Dovetail teases virtual customer concept alongside new AI tools

Customer research startup Dovetail has introduced new AI-powered tools as part of its ‘Dovetail 3.0’ release. It has also hinted at its plan for a virtual AI customer in 2025.

These developments come during a challenging period for the company. CEO and co-founder Benjamin Humphrey is facing a Federal Court human rights claim filed by senior legal counsel Bethany Lo Russo, relating to a past personal relationship. 

“The matter relates to a historic personal relationship between the two parties that ended years ago. It was disclosed at the time to the company, including the board, investors, and senior management,” Dovetail said in a statement.

“Dovetail and Mr Humphrey will be defending the proceedings. Because the matter is subject to a court process, it is not appropriate to comment further.”

New AI tools streamline customer insights

Dovetail has launched a suite of AI-first products under the banner of Dovetail 3.0. The tools –  named Channels, Ask Dovetail, and Magic – are designed to help organisations analyse unstructured customer data like app reviews, support tickets, and NPS scores. 

This is one of the first big announcements from the company since an $87 million funding round in 2022.

Using AI, the tools identify patterns and trends in real-time, providing actionable insights so businesses can make informed product decisions.

These tools are supported by Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Bedrock platform, which provides secure access to foundational models like Anthropic’s Claude 3.5. 

“Compliance is kind of like a tricky thing to get the balance right… That’s where Amazon’s been quite good. We can have multi-region deployment,” Humphrey told SmartCompany.

He pointed to companies such as Canva as an example because they deal with hundreds or thousands of reviews on the App Store and Google Play.

According to Humphrey, Channels helps teams “make sense of that unstructured data and prioritise what matters”.

Another product, Ask Dovetail, enables teams to query their datasets in natural language and receive actionable insights. 

Perhaps its most interesting feature is one that generates podcasts from research data, giving organisations a way to regularly share insights across teams. 

“You can generate a podcast, a regular podcast episode, based on a query,” Humphrey said.

 “You could say, ‘Keep me up to date on what the friction points are around pricing.’ Dovetail will generate your podcast episode every week or every month and post it in a Slack channel,” Humphrey said.

The podcast feature uses AI-generated voices to narrate updates, adding accessibility for teams that may not have the time to sift through traditional reports. 

“The voice welcomes guests onto the podcast, and the guests are your actual customers. It’s their voices – highlights from their video calls,” Humphrey said.

Dovetail has a virtual AI customer in the works

Dovetail is also developing a tool that could change how organisations interact with customer insights: an AI-powered virtual customer. 

Earmarked to debut in 2025, the tool will use AI to simulate customer personas in real-time. 

These virtual customers could be invited into meetings to answer questions, role-play specific personas, or provide insights based on live feedback data.

“It reduces the distance between you and your customer to zero,” Humphrey said. 

Humphrey explained the project aims to help teams engage more effectively with customer perspectives. The idea is for the tool to give businesses a new way to integrate customer feedback into their decision-making processes.

“It actually leverages this compounding data set of knowledge for teams to make better decisions,” Humphrey said.

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