Vivek Thomas on Leading AISensum

Vivek Thomas on Leading AiSensum Effort to Transform Businesses Through AI

by: Yenny Yusra Journal

In 2018, Vivek Thomas launched AiSensum, a company dedicated to developing AI technologies for businesses. Seven years later, the company claims to have worked with FMCG brands, retailers, and even global enterprises working to accelerate AI transformation.

“When we started in 2018, AI was still a hard sell in Indonesia,” Vivek recalls. “It took time for people to warm up to the idea. Even now, I’d say 95% of people just talk about AI but don’t take action. But in the last two years, that’s started to change. Companies are realizing it’s not just talk anymore.”

From Digital to AI Transformation

Vivek sees AiSensum role as helping businesses skip the slow climb from manual processes to full digital adoption, and instead jump straight into AI-driven operations.

“It’s like leapfrogging,” he explains. “Just like how countries went from no connectivity to mobile connectivity without going through the landline stage. We want companies to go from where they are now straight into AI transformation.”

The company has shifted toward building what Vivek calls AI Transformation Agents, custom AI tools designed for specific business needs. SpeakEase is one such agent, far from generic chatbots, these are modular, highly customizable systems trained on company-specific data. 

SpeakEase leverages Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), a technique that stores information in a vector database and retrieves it to answer questions with precision and context. This enables the AI to not only provide accurate, context-rich responses but also replicate a specific communication style, even mirroring the way an individual speaks. 

“I can make it respond in your voice, with your tone, and your company’s knowledge,” Vivek says. “In Indonesia, people aren’t really familiar with AI agents yet. It’s still very new. But the potential is massive. You can try AI Vivek directly on the AiSensum website.”

Other agents that AiSensum offers include OfficeEase, which takes care of the time-consuming parts of office work like filing documents, managing admin tasks, and generating reports, and AdVize, a performance marketing agent that handles ad placement, tracking results, and fine-tuning campaigns.

When asked about adoption rates, Vivek is candid: most Indonesian companies are still in the trial-and-error stage. “Multinationals are often more cautious. Local companies tend to be more open,” he notes. 

He highlights Shopee, Gojek, Grab, and some fintech startups as examples of businesses already using AI in more advanced ways. On the other hand, “In FMCG, I can tell you 99% don’t have it. In retail, it’s 95-99% with nothing significant yet. They’re starting, but very slowly.”

Convincing Clients

Despite the tech nature of the business, Vivek avoids calling AiSensum a SaaS provider. “We’re not selling one generic software to many. We build agents, customized agentic solutions tailored to each client” he says.

AiSensum’s approach to new clients starts with education and proof of concept. In one project for a leading personal care brand, the company used machine learning and customer segmentation to move away from generic marketing and into hyper-personalized campaigns.

“If I send an anti-aging ad to a 25-year-old, that makes no sense,” Vivek explains. “We worked on figuring out exactly who should get what message, and when. Less is more. Hyper-personalization works better than blanket messaging.”

Another client, Uniqlo, has begun testing AiSensum’s automated ad creation tools after initially taking a cautious approach to AI in the fashion space.

Funding and the Road Ahead

The team of AiSensum right now is lean, consisting of 32 people spread between Indonesia and India. Most are fresh graduates who have been trained in-house. Many started their careers with Vivek at his previous company and later joined him at AiSensum. 

Unlike many startups, AiSensum is not actively seeking funding. Its digital performance marketing arm generates enough revenue to support AI development. Vivek is holding off on outside investment until the company’s AI agents are widely deployed. 

“If I go to an investor now, they won’t give me the valuation I want. I need to prove it first. I don’t believe in ‘fake it till you make it.’ I believe in make it, prove it,” he says. “When our agents are in the market, when people see them in hundreds of companies, then it will be a breakout moment.”

For Vivek, that breakout moment is not a matter of if but when. “Right now, awareness is close to zero. I want to see it grow to 10, 15, 20 percent. When that happens, that’s when we’ll really become known.”

Read the article here