Whether a consumer, patient or product end user, engaging with customer service can sometimes feel daunting. From the other side, agents know they need to provide the right answers, quickly. TaskUs, a leader in outsourced digital services and next-generation customer experiences (CX), uses cutting-edge technology to help increase the efficiency of its frontline employees and ensure high customer satisfaction.

The company’s been working in AI for more than a decade and recently introduced TaskGPT, a proprietary GenAI platform. It provides a centralized product entitlement, multiple LLM support, PII masking and replacement, cost tracking, and observability, making it easier for its clients to select the best product for their customer support needs.

At first, TaskUs engineering teams managed large-scale datasets with embeddings stored in flat files, using Python for cosine similarity and similar searches. This initial approach worked well; however, as demand for TaskGPT’s offerings grew, the team needed a more robust vector database technology to meet increased demand with minimal latency.

That’s where Pinecone comes in.

TaskGPT’s modular architecture allows for customization and scalability, catering to diverse clients that can deploy web-based, Chrome extensions or marketplace solutions leveraging the platform. These solutions include AssistAI, a secure AI assistant trained only on client data, training materials, and historical interactions, and Prompto, a self-learning assistant offering suggestions and recommendations to support chat interactions.

Through Amazon Bedrock, TaskGPT uses a variety of LLMs and GenAI foundation models, tailored to different client needs and use cases. TaskUs selected Pinecone as the vector database solution for the TaskGPT platform to enable semantic searches and Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) for AssistAI, and client-based recommendations and suggestions via Prompto.

Instead of building a chatbot from scratch, TaskUs uses a proprietary module called "ChatBoTify" that ingests a client’s knowledge base, documents, and help center through an API. This module organizes the information into manageable chunks and creates embeddings using OpenAI Ada, Gecko, or Cohere as the case may be.

The team stores the chunks in a S3 bucket, and the vectors, along with metadata like the document name, are stored in Pinecone. Additionally, Pinecone namespaces secure the clients’ information while accessing different environments. Within seconds, an AssistAI bot is created using a proprietary RAG based solution, enabling the TaskUs’ support teammate to access the fintech client’s knowledge.

Similarly, Prompto provides TaskUs’ support teammates suggestions and recommendations using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and intent mapping to match each of the fintech’s customer query with a bank of responses stored in Pinecone.

For example, if a customer encounters an issue such as an incorrect transaction record, Prompto suggests an appropriate response and offers to investigate the transaction's status. The AI system would also provide other account recommendations using semantic search.

Transforming the customer service landscape

Manish Pandya, SVP of Digital, leads a team of experts driving this type of digital innovation at TaskUs. Their agile approach identifies opportunities, develops tailored products, and delivers outcomes for some of the world’s most innovative brands.

With a focus on people, they build products and technologies to enhance efficiency and agility, ensuring frontline teammates have access to essential resources and can deliver excellent service. This approach, as well as a commitment to always improving, keeps TaskUs at the forefront of digital transformation and GenAI.

“Partnering with Pinecone empowers us to refine our GenAI capabilities, ensuring that our teammates have the necessary tools to excel,” Pandya explains. ‘We optimize response times, enhance customer interactions, and foster a culture of efficiency and accuracy within our contact center thanks to Pinecone’s low-latency retrieval." - Manish Pandya, SVP of Digital Transformation, TaskUs

TaskUs has enhanced its customer experience through the partnership with Pinecone by empowering customer support teammates to provide even faster and more precise responses to customers’ queries via TaskGPT. Results include:

• Meeting new demands: Pinecone enables TaskUs to handle millions of vectors simultaneously, acting as a long-term memory needed for scalability and the growing demand for TaskGPT offerings across different cloud providers.
• Accessing easiest-to-use technology: Pinecone’s fully-managed solution helps TaskUs’ frontline employees to focus on providing a better customer experience without the burdens of maintaining data infrastructure.
• Reducing Average Handle Time (AHT): Semantic search and retrieval of information on Pinecone has resulted in a 20% reduction in AHT for voice calls, and a 10% reduction for chat interactions, leading to improved teammates productivity and customer service efficiency.
• Increasing Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): CSAT scores have increased by 5%, reflecting improved service quality and responsiveness achieved with the TaskGPT platform.

"Pinecone has transformed our customer service operations, enabling us to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and customer satisfaction. We are prioritizing its serverless architecture to support our diverse portfolio of AI products across multiple regions. With our scale and ambitions, Pinecone is an integral component of our TaskGPT platform.” - Manish Pandya, SVP of Digital Transformation, TaskUs

Looking ahead, TaskUs plans to explore new avenues such as image recognition, anomaly detection, and further advancements in natural language with support from Pinecone. The team also plans to use Pinecone serverless architecture to support their diverse portfolio of AI products across different regions.

Pandya says, “My team's commitment to success is evident. We've integrated a feedback mechanism into the TaskGPT platform, consistently receiving positive responses. This fosters a sense of accomplishment among our team of over 40,000 members, driving us to remain at the forefront of innovation."