Artificial Solutions Announces Update and Response to Covid-19
Artificial Solutions® (SSME:ASAI) the leading specialist in enterprise-strength Conversational AI, provided an update today on its response to the Covid-19 pandemic including further actions to ensure it is well positioned as international lockdowns are softened.
The company is already taking steps to maximise its cash resources with a range of initiatives such as arranging deferred expenditure of a wide spectrum of items including rents and taxes.
Artificial Solutions, with people-related costs accounting for around 70% of its regular expenditure, has now made the strategic decision to apply for various government support and loan schemes available in the geographies in which its operates, to furlough some staff and ask others, including the management and Board, to take a pay deferral. The company is not currently planning any redundancies and remains confident in its mid-term opportunities.
The combination of staff and non-staff cash conserving measures is significant and is estimated to be approximately 1.8M euros subject to conditional approvals.
“Many of our customers and target prospects are themselves dealing with the current pandemic and are quite correctly focused on these tasks as a priority. However, once markets pick up, we expect to see an even stronger demand for our products as companies seek to reduce their dependencies on offshore locations and large call centres. In the medium to long term, we anticipate that the Enterprise Conversational AI market will be accelerated by the virus’ legacy, as businesses decrease their reliance on staff and increase their commitment to digital automation,” comments Lawrence Flynn, CEO of Artificial Solutions.
As a technology savvy and geographically diverse business, Artificial Solutions is already well-practiced at leveraging technology for remote working. The company was able to close all its offices early March to protect staff, while still enabling customers to access its conversational AI products and services without any appreciable change. These further measures will allow Artificial Solutions to continue serving those customers while retaining the ability to scale up operations in line with how market conditions develop.
“I am very pleased that we have managed to protect all jobs at this stage and with certain regions already showing early signs of economies re-starting, I am optimistic that we will continue to do so. I’d like to thank the commitment and loyalty of our employees and look forward to brighter times on the other side of this extraordinary period,” concludes Lawrence.
For more information, please contact:
Lawrence Flynn, CEO,
Artificial Solutions International AB
+46 8 663 54 50
lawrence.flynn@artificial-solutions.com
The information in this press release is such that Artificial Solutions International AB shall announce publicly according to the EU Regulation No 596/2014 on market abuse (MAR). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above, at 29 April 2020 at 20:00 CET.