Tradeshift Debuts Ada, Its B2B Virtual Assistant

By PYMNTS

B2B eCommerce platform Tradeshift has debuted Ada, an artificial intelligence solution to help businesses collaborate with each other.

Reports Wednesday (March 29) said Tradeshift Ada was revealed by the company as part of its broader push to deploy AI technologies within its platform. According to reports, Ada is the world’s first for the B2B collaboration space and supports not only buyers’ and suppliers’ communication and collaboration, but also third-party app developers.

“Rapid innovation is at the heart of everything we do at Tradeshift,” said the company’s SVP of Enterprise Products Thijs Stalenhoef in a statement. “First an idea hatched at one of our hackathons, Tradeshift Ada is a next-generation technology using capabilities such as machine learning and natural language processing. It’s the foundational layer for bringing AI into our platform everywhere.”

The launch follows last year’s debut of Tradeshift Go, a virtual assistant to help corporate travelers on its platform book travel, make payments and manage expenses. At the time the company also said the tool was the first virtual assistant for the B2B industry.

“Currently, Tradeshift Ada integrates with Tradeshift Go, Tradeshift Buy, Business Analytics and externally to Slack,” explained Stalenhoef. “This enables users to gain insight, complete tasks more easily and save more money every day.”

Tradeshift has been gradually building up its AI capabilities and acquired Hyper Travel last year to add its personal virtual assistant technology into Tradeshift’s offering. Only weeks ago the firm also acquired IBX Business Network to augment its B2B eCommerce platform.

The launch of Ada enables business users to analyze online conversations and respond to requests related to procurement, spend management and transacting, reports said.