AITech Interview with Vara Kumar, Cofounder and Head of R&D at Whatfix

How AI-driven userization is redefining enterprise software program, accelerating ROI, and driving world digital adoption.

Vara, because the Co-founder and Head of R&D at Whatfix, you’ve led the corporate by some important progress and technological developments. Can you share how Whatfix’s journey has formed your perspective on digital adoption and AI within the enterprise world?
At Whatfix, our journey has carefully mirrored the enterprise world’s rising urge for food for intuitive and clever software program. What began as a push for digital adoption has now matured right into a motion round userization, guaranteeing software program works for the consumer, not the opposite manner round. The latest advances in AI, particularly generative AI, have supercharged this imaginative and prescient. We are going all-in on AI, not simply to automate duties, however to create deeply customized, context-aware consumer experiences.
This evolution is mirrored in our platform—throughout DAP, Product Analytics, and Mirror—which empowers enterprises to not solely onboard customers but additionally repeatedly optimize their expertise with real-time insights and customized steerage. AI isn’t just a layer we’ve added—it’s turning into the muse that drives smarter, extra human-centric software program interactions at scale.

With the latest exponential progress of Whatfix, significantly after securing $125 million in Series E funding, how do you foresee the subsequent part of progress for the corporate and its function in shaping the digital adoption panorama?
The Series E funding spherical has bolstered Whatfix’s place as the biggest pure-play digital adoption platform. It’s fueling the subsequent part of our progress – each globally and vertically. We’re scaling quickly throughout North America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East and increasing into new sectors like the general public sector. A key milestone is our partnership with the U.S. Army’s PEO-Enterprise to assist consumer adoption and coaching for the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A).

But progress for us isn’t nearly scale, it’s about shaping the longer term of how customers work together with software program. We’re doubling down on an AI-first technique rooted in userization: making digital experiences clever, adaptive, and human-centered. Our proprietary ScreenSense expertise powers this imaginative and prescient, enabling real-time notion, intent detection, and interplay throughout purposes.

Looking forward, we’re contemplating an IPO inside the subsequent two to a few years, specializing in reaching sustainable progress and solidifying its market place earlier than going public With our robust monetary trajectory, customer-first strategy, and AI-powered product suite, we’re enthusiastic about what the longer term holds for Whatfix as we proceed to redefine the digital adoption panorama.

What are you able to inform us in regards to the newest AI enhancements, particularly ScreenSense, and how these improvements are serving to organizations speed up AI adoption?
With the surge of AI instruments and purposes and copilots, we’re witnessing a better want of the adoption of these instruments to understand their true potential and generate ROI on tech investments. Whatfix product suite helps companies speed up ROI, productiveness, and consumer satisfaction on their digital investments, together with AI, by streamlining utility deployment throughout its lifecycle from coaching to deployment to adoption.
Whatfix ScreenSense is an modern AI expertise, the muse that powers the subsequent technology of Whatfix’s product suite—the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP), Mirror, and Product Analytics. It’s a complete engine that goes past merely “seeing” purposes.
It operates throughout three clever layers:
i. Perception: Understands visible parts and workflows like a human
ii. Intent Detection: Recognizes the consumer’s function, habits, and context to ship customized steerage.
iii. Interaction: Empowers groups to create automated, no-code steerage and workflows with easy point-and-click instruments.
We have secured 6 patents and have 17 pending for ScreenSense, revolutionizing digital adoption with clever, intuitive options.
We are actually augmenting ScreenSense with the facility of Computer utilizing brokers, which is able to take intent detection and automation even further- dramatically decreasing effort for content material authors.

Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) have gotten important for enterprises. How do you see DAPs evolving within the subsequent few years, and what function will AI play of their improvement?
In the approaching years, DAPs will anticipate consumer wants, ship customized steerage, and repeatedly optimize digital experiences with out handbook intervention. AI will allow DAPs to foretell consumer actions, proactively supply assist, and automate complicated workflows, decreasing the necessity for human involvement in routine duties. These clever platforms will analyze consumer habits in real-time, adapting to make sure a smoother, extra intuitive expertise.
This evolution will streamline onboarding, enhance device utilization, and drive better productiveness, serving to organizations speed up digital adoption and transformation with minimal effort. ScreenSense is innovating in direction of a future the place Artificial Intelligence profoundly enhances its three clever layers. This evolution will introduce clever entities we name Computer Using Agents (CUAs) or Operators. These brokers will deal with the intricate work of understanding utility nuances and decoding consumer intent based mostly on each fast alerts and information offered by DAP. Consequently, ScreenSense will ship on-the-fly steerage that’s extremely related and requires no upfront configuration from content material authors.

The idea of “userization” that Whatfix promotes is sort of distinctive. How does this strategy change the standard methods companies implement and use enterprise software program?
Traditionally, companies anticipate customers to adapt to complicated methods and determine software program on their very own. This usually results in lengthy coaching intervals and delays in adoption. Userization adjustments this strategy by making expertise adapt to the consumer.
The concept of userization is at the middle of our expertise innovation. We consider that expertise ought to regulate to customers, not the opposite manner round. Instead of making customers be taught complicated software program by themselves, userized platforms give real-time assist, clear steerage, and customized experiences. This helps create a easy and environment friendly solution to work with digital instruments.
When companies undertake userization, they construct a expertise surroundings that places the consumer expertise first. Personalized adoption platforms and the use of product analytics assist organizations develop into extra environment friendly, modern, and partaking for workers.

With AI now embedded in Whatfix’s merchandise, how do you make sure that the expertise stays intuitive and user-first, permitting staff to simply adapt and maximize the worth of their software program investments?
At Whatfix, we be certain that our AI-powered merchandise stay intuitive and user-first by integrating clever, context-aware options that adapt to every worker’s distinctive wants and workflow. Powered by ScreenSense, our merchandise—DAP, Product Analytics, and Mirror—perceive consumer habits, intent, and workflows to ship clever help proper when it’s wanted.
Product Analytics supplies helpful insights into consumer habits, figuring out areas of friction and enabling organizations to optimize workflows for better ease of use. DAP integrates real-time, in-app steerage tailor-made to every consumer, providing customized assist that helps staff navigate complicated duties with minimal effort. Mirror, our simulation product, permits customers to apply and familiarize themselves with workflows in a risk-free surroundings. It permits them to experiment with software program options, constructing confidence earlier than utilizing them in actual situations.
This mixture of AI-powered instruments ensures that staff can shortly adapt to new expertise, driving increased adoption charges and maximizing the worth of software program investments with minimal disruption.

Given Whatfix’s spectacular clientele, together with main corporations like Schneider Electric and Microsoft, how does the corporate tailor its digital adoption options to satisfy the distinctive wants of such various industries?
Customer-centricity drives every little thing we do. We take the time to deeply perceive the distinctive wants and targets of every group, which permits us to tailor our digital adoption options to ship most worth. As a outcome, 50% of Whatfix’s product roadmap is formed immediately by buyer suggestions.
Our dedication to customer-first options has earned us recognition because the Top Customer’s Choice Vendor in Gartner’s Voice of the Customer Report for 2 consecutive years. We persistently obtain excellent outcomes, demonstrated by a B2B SaaS Net Promoter Score (NPS) above 45, a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) common of 99.8%, and a 4.6/5 score on Gartner peer websites. In 2023, our Net Revenue Retention (NRR) for enterprise prospects reached 114%, with 45% of present prospects selecting to broaden their partnership with Whatfix.

Whatfix’s options are versatile and industry-agnostic, supporting a wide selection of sectors, together with banking, manufacturing, expertise, insurance coverage, and prescription drugs & life sciences. With over 700 prospects throughout 40 nations, together with 80+ Fortune 500 corporations, we’re additionally increasing our presence within the federal sector, additional enhancing our world influence.

Whatfix has been identified for its modern strategy and expertise. Can you share how Whatfix’s patented applied sciences have contributed to the corporate’s success and how they provide you a aggressive edge available in the market?
Whatfix’s patented applied sciences and modern strategy have offered us with a transparent aggressive edge available in the market. Over the years, now we have aggressively invested in ScreenSense, the muse of Whatfix’s product suite, making us the biggest unbiased, pure-play Digital Adoption Platform (DAP), increasing past DAP to supply a complete multi-product suite.
Our relentless focus on innovation has earned us significant industry recognition and reinforced our leadership position. With 50% of our product roadmap pushed by buyer suggestions, Whatfix stays agile and conscious of evolving buyer wants, guaranteeing excessive ranges of satisfaction and loyalty. Our application-agnostic options seamlessly assist any deployment mannequin—cloud, self-hosted, or on-premise—throughout various industries.

As AI adoption accelerates, what challenges do you foresee corporations going through when making an attempt to totally combine AI-driven options into their operations, and how can Whatfix assist overcome these boundaries?
As enterprises embrace AI, they usually hit boundaries past expertise—challenges like worker resistance, talent gaps, unclear use circumstances, and the complexity of scaling AI throughout various groups and workflows. There’s additionally the human issue: concern of change, lack of confidence, and uncertainty round how AI suits into each day work.

Whatfix addresses these challenges head-on with our AI-powered digital adoption options. At the core is ScreenSense, which delivers real-time, context-aware steerage and automation tailor-made to every consumer’s function, habits, and intent. Whether it’s onboarding customers to a brand new AI device or serving to them uncover high-impact use circumstances within the move of work, Whatfix supplies just-in-time enablement.

Whatfix has not too long ago expanded its product suite and continues to innovate. Could you elaborate on the brand new merchandise which are contributing to your progress and what units them other than present options available in the market?
We are getting into a brand new period at Whatfix, one the place digital adoption meets clever enablement at scale. Our expanded product suite displays this shift, with a number of key improvements driving our progress:
i. Mirror permits immersive, simulation-based coaching that permits customers to apply in a risk-free surroundings. It’s redefining how enterprises onboard and upskill with out disrupting actual workflows.
ii. DAP on OS brings contextual, in-the-moment assist to desktop environments, serving to customers navigate cross-application duties seamlessly, past simply the browser.
iii. DAP for Copilots is our purpose-built answer to speed up the adoption of generative AI instruments like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Google Gemini. It guides customers with clever immediate suggestions, gives cross-app contextual assist, and supplies deep analytics to uncover adoption gaps.
At the center of all these improvements is ScreenSense, our patented AI engine that powers human-like notion, intent detection, and automation throughout the platform. Whatfix isn’t simply enabling adoption, we’re reworking how enterprises expertise and scale digital transformation. We are serving to organizations extract actual worth from their expertise investments quicker and with much less friction by making software program extra intuitive, clever, and outcome-driven.

A quote or recommendation from the writer.

“At Whatfix, now we have at all times believed that the longer term of expertise lies in userization—the place software program intelligently adapts to customers, not the opposite manner round. It’s about constructing AI-powered, intuitive experiences that proactively information and empower people within the move of work. For tech leaders, the trail ahead is obvious: construct methods that perceive consumer intent, personalize experiences in actual time, and cut back friction at each touchpoint. This is how we scale digital transformation—with intelligence, empathy, and user-first design at the core.”

The publish AITech Interview with Vara Kumar, Cofounder and Head of R&D at Whatfix first appeared on AI-Tech Park.