Hootsuite acquires conversational AI startup Heyday

Hootsuite has acquired customer messaging platform Heyday for $60 million.

A pioneer in social media management, Hootsuite helps businesses schedule posts across multiple social networks in just a few clicks. Through Heyday’s acquisition, Hootsuite aims to offer brands an always-on and personalized customer service solution.

Montreal-based Heyday boosts engagement through 1-to-1 messaging via chat and video across customer touchpoints. Additionally, Heyday instantly recommends products matching shoppers’ search terms, putting e-commerce sales on autopilot. The conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform also helps businesses filter conversations by department and team.

Hootsuite will leverage Heyday’s AI capabilities to help brands deliver personalized customer experiences at scale as part of the acquisition.

“Social is the new interface of commerce and customer care,” said Tom Keiser, Hootsuite CEO.

Keiser continued, “Modern day brands have to manage a multitude of daily interactions and conversations at scale—which is impossible to do without AI automation. With the acquisition of Heyday, Hootsuite will now give AI capabilities to marketing, sales and support teams globally so they can deliver exceptional experiences at scale.”

Heyday supports integration with over 30 messaging platforms, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.

“We created Heyday’s conversational platform to make buying from a brand as easy as messaging a friend,” said Steve Desjarlais, co-founder of Heyday.

“Together with Hootsuite, we will bridge the gap between physical and digital brand experiences by leveraging social and messaging channels as the anchor and golden thread of the customer journey.”

Earlier this year, Hootsuite acquired Sparkcentral, a Saas-based automated messaging distribution (AMD) platform to “unify social marketing, social listening, and social customer care.” With Heyday's acquisition, Hootsuite will move closer to its goals.