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Deon Nicholas
Co-founder and Executive Chairman
Forethought
Why watch
Nicholas started Forethought to make customer support feel invisible, with AI that resolves work in the background so agents handle what matters.
Deon Nicholas is co-founder and executive chairman of Forethought, which builds AI agents for customer support. He co-founded it with Sami Ghoche in 2018, he told Pulse 2.0.
AI Research at the University of Waterloo
His interest in AI began at the University of Waterloo and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, where he was drawn to AI's ability to answer questions. Having worked in customer service himself, he saw how AI could change the industry.
Five Customers Before TechCrunch Disrupt
Forethought launched publicly at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2018. Before the competition he and Ghoche set out to sign at least five customers they could show the judges and spent long hours rehearsing answers. They raised a $9 million Series A shortly after.
