Surveys have become an integral part of many aspects of our lives, but most of them are tedious, leading to ineffective responses and actions. Dingan Sen and Yuan Xuetwo software engineers working in Silicon Valley recognized an opportunity to leverage the discoveries that large language models bring to make research more intuitive and engaging.
About six months ago, Shen and Xue, who had been friends since high school, started Trove AI, a SaaS platform that allows users to create questionnaires supported by GPT-4 and its own enhanced models. The idea has already received support. Zayd Enam and Tim Shi, co-founders of Shen’s former employer, a16z-backed Cresta unicorn empowering contact center agents with artificial intelligence, invested an undisclosed amount in the startup’s seed funding.
The first version of Trove, launched six weeks ago, has gathered more than 1,000 users, who are mostly small and medium-sized businesses from around the world. “Dozens” have sent inquiries at least twice since then. While remaining free to use, the platform has attracted a wide range of users, including a London-based spa, a K-12 school in Boston, and a Latin American-focused travel agency.
Applying chat AI to surveys seems like a low-hanging fruit in this era of ChatGPT frenzy. Enterprise-focused survey giant Qualdrics has embraced AI across its customer and employee feedback product line. SurveyMonkey, the survey provider for SMBs, is using AI to automate the creation process.
To differentiate itself, Trove aims to eventually become a “customer and employee experience management platform” for companies of all sizes, Shen said. The product is essentially experience management around customers, employees, products and more. Following OpenAI’s recent management saga that briefly halted its chatbot service, ChatGPT-based apps, or “wrapper products,” are rethinking their heavy reliance on third-party APIs.
“We are 80% SaaS and 20% AI,” Shen told TechCrunch in an interview. As such, he reckoned that Trove offers plenty of value beyond its OpenAI-powered features. “We aim to do everything from survey creation, response, analysis, ticket generation to CRM integration… It’s an AI-powered feedback loop.”
CRM integration, in particular, would allow Trove to create highly customized surveys in which the system can create a ticket automatically and send a personalized follow-up email to thank the customer for providing feedback.
“Essentially, we’re rethinking experience management workflows from the ground up within the capabilities of today’s big language models,” said the founder.
