Yuma's AI Chat: A New Era of Customer Support

Today is a big day for Yuma! Please, read-on! ??

708 days ago, ChatGPT was released—and by sheer coincidence, that’s when we unveiled Yuma’s first prototype. Back then, it was "simply" using OpenAI's davinci-3 model. It was rough but thrilling, already packed with potential.

A couple of months before that release, I got very excited about everything AI and saw the enormous, world-changing potential within LLMs. Drawing from my past experience as a small Shopify store owner… I started coding :)

At first, we were a simple co-pilot, helping e-commerce support agents with automated drafts. The traction was immediate, as Yuma became the first app to bring generative AI to merchants’ support tasks. By January 2023, we got into YC W23 and set out to get serious.

However, being a simple co-pilot assistant wasn't enough—it didn't provide sufficient value and felt too much like a "GPT wrapper." So, we kept innovating, exploring how to maximize LLMs usage. By mid-2023, we broke new ground, launching the first truly autonomous AI agents for e-commerce support. Yuma could now autonomously handle full conversations, managing support tickets from start to finish. It dynamically fetched required information from external services and took actions within those services as well! Exactly what a human agent would do!

Then, things picked up: AI Grant recognized us as being on the cutting edge by inviting us to join their 3rd batch, which led to our recent funding announcement of $5M.

But raising money isn't the end game—it's merely a material milestone. Being trendy or at the forefront of technology isn't enough as well. What truly matters is the value we bring to our clients. To increase that value, we knew our product had to improve. This summer was a struggle. Competition heated up, and we faced growing pains as we scaled our team. Things got tougher, but we didn't give up; what we were working on was too promising. The whole team kept pushing forward. Week after week, we delivered changes, iterating on the product and providing a better experience for every single one of our merchants.

Today, we have an incredible team of 20 people, and our top merchants automate over 60% of their support tickets through Yuma. We call this "True Automation"—when a ticket is fully resolved without any human intervention. This impressive figure has been steadily climbing over the past six months, yet we're still not satisfied. Many merchants who were initially tempted by competitors have now returned to us.

For the past 2 years, Yuma has been quietly working behind the scenes, handling tickets just like any other support agent—taking them one by one from the helpdesk.

But today, everything changes. We’re stepping into the spotlight with something big:

?? Our very own chat widget.

“A chatbot? Really? That’s it?” Sounds underwhelming, right? Well…

This isn’t your average chat widget. It’s AI-first and backed by Yuma’s powerful platform, already automating over 60% of merchants’ support tickets. It’s ready to handle inquiries 24/7, in any language, and leverages the same proven automations Yuma users already rely on. Just 2 clicks, and it’s live on your site, instantly enhancing customer support. And with the smallest footprint on the market, it won’t slow down your website like others might. ??

Almost every single chat experience in the past has been atrocious. This release aims to transform that experience once and for all. The era of subpar support is over. Customers will now expect exceptional service from brands across all channels—email, chat, and voice. Free yourself and your customers from static, rigid and unhelpful flows!

The launch of our AI chat marks a major step toward building a fully cohesive, integrated support solution for merchants—where AI is safe, accurate, and always at the center stage.

Yuma’s journey is entering is 3rd year soon, but this is still the very beginning for us. ??