In today’s fast-moving digital space, Gautam Rajesh Shelley, Founder of AiSensy, has transformed WhatsApp into a powerful revenue engine for businesses. In this conversation with Machine Edge Global, Shelley shares how AiSensy was born from a simple insight — customers respond fastest on WhatsApp — and how the platform has grown to help over 100,000 businesses boost engagement, automate campaigns, and drive conversions with AI. He also offers a glimpse into AiSensy’s innovations, real-world impact, and his vision for the future of AI-powered communication.
What inspired you to zero in on WhatsApp as the core platform for business engagement, and how did AiSensy come to life?
We didn’t “choose” WhatsApp. Our users did. Back when we were building Triny, we kept hearing the same thing from businesses: “Our customers reply fastest on WhatsApp.” That signal was loud and clear. So we doubled down on it.
That’s how AiSensy came to life – to help businesses do everything on WhatsApp: generate leads, engage users, close sales, and even collect payments. It was never just about messaging – it was about creating a complete revenue engine where customers were most active.
Today, over 100,000 businesses trust us – and we’ve done over 700 Cr+ messages to date proving just how powerful WhatsApp has become as a business communication channel.
What sets AiSensy apart from other customer engagement tools, especially in a world flooded with marketing automation platforms?
We innovate in a number of areas to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. The first is the product, which we have built to be user-friendly, adding depth to our range of products, and using AI to assist clients in increasing their revenue. We are “The Smartest WhatsApp Engagement Platform”, which essentially means that the platform is smart enough to tell the business what to do next to drive revenues. With smart features like AI template message generator, AI Ads manager, AI Ad creatives generator and AI Chatbot builder; we are amongst the pioneers of integrating AI to WhatsApp Marketing.
Next innovation would be more on the lines of Agentic AI on AiSensy. We’ll be coming up with a lot of more AI features which would help AiSensy users cut down their work 10x and increase their productivity multi-fold.
How does AiSensy enable businesses—particularly in the travel and tourism sector—to improve customer interaction and boost revenue? Can you share a real-world use case?
Travel is all about timing, trust, and quick turnarounds – exactly what WhatsApp is built for.
Many travel businesses use AiSensy to showcase properties with carousel messages, collect bookings via WhatsApp Forms, and share real-time updates – all inside WhatsApp chat. They’ve cut down manual calls, and seen a significant boost in conversions with the WhatsApp funnels suggested by AiSensy experts to these businesses
Many startups struggle to achieve product-market fit. How did you identify the exact need AiSensy fulfills in today’s digital ecosystem?
We found product-market fit by doing one thing consistently: listening to users. In our early days, we spoke to hundreds of businesses, and a recurring pain point emerged—“Our customers are on WhatsApp, but we don’t know how to sell there.” That’s when it clicked for us. They didn’t just need messaging—they needed a way to drive conversions.
That’s exactly what we built with AiSensy. We doubled down & built powerful features – AI Click-to-WhatsApp Ads manager, WhatsApp catalogs, native WhatsApp payments, AI chatbot flows generator, advanced retargeting and many more features – all rooted in that core insight: make WhatsApp a revenue channel. That’s why, today, many businesses are using AiSensy to drive 3X revenue with the power of WhatsApp marketing.
What would you say to marketers who fear AI might replace them? How does AiSensy empower marketing teams instead of replacing them?
AI isn’t here to replace marketers—it’s here to make them unstoppable and 10x more productive.
With AiSensy, marketers don’t waste hours writing copy or designing ad creatives. We’ve built AI tools to do the heavy-lifting. Our AI-powered template message generator, AI ads creative generator, AI ads manager, AI chatbot builder help businesses launch campaigns with ease and automate the entire campaign with the power of AI. This way, marketers can focus on creativity, strategy, and driving growth while allowing AI to do the manual work.
We’ve seen small marketing teams double their impact just by automating repetitive tasks. Think of AI as your assistant, not your competitor.
What are the biggest pain points you’ve observed in the travel industry that AiSensy is solving today or plans to solve in the near future?
The travel industry’s biggest challenges revolve around response speed and personalized service.
Customers expect instant answers—whether it’s about visa requirements, weather updates, or property bookings. But most travel businesses still rely on manual calls and delayed email replies. That’s revenue leaking every day.
AiSensy solves this by automating the boring stuff—FAQs, bookings, confirmations—while still keeping the human touch intact. With features like catalogues, payments, and forms—all inside WhatsApp—we’re turning conversations into conversions in real time for .
With platforms evolving rapidly, how do you envision the next stage of customer engagement over WhatsApp in the next 2-3 years?
In the past 2-3 years, we’ve seen WhatsApp evolve into a primary marketing channel, adopted by businesses across all sizes and industries. Today, we are already seeing businesses drive upto 95% of their revenue using WhatsApp via AiSensy. In the coming 2-3 years, we expect even more AI innovations, predictive messaging, and deeper integrations with other business tools. AiSensy stays ahead of the curve by constantly innovating—our AI-powered ads manager, WhatsApp forms, webviews, no-code chatbot builder, Gen AI chatbots, and robust CRM integrations are just a few examples. Plus, our exceptional customer support ensures that businesses of all sizes can leverage these cutting-edge technologies without a steep learning curve.
Finally, what’s your advice for young tech entrepreneurs who are looking to innovate at the intersection of AI, automation, and communication?
Don’t just build for the hype—build for the outcome. AI, automation, and communication are buzzwords until they solve a real problem. Spend more time talking to customers than writing code. Find the friction, validate your assumptions, and then scale. Also, Don’t stress or impacted by what others are doing. We ignored a lot of “industry advice” while building AiSensy – and it worked in our favor. Focus on speed, stay obsessed with your user’s pain, and keep shipping. The rest will follow.