Hootsuite acquires conversational AI firm Heyday for $48 million

Social media management giant Hootsuite Inc. announced that it’s acquiring Canada-based conversational AI firm Heyday for $48 million (CA $60 Million). 

Founded in 2017 by David Bordeleau, Hugues Rousseau, Steve Desjarlais, and Étienne Mérineau, Montreal-based Heyday’s AI-powered customer messaging platform allows businesses to respond to their customers’ needs just in seconds using chatbots.  

It works with many worldwide-famous brands including Lacoste, Decathlon, Cirque du Soleil, Danone, Rudsak, and Jack & Jones (Bestseller). 

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

According to Hootsuite’s Digital 2021 Report, social media usage has peaked during the pandemic, with more than 4.2 billion global social media users now spending an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes everyday on social media platforms. 

According to Edison Research, while 39% of social media users expect to receive a reply within an hour when they contact a business on social media, they usually respond within 5 hours on average. 

However, the use of AI chatbots reduces the waiting time to seconds, enabling brands to offer a much faster and personalized user experience.

“We created Heyday’s conversational platform to make buying from a brand as easy as messaging a friend,” said Heyday Co-Founder “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.”

In January, Hootsuite also acquired Sparkcentral, a California-based customer engagement firm that offers tools to enable brands to message 1:1 with customers via social media channels.