Nexiva Revolutionizes Customer Support with Agentic AI Voice Agents
"80% of customer support jobs will be gone in the next 3 years." This isn't a fear-mongering headline—it's the brutally honest prediction from Rahul Gupta, a bootstrapped founder who built his company BlackNGreen to 80+ countries without taking a single dollar from VCs. Now, he's leading the AI revolution with his new agentic AI venture, Nexiva, creating voice agents so human-like that customers can't tell they're talking to AI.
When a founder who has successfully built a global technology empire from scratch makes such a bold prediction, it's worth listening. Gupta's journey from creating telecom innovations for billions of calls to building the future of customer support automation offers a unique perspective on the AI transformation that's reshaping our world.
This isn't just another conversation about AI potential—it's a reality check from someone who has lived through technological disruption and is now actively creating the next wave of change.
The Bootstrap Journey: Building BlackNGreen Across 80+ Countries
Before diving into AI disruption, it's essential to understand Gupta's foundation. After completing his computer engineering in 2004 and an MBA, he started BlackNGreen in 2008 with just his co-founder. No external funding, no venture capital—just pure bootstrapping and relentless innovation.
"We were the coder, developer, sale guys, operational guys, deployment guys—all of things we did," Gupta recalls about the early days. Their target audience was telecom operators, making it particularly challenging for "some young kids to try to sell to large telecom operators."
Innovations That Scaled Globally
BlackNGreen's success came from solving real problems at massive scale. Their first breakthrough was addressing the 40-50% of failed calls due to insufficient balance. Instead of the frustrating "you don't have enough balance" message, they offered an instant loan option—press one to get a ₹10 loan and continue the call.
"This kind of service became a massive revenue generator for telcos," Gupta explains. The innovation was simple but powerful: convert failed calls that generated zero revenue into successful calls that created new revenue streams.
The company followed up with other hits including voice-changing services featuring characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck that became global sensations across 50-60 countries. Their philosophy was consistent: create one product, mature it over 2-3 years, and continuously build new solutions for their expanding customer base.
BlackNGreen's Global Impact (Bootstrapped)
- Presence: 80+ countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America
- Call Handling: Millions of calls daily on their platforms
- Funding: ZERO venture capital - completely bootstrapped
- Products: Voice services, gaming solutions, roaming products
- AI Integration: AI voice services bridging digital divide
The AI Awakening: From Telecom to Intelligence
Like many technology leaders, Gupta's world transformed when he first encountered ChatGPT. "When ChatGPT happened, I really fell in love with ChatGPT when I first interacted with it," he shares. "I thought that the world has changed."
This realization prompted a company-wide pivot toward AI. With over a decade of experience handling millions of calls through BlackNGreen's infrastructure, Gupta saw a unique opportunity: combining AI with their telecommunications expertise.
Bridging the Digital Divide
Their first AI venture was revolutionary: enabling AI conversations through regular phone calls. This addressed a critical gap—45% of people globally still don't have smartphones, with that number rising to 60% in Africa.
— Rahul Gupta, Founder, BlackNGreen & Nexiva
This service now handles millions of calls daily for telecom operators across Africa and Asia. But Gupta saw an even bigger opportunity in the customer care domain, where enterprises spend enormous amounts while customers remain frustrated with poor service quality.
The Birth of Nexiva: Agentic AI for Customer Support
Recognizing that BlackNGreen was telecom-focused, Gupta created Nexiva as a dedicated platform for customer care automation across all industries. The timing was crucial—Indian enterprises were showing massive appetite for AI-powered solutions.
However, Gupta acknowledges a significant challenge: "80% of AI implementations are failing" in corporate environments. The reasons are varied but point to a fundamental gap between AI capabilities and effective implementation.
Why Corporate AI Implementations Fail
According to Gupta, the primary reasons for failure include:
- LLMs don't behave predictably (the "black box" problem)
- Language understanding isn't perfect for all languages
- Companies lack expertise in using AI effectively
- Insufficient guardrails and constraints
- Poor integration with existing workflows
The Agentic AI Advantage
Nexiva's approach uses "agentic AI"—systems that can take autonomous actions rather than just responding to prompts. This represents a significant leap beyond traditional chatbots or automated systems.
"Our platform is very mature and is being loved by enterprises around the world," Gupta states. "We're making our system so smart that extremely complex workflows can be deployed very, very quickly."
The evolution has been dramatic. "What our platform could do one month back, what today it can do, and what our next month release can do is so dramatically different," Gupta reveals. This rapid improvement cycle is accelerating adoption.
The Human-Like Revolution: Voice AI That's Indistinguishable
What makes Nexiva's technology particularly disruptive is the quality of AI voices. The era of robotic, automated systems is over. Today's AI voices have become so natural that average people cannot distinguish between human agents and AI.
"Human-like voices are so amazing and we're choosing some of the really amazing voices which are soothing, which are calming by their own nature which people actually love talking to," Gupta explains.
Traditional Support vs Nexiva's Agentic AI
Human Agent Limitations:
- Variable quality (20% excellent, 60% average, 20% poor)
- Requires training, breaks, weekends off
- High operational costs beyond salaries
- Slow onboarding for new products/services
- Limited scalability
Nexiva AI Agents:
- Consistent excellence (all agents perform like top 20%)
- 24/7 availability without breaks
- Dramatically lower operational costs
- Train on new products in minutes, not weeks
- Instant scalability to handle demand spikes
The key innovation: training AI based on the best human agents. "If you have 500 people and 20 good agents, now all 500 AI agents can be as good as your 20 agents," Gupta explains. "That's something fantastic."
The Economic Reality: Why Companies Are Switching Fast
The economics of AI customer support are compelling beyond just salary savings. Gupta points out numerous hidden costs that companies incur with human support teams:
- Infrastructure costs (seating, computers, equipment)
- Transport services (cabs, shuttles)
- Training and onboarding expenses
- Supervision and quality assurance
- Shift management and scheduling complexity
"Training AI agents can be done in a matter of minutes," Gupta emphasizes. "Imagine training your entire staff on a new product launch. AI can be trained in minutes while it would take weeks for humans."
The Hard Truth: 3 Years Until Mass Disruption
Gupta's prediction about 80% of customer support jobs disappearing isn't speculation—it's based on observing adoption patterns and the rapid maturation of AI technology.
"If someone was relying for their career on being a customer care agent, I think it's time they completely start booking out," Gupta states directly. "Within 2-3 years, it's not going to exist anymore."
The impact will be global. While India is known for its BPO industry, other countries like the Philippines (English support) and Egypt (Arabic support) are also major outsourcing hubs facing disruption.
The 3-Phase Transition Timeline
Phase 1 (Now - 1 Year): Early adopters deploy AI for routine queries while humans handle complex cases
Phase 2 (1-2 Years): AI matures to handle 60-70% of interactions with human oversight
Phase 3 (2-3 Years): AI achieves near-complete automation with only 20% of human roles remaining for exceptional scenarios
The 20% That Will Remain
For customer support professionals, Gupta's advice is clear: either become exceptional enough to be in the 20% that remains or transition to new roles. The remaining positions will require:
- Exceptional problem-solving abilities
- Emotional intelligence for complex situations
- AI supervision and training capabilities
- Process optimization and workflow design
"It's a time they upskill, they find something else, they learn something," Gupta advises. "They can upskill within their own ecosystem because you can't replace it completely. Human can't be out of the loop, but there will still be 20% agents which would be needed."
The AI Skills Gap: 4x Value for Those Who Adapt
Gupta observes two distinct responses to AI disruption within his own company:
The Reserved: "Some people are so reserved saying, 'Oh no, what will we do? What not we will do.'" These individuals focus on the problems without taking action.
The Enthusiastic: "Some people are so gung-ho with AI, Cursor AI development tools, and whatnot." These individuals see opportunity and dive into learning.
The Value Multiplier Effect
Gupta reveals that professionals who upskilled themselves in AI tools are now "earning 4x literally because they upskilled themselves and they know how to use these tools." The key areas generating premium value include:
- AI tool mastery (Cursor, development platforms)
- Prompt engineering and LLM communication
- AI workflow automation
- Creative AI utilization (Sora, video generation)
"This is the biggest opportunity of their lifetimes" for those willing to adapt, Gupta emphasizes. An ad agency won't need four people—they'll need one person who can do the work of four using AI tools.
Beyond Customer Support: The Wider AI Revolution
The disruption of customer support is just one facet of a broader transformation. Gupta sees similar patterns emerging in creative fields, particularly with video AI like Sora.
"Real movies which can be played on an IMAX screen can be made with Sora and commercials," Gupta predicts. "The job of commercial builders at some ad agencies who are having a lot of creative people who are shooting ads—I think that job is completely gone."
However, he pushes back against the narrative that AI doesn't create jobs. While acknowledging that previous technologies created new roles, AI might be different. But for the next 2-3 years, the opportunity is enormous for those who master these tools.
— Rahul Gupta, Founder, Nexiva
The Implementation Challenge: Why 95% of AI Projects Fail
Despite the hype, Gupta acknowledges that most AI implementations fail to deliver value. Recent reports suggest 95% of AI implementations in Fortune 500 companies are failing.
Gupta agrees with these findings but offers a crucial insight: "The problem is not with the LLM capabilities. It's the problem of people using it effectively."
The LLM Misconception That Causes Failures
Gupta explains that many users treat LLMs as mind-readers: "You tell it that 'drive the car from here to here.' It will just do it. If you don't tell it that 'if there is a tree on the way don't hit the tree,' it won't know that. It will ram in the tree."
Solution: Success requires explicit instructions, clear constraints, and proper context setting. AI systems need guidance, not just goals.
The gap between AI capabilities and effective implementation creates opportunities for entrepreneurs building solutions like Nexiva that make AI accessible and effective for enterprises.
The AI Bubble: Separating Hype from Reality
With massive investments flowing into AI companies, questions about a valuation bubble are valid. Gupta acknowledges there is indeed a bubble, but with important nuances.
"Of course there is a bubble," Gupta admits. "There's a bubble where a bubble forms when everyone is so excited about the AI buzzword that without proper due diligence, anything which starts having AI starts attracting billions of dollars in investments."
The Bubble Reality: Winners vs Losers
The Hype Cycle (80-85% of companies):
- AI buzzword attracts funding without substance
- No proper due diligence from investors
- Products don't deliver real value
- Will fail when bubble bursts
The Value Creators (15% of companies):
- Solving real problems with AI
- Building sustainable competitive advantages
- Creating genuine customer value
- Will thrive long-term despite bubble
His prediction: "Short-term, this bubble might burst and with this burst, some of the even known names might come down. But long-term, AI is the winner."
Building Global Companies Without VC Money
Given Gupta's success building BlackNGreen across 80+ countries without venture capital, his perspective on funding is particularly valuable.
"I bootstrapped the company," he states simply. "Me and my co-founder were the coder, developer, sale guys, operational guys, deployment guys—all of things we did."
This bootstrap journey taught valuable lessons about sustainable growth and customer-focused development. Unlike venture-backed companies chasing growth at all costs, bootstrapped businesses must deliver real value from day one.
Key Takeaways
Rahul Gupta's journey from bootstrap founder to AI revolutionist offers crucial insights for navigating the AI transformation:
For Customer Support Professionals: The 3-year timeline is real. Either develop skills to be in the exceptional 20% or transition to new roles. The choice is binary—adapt or become obsolete.
For Entrepreneurs: The implementation gap represents opportunity. With 95% of AI projects failing, there's massive demand for solutions that make AI accessible and effective for enterprises.
For All Professionals: Master AI tools now or risk being replaced by those who do. The value differential is already 4x for those who adapt versus those who don't.
For Investors: Look beyond the AI buzzword. Focus on companies solving real problems with sustainable advantages, not those riding the hype cycle.
For Companies: The economics are undeniable. AI automation isn't just cost savings—it's about 24/7 consistency, perfect quality, and instant scalability that humans can't match.
The AI revolution isn't coming—it's here. As Nexiva demonstrates with agentic AI voice agents that customers can't distinguish from humans, the transformation is already underway. The next three years will determine who seizes the opportunity and who gets left behind.
"This is the biggest opportunity of their lifetimes" for those who embrace change, Gupta concludes. The question isn't whether AI will transform your industry—it's whether you'll be leading the transformation or being replaced by it.
About the Guest
Rahul Gupta is the founder of Nexiva, an agentic AI platform revolutionizing customer support, and co-founder of BlackNGreen, a bootstrapped telecom solutions company operating in 80+ countries. With over 16 years of experience building global technology solutions without venture capital, Gupta represents a new generation of founders who achieve massive scale through sustainable growth.
Under his leadership, BlackNGreen grew from a two-person startup to handling millions of calls daily across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The company's innovations include AI telephony solutions that bridge the digital divide for 45% of the world's population without smartphones.
Nexiva represents Gupta's vision for the future of enterprise automation, using agentic AI to transform customer support operations. The platform's human-like voice agents and intelligent automation capabilities are setting new standards for what's possible with AI.
Gupta is a vocal advocate for responsible AI adoption and workforce transformation, regularly speaking about the urgent need for professionals to adapt to AI automation. His straightforward approach to discussing job disruption and economic reality, combined with his track record of building successful businesses, makes him a respected voice in the global AI community.