Various generative AI tools and services have gradually permeated everyday life and the workplace, driving rapid market growth and attracting startup teams to enter the field. Founded in Seattle in 2020, Seasalt.ai is one of the rising stars that began developing intelligent voice solutions even before the current generative AI boom.
With a focus on the linguistically diverse and densely populated Southeast Asian market, the company has established Taiwan as its development and support center, offering AI-powered customer service agents and meeting assistant tools that excel in accurately recognizing local accents and understanding nuanced semantics.
Co-founded by CEO Xuchen Yao and CTO Guoguo Chen, Seasalt.ai marks their second entrepreneurial collaboration. Instead of competing in dominant markets like the U.S. and China, the duo chose to focus on Southeast Asia - a region often overlooked by major tech giants.
"Our company name, Seasalt AI, not only comes from our roots in Seattle but also reflects our target market - Southeast Asia (SEA)," said Yao. He noted that most AI voice tools on the market tend to overlook the less widely spoken languages in the Southeast Asian region. "But these underrepresented areas are home to large populations and many businesses in need of support. Filling in the gaps left by the tech giants has become a unique opportunity for us."
Seasalt.ai offers an AI meeting assistant, SeaMeet Copilot, which provides real-time meeting transcripts, structured summaries, and action items for each meeting. It seamlessly integrates with Google Meet - popular among local users - and is specifically optimized to recognize Taiwanese accents, accurately understanding complex sentences that mix both Chinese and English.
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Seasalt.ai also offers the SeaX platform - an all-in-one omnichannel solution for businesses. It integrates voice and text to support AI-powered messaging and phone-based voice calls, with a focus on outbound marketing. The platform enables natural language Q&A summaries, bilingual Chinese-English interaction, and smooth integration with existing workflows.
According to Seasalt.ai, SeaX empowers companies to book appointments via AI voice assistants, engage in two-way conversations, track marketing campaigns across SMS, WhatsApp, and phone, discover customer buying intent, analyze user behavior, and conduct surveys - bringing automation and personalization into one seamless system.
Another key advantage is the speed of deployment. According to Yao, in the case of assisting the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) with building a customer-facing chatbot with GenAI, Seasalt.ai successfully launched it in just three months, compared to competing solutions with last-generation technology (such as Natural Language Understanding) that would have taken up to two years.
Chen highlighted the usability of Seasalt.ai's tools, stating: "Approximately 70% to 80% of users are able to set up and maintain their AI chatbots independently using our documentation and examples. Only about 10% to 20% of large enterprise clients necessitate custom development."
Regarding deployment strategy, it is important to keep product features up to date due to the rapid advancement of generative AI. Therefore, a cloud-first approach is often recommended, supplemented by customized private cloud solutions for clients with stricter data security requirements.
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Seasalt.ai was born during the global outbreak of COVID-19. At that time, Taiwan's strict pandemic control measures and its startup-friendly environment made it an ideal springboard for the company's expansion into the Southeast Asian market.
As one of the standout alumni of SparkLabs Taiwan, Seasalt.ai also benefited greatly from its collaboration with Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA), gaining valuable resources for growth. In December 2024, the company announced the completion of its seed funding round, raising NT$130 million. Investors included Z Venture Capital (ZVC), the corporate venture arm of LINE.
In view of the rapid advancements in AI technology and the fast-evolving market landscape, Chen stated, "We began early and possess extensive knowledge of the field, allowing us to swiftly integrate new technologies. However, much of our initial work needs to be revised." He added that the plethora of new technological resources has also empowered Seasalt.ai to quickly update product features and improve user experience, thereby maintaining market competitiveness.
Chen observed that the rapid advancement of generative AI technology has reduced development barriers, enabling startup teams to create prototypes and test the market at lower costs and within shorter timeframes. However, the reduced entry barriers have resulted in an increase in competitors, making it more challenging for new players to distinguish themselves in the market.
Looking forward, Yao articulated that Seasalt.ai aspires to establish itself as the market leader in Taiwan while simultaneously innovating new products. One such product is SeaHealth, an AI-powered assistant intended as a front office solution for hospitals and clinics to facilitate proactive healthcare messages and communications for patients with chronic illnesses or elderly individuals living alone. The company's vision is to provide more convenient and accessible AI tools to a broader range of users.
SeaMeet Copilot supports multilingual meetings and audio uploads. Credit: Company
Article edited by Jack Wu
