Talks with Saurabh Agrawal
Talks with Saurabh Agrawal
Beerud Sheth: Co-Founder and CEO of Gupshup, Co-Founder of Elance (Now Upwork)
Beerud Sheth: Co-Founder and CEO of Gupshup, Co-Founder of Elance (Now Upwork)
Beerud Sheth is a two-time entrepreneur who built the infrastructure behind two industries: the gig economy and business messaging. He co-founded Elance in 1998 , the company that pioneered online freelancing and later became publicly listed Upwork (Nasdaq: UPWK). He now runs Gupshup, the conversational engagement platform used by over 50,000 businesses across more than 100 countries.
Today, Beerud is actively leading Gupshup through the transition from smart messaging to agentic AI , building a platform where brands do not just send messages but deploy AI agents that hold real conversations with customers, remember context, and take actions on their behalf.
An IIT Bombay and MIT alumnus, he holds two technology patents and is a frequent speaker on messaging, AI, and the future of how businesses communicate with customers , one of the clearest voices on what the shift from ads to conversations actually means in practice.
Background & Journey
Beerud earned a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay and then an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT, where his graduate research at the Media Lab focused on building one of the earliest autonomous agents for personalised news filtering , a prototype AI that learned a user's interests and curated a personalised newspaper, years before "personalisation" became an industry term.
Background & Journey
Beerud earned a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay and then an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT, where his graduate research at the Media Lab focused on building one of the earliest autonomous agents for personalised news filtering , a prototype AI that learned a user's interests and curated a personalised newspaper, years before "personalisation" became an industry term.
Background & Journey
Beerud earned a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Bombay and then an M.S. in Computer Science from MIT, where his graduate research at the Media Lab focused on building one of the earliest autonomous agents for personalised news filtering , a prototype AI that learned a user's interests and curated a personalised newspaper, years before "personalisation" became an industry term.
Rather than starting up immediately after MIT, he spent close to five years on Wall Street , first at Citicorp Securities, then at Merrill Lynch , modelling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives. He has described this as his real business school. In 1998, he left to co-found Elance, and in 2005 he co-founded Gupshup. The thread running through both companies , helping distributed parties find each other and work together through technology , has been the consistent mission of his career.
On Dilse Omni Talks
Beerud Sheth recently appeared on Dilse Omni Talks with host Saurabh Agrawal, where the conversation explored How conversational AI and messaging are changing the way brands interact with customers , and what the shift from ads to agents really means.
Rather than starting up immediately after MIT, he spent close to five years on Wall Street , first at Citicorp Securities, then at Merrill Lynch , modelling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives. He has described this as his real business school. In 1998, he left to co-found Elance, and in 2005 he co-founded Gupshup. The thread running through both companies , helping distributed parties find each other and work together through technology , has been the consistent mission of his career.
On Dilse Omni Talks
Beerud Sheth recently appeared on Dilse Omni Talks with host Saurabh Agrawal, where the conversation explored How conversational AI and messaging are changing the way brands interact with customers , and what the shift from ads to agents really means.
Rather than starting up immediately after MIT, he spent close to five years on Wall Street , first at Citicorp Securities, then at Merrill Lynch , modelling, structuring, and trading fixed income securities and derivatives. He has described this as his real business school. In 1998, he left to co-found Elance, and in 2005 he co-founded Gupshup. The thread running through both companies , helping distributed parties find each other and work together through technology , has been the consistent mission of his career.
On Dilse Omni Talks
Beerud Sheth recently appeared on Dilse Omni Talks with host Saurabh Agrawal, where the conversation explored How conversational AI and messaging are changing the way brands interact with customers , and what the shift from ads to agents really means.
3 Key Takeaways from the Episode
● Marketing is moving from ads you click to conversations you have. The brands that win the next decade will not be the ones that optimise click-through rates , they will be the ones that design what happens after a customer replies. The conversation is the new channel, and most brands are still thinking in broadcasts.
● AI agents won't just answer questions , they will make decisions. The competitive advantage will not be which AI model a brand uses, but how well that AI understands the brand's own knowledge, policies, and customer context. The businesses that document and digitise what their best people already know will outperform the ones chasing the newest model.
● An AI system without a clear human exit is a liability. When an AI agent gets stuck or fails, the customer needs a seamless way to reach a human being. Designing for failure is not a sign of low confidence in the AI , it is a sign of high confidence in the importance of keeping the customer.
3 Key Takeaways from the Episode
● Marketing is moving from ads you click to conversations you have. The brands that win the next decade will not be the ones that optimise click-through rates , they will be the ones that design what happens after a customer replies. The conversation is the new channel, and most brands are still thinking in broadcasts.
● AI agents won't just answer questions , they will make decisions. The competitive advantage will not be which AI model a brand uses, but how well that AI understands the brand's own knowledge, policies, and customer context. The businesses that document and digitise what their best people already know will outperform the ones chasing the newest model.
● An AI system without a clear human exit is a liability. When an AI agent gets stuck or fails, the customer needs a seamless way to reach a human being. Designing for failure is not a sign of low confidence in the AI , it is a sign of high confidence in the importance of keeping the customer.
3 Key Takeaways from the Episode
● Marketing is moving from ads you click to conversations you have. The brands that win the next decade will not be the ones that optimise click-through rates , they will be the ones that design what happens after a customer replies. The conversation is the new channel, and most brands are still thinking in broadcasts.
● AI agents won't just answer questions , they will make decisions. The competitive advantage will not be which AI model a brand uses, but how well that AI understands the brand's own knowledge, policies, and customer context. The businesses that document and digitise what their best people already know will outperform the ones chasing the newest model.
● An AI system without a clear human exit is a liability. When an AI agent gets stuck or fails, the customer needs a seamless way to reach a human being. Designing for failure is not a sign of low confidence in the AI , it is a sign of high confidence in the importance of keeping the customer.
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Gupshup founder Beerud Sheth on why the click is dying, how conversational AI is rewriting marketing, and why context, not intelligence, is the real moat.
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