How Curiosity (and boredom) Sparked a Revolution in Customer Support AI

In 2006, after a rewarding run leading P.T.S. — creators of ProfitMaster, the best-selling software for carpet cleaning companies across five countries — I retired early to a quiet Caribbean island. For years, I played tennis, traveled, and built a music studio where I composed and produced dozens of original tracks. Life was great.

And then came ChatGPT.

In late 2022, something unexpected happened. OpenAI launched ChatGPT, and I couldn’t stay away. Within weeks, I was back in hacker mode — using AI to learn all the modern technologies that had emerged during my retirement: HTML5, JavaScript, Python, Docker… you name it. I quickly hit the tool’s limits, and true to my nature, I started building something to fix it.

That something became xSyched — a way to enhance ChatGPT with memory, context management, and collaboration features, all through natural language. In January 2024, xSyched.com went live.

One of my early users was Marcelo Lombardo, the CEO of Omie — Brazil’s largest ERP/CRM platform for SMBs. Marcelo invited me to Brazil to explore how AI could streamline customer support for Omie’s massive user base. That week changed everything.

Fine-Tuning Fails, and What Comes Next...

That’s when we got to work, and discovered some surprising limitations in the standard AI approach. We started by trying what most startups were doing: fine-tuning. We used high-quality Intercom chat logs, synthetic Q&A, custom prompts… and it still hallucinated. The problem wasn’t the data, it was the approach. Fine-tuning just wasn’t good enough for high-stakes, production-grade customer service.

That’s when I discovered RAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) — at the time mostly an academic approach that seemed promising. I dug in, tested early prototypes using ElasticSearch, and quickly saw its potential. With a bit of orchestration magic, it could be scalable, hallucination-resistant, and incredibly accurate.

So I rolled up my sleeves and built it.

By May 2024, Omie launched what I believe was the first production Hybrid RAG AI Support Assistant, powered by a proprietary, multi-step, multi-model orchestration engine, hallucination recovery, and a custom context manager. After tens of thousands of chat turns in testing, it went live May 22, 2024, with incredible results.

From One Deployment to a Platform

Realizing the broader opportunity, in August 2024 I founded instantAIguru.com with the intent to offer a self-serve platform that allows any business to deploy an enterprise-grade AI Assistant (we call them “Gurus,” a nod to the internal name Marcelo coined during our pilot at Omie) that knows everything published on your website, and is ready to answer any question, in just minutes.

We then launched SiteGuru.ai in early 2025 to make onboarding completely frictionless. No sales calls, no forms. Just enter your domain and watch as we crawl, scrape, index, and deploy a hallucination-free AI Guru for your business.

Winning Enterprise Trust

In December 2024, Curacao Department Stores deployed an Instant AI Guru on their POS systems. In January 2025, I joined them as SVP of AI Strategy, with a mandate to evaluate every AI support platform on the market: Microsoft Copilot, Salesforce LiveAgent, Intercom Fin, Zendesk Chat, Forethought, Parloa …

It quickly became clear: most platforms require weeks of onboarding, enterprise sales reps, and eye-watering onboarding fees — just to get started.

instantAIguru was:

• More accurate
• Vendor-agnostic (we use OpenAI, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Groq, DeepSeek AI)
• Self-service from day one

But it also was:

• Small team with limited resources
• Single channel support

So we went to work...

• By January 28, we were certified as a WhatsApp Tech Partner.
• By March, our Gurus supported SMS using Twilio.
• By May, our Gurus could even answer your phone.

July 11, 2025, Curacao added the instantAIguru Phone Assistant as the first option in their main IVR.

What’s Next?

We believe every business deserves an AI Assistant that:

• Never hallucinates
• Knows everything about your company
• Is live in minutes, not months
• Answers customers on their preferred channel

We’re just getting started. If you're curious, try building your own Guru at instantAIguru.com or use SiteGuru.ai to see it in action on your site.

And if you’re an investor, supporter, or just someone who shares our vision — reach out. The revolution in customer support has only just begun.

– Ron Pinkas, Founder