A peek into high-tech communication with ShareChat and Moj - India's first and largest AI-powered content ecosystem in the making Artificial Intelligence and Augmented Reality are no longer concepts of the future that have no commonplace use. Read what Mr. Ankush Sachdeva, CEO & Co-Founder at ShareChat has to say about a new age of communications and content interactions that await us with platforms like ShareChat & Moj
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Ankush talks about a technologically driven environment that has given rise to game-changing platforms in the form of ShareChat and Moj, both of which have acquired over 100 million active users in the past months. "We believe there is an unmet need for good and relevant content in India and this need will keep growing with time. Great content has two important aspects: Rich and diverse content created by the creators who understand what users want and the technology that delivers it to the right audience at the right time," Ankush added.
With ShareChat charting at a whopping 160 million active users, they understood the modern requirements of social platforms for the future. As Ankush said, "Our content delivery powered by the best AI algorithms will be the core innovation that drives this future. We will also have a thriving content creation community that will be able to monetize their creativity on the platforms with a combination of commerce and advertising that will be enabled at scale on our products."
New-age technological offerings
Ankush emphasizes the relevance of a focus on rich content for modern consumers. "Moving beyond the numbers, the impact of our solutions is in creating a very rich and thriving content ecosystem across our two key products (Moj and ShareChat) that allow creators to express their art, voice and opinions and for our consumers a native platform that is tailored to their needs," he said.
Leaning towards a completely different content dynamic, he shared their interest to incorporate cutting-edge technology - "Our focus on the AI-first approach with Moj has led to us having 50% higher retention and 2x the DAU compared to our closest competitor. With a better-personalized feed with creators also getting optimum rewards for their effort, we have managed to match the content to the largest set of relevant audiences even if it revolves around a niche tail."
While ShareChat has had its own strengths as a platform, their new startup, Moj stands out for its innovative and unique avenues for content creation. With a vision for future investments and emphasis on AI-led feed personalization and premium camera features, the goal is to enhance user experience and boost engagement.
A widespread impact on the community
Backed by a central goal of creating great content and experiences for audiences, Moj and ShareChat have risen to a great stature within a short period of time. Ankush highlights, "ShareChat is a community of 160 million strong monthly active users. With 31 minutes of average user time spent, the platform sees 63+ million of user-generated content that gets shared over 2+ billion times every month."
He talked about the success of Moj, and its widespread impact on the community, "Moj has emerged as the largest short video platform in India with the highest monthly active users. With a community of 120+ million monthly active users and 18+ million creators, the platform witnesses over 75 million pieces of content created every month and garners over 3 billion video plays every day. The user community spends an average of 34 minutes per user on a daily basis." Thus, a deep-rooted impact stems from a user-driven approach.
Coping with a Dynamic Marketplace
With stiff competition and a dynamic marketplace, Ankush emphasized their vision to strengthen their AI and AR capabilities to cope with the market and provide a holistic ecosystem for meaningful social experiences.
"Across both ShareChat and Moj, we have consistently worked towards redefining the content creation and consumption experience. The focus is to build social media platforms of the future by leveraging cutting-edge AI, exciting filters, features, and ideas that make the social experience more fulfilling,," he said.
Ankush strongly believes that behind their highly personalized and engaging interface with AI, AR, and technology-rich capabilities, what makes them stand apart is an ideal creator community environment that works to create enjoyable experiences for users at large.
- Year of inception - 2015
- No. of employees – 1100+
- Revenue for FY 2020-21 - NA
- External funding received so far - $766m
Pandemic transitions and future growth plans
Ankush confirmed that the pandemic had a lot to offer in terms of changes in metrics and content consumption trends. "We saw that as our users were forced to stay indoors because of the pandemic, their need to consume content and connect with their community increased many fold over. We responded to that by launching products and features that served our users better. Both the products have been extremely successful in a very short time and helped us grow faster to our goal of being an AI-driven content delivery platform," he added.
Driven by a vision for the long term, Ankush described their future goals centered towards their USP features of AI feed ranking and better AI personalization. "We are really thrilled by what we have achieved in the last year in terms of user growth, product development and becoming a unicorn, but what lies ahead is even more exciting. In terms of product, we have already achieved a critical mass with the number of users we have on our products," he added
He also asserts their clear-cut future goals - "We foresee growing these even more significantly in the next couple of years by continuing our investment in AI by personalizing the content better, creating better product experiences for our creators and consumers for different use cases. To do this we will continue to hire AI/ML scientists, Product Managers and Engineers across different geographies (US, Europe, India) and build a globally distributed workforce." With an aim to enrich creators with creation tools and consumers with more engaging content, their focus lies on enhancing the content community in the larger picture.
