounds, with backers including Homebrew, Stage 2 Capital, Wing VC, and notable angel investors such as celebrity chef Tom Colicchio and Adobe Chief Strategy Officer Scott Belsky.

Slang.ai’s ability to quickly onboard customers is one of its key selling points. Unlike traditional enterprise-grade voice solutions that require extensive technical expertise, Slang.ai’s platform is designed for ease of use. Businesses can implement the system in as little as 30 minutes, with no need for developers. This simplicity has been a game-changer for clients like Studs, which saw a 15% reduction in customer service tickets and converted 30% of inbound calls into new appointments.

“Slang has been a game changer for our customer service team’s resolution time and changed the way the team works internally. Although Slang was originally intended to be a customer service ticket solution, it has actually turned out to be a customer conversion unlock,” said Jane Hur, Director of Product at Studs.

The Bigger Picture

The phone remains an underutilized but rich channel for customer intelligence. Despite advancements in digital communication, a staggering 60% of consumers still prefer to contact businesses by phone. For restaurants alone, this figure jumps to 70%. Slang.ai aims to turn this preference into a strategic advantage. By automating routine calls and surfacing actionable insights, the company is positioning itself as the “customer intelligence layer for the phone.”

The potential market is enormous. SMBs in the U.S. receive over 400 million calls a day, yet many lack the tools to handle them effectively. With over 1 million brick-and-mortar retail businesses and 650,000 restaurants nationwide, Slang.ai sees a $20 billion opportunity in voice and speech recognition technology.

Slang.ai’s ambitions extend far beyond its current footprint. The company is actively expanding its go-to-market team and developing partnerships across the restaurant, retail, and e-commerce industries. By the end of 2024, Slang.ai plans to double its headcount and roll out new integrations designed to further streamline operations for its clients.

Looking ahead, Sambvani and Duncan envision a future where Slang.ai saves businesses and consumers 1 billion minutes of time by 2030. “By transforming branded voice experiences into a preferred mode of communication, we hope to make the phone a channel businesses and customers actually enjoy using again,” says Sambvani. By solving a real, often-overlooked pain point for small businesses, the company is proving that AI doesn’t need to be flashy or complicated to make a meaningful impact.