See-EN-see-oh, SKY-en-see-yo. Skeen-so. The name “Sciensio” seems to have limitless pronunciations.
When our company was founded over three years ago, we set out to create a powerful tech platform that would allow us to build amazing AI Chatbots to support businesses in customer success, marketing, and engagement over regular text. We chose the name Sciensio to reinforce the complex and technical nature of building great AI Chatbots. We added the tagline, “The Art & Science of AI Chat,” to illustrate that great bot design is as much an art as it is a science. We thought it was a pretty cool name, from a techie standpoint.
Under the name Sciensio, we have been pleased and humbled to win more than 17 industry awards. Today, we are the world leader in EventBots, AI Chatbots designed specifically for events from 10 to 100,000+. Our bots, proudly named by our clients, have had almost a cult-like following among users. Rather than being seen as a technology, they have become team members, helping to create amazing live event experiences.
So, while the Sciensio name may have been a really cool name at one time, it doesn’t represent how natural and intuitive our AI Chatbots are for our customers.
And of course, it doesn’t work for two other reasons: no one can say or spell it!
That’s why we’re happy to announce our new name: 42Chat.
Naming is hard. We brainstormed countless serious, friendly, and even silly names that could best represent our company culture, what we do and who we are. In the end, we chose 42Chat because it harkens back to an early customer Chatbot experience, while also having a much deeper meaning. Co-founder and CEO Chuck Elias explains:
One of our first big EventBots deployment was with BizBash, one of the great innovators in the events industry. They named their EventBot ‘Betty’. Betty was smart and sassy. We were in the early days of bot building and were monitoring every conversation in real-time to make sure she was responding correctly. When Betty was asked, “What’s the meaning of life?”, our team jumped into the conversation and replied ‘42... at least according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’
Later, our co-founder Bob Caldwell was standing in line for a drink (surprise, surprise), and was chatting with another attendee. When Bob mentioned we build Betty, the attendee’s eyes lit up and he said, “I love Betty! I asked her what was the meaning of life and she got it right!” The delight from such a simple response, “42”, says everything about the power of great conversation design to create an amazing experience. Since then, we’ve made sure every conversation is natural, human-like, and fun. And of course, every bot knows the meaning of life!
The number 42 is synonymous with greatness, from the excellence, style, and grace of baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson, to the creativity of children’s author Lewis Carroll, a mathematician who used the number throughout his writings.
For our tech brethren, the ASCII code for 42 is an asterisk, a character you’ll see in the new company logo. The “*” is a wildcard and can be used to represent an infinite number of things. AI Chatbots are like that, fulfilling an infinite number of jobs by providing instant answers, and connection over regular text.
We build AI Chatbots that are natural and responsive, and they are setting the industry standard for results. They deliver a 95%+ Correct Response Rate, 70%+ engagement, 30%+ marketing click-through rates, and <1% opt-out. They are smart, personalized, easy to use, and most importantly, fun!
We have come a long way from our very first bots, which seem almost primitive when compared to the rich personalization of the conversations and engagements we deliver today.
For our clients, AI Chatbots have become valuable team members, responding instantly to the needs of their customers with the personality and voice of their brands. Each individual conversation is the purest form of customer feedback, showing exactly what each customer needed, when they needed it, and whether that need was fulfilled.
We are excited as we step into this next phase of our growth as “42Chat.” We are thankful to our clients that have partnered with us, and we welcome our future partners as we continue to help create amazing customer experiences. Most importantly, we’re so happy to have a name that our clients can proudly say and spell!