Mike Murchison and his cofounder David Hariri launched their company Ada in 2016 after they couldn’t keep up with the customer service volumes their previous company was facing. Today, Ada is one of the world’s leading customer service AI platforms, valued at more than US $1.2 billion, with clients including Pinterest, Square and Monday.
Murchison studied cognitive science and human computer interaction at U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science, regularly inspired by University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton’s research and Computer Engineering Professor Steve Mann’s lab.
The serial entrepreneur launched several tech companies after graduating, including Volley Industries, a social app that connected people looking for help with experts until it faced a surge in customer service requests. To help understand the problem they wanted to solve with Ada, Murchison and co-founder David Hariri worked as customer service representatives for several fast-growing tech companies. They also took part in the AI stream at the Creative Destruction Lab‘s accelerator program at the Rotman School of Management, accessing mentorship from experienced founders as they refined their product and business plan.
Named in honour of Ada Lovelace, known as the world’s first computer programmer, Ada has raised a total of USD $190 million in funding to date from investors including Accel, FirstMark, Spark Capital, VersionOne, Leaders Fund, and Bessemer Venture Partners. The company, headquartered in Toronto with offices in Singapore and London, helps businesses deploy, orchestrate, and continually improve customer-facing AI agents that autonomously resolve complex customer inquiries with minimal human effort.
A Forbes 30 Under 30 winner, Murchison encourages U of T students to take advantage of U of T’s immense entrepreneurship support system.
“U of T gives you an incredible level of access to world-renowned research that’s at your fingertips,” he says. “Being in an environment where you have a structure to catch you if you fall – or as you experiment – is so valuable; it becomes harder later on. I’d love to encourage more students to do that.”
