Smarter than a help desk | Asqr.ai brings AI guest intelligence and solutions to live events
The Knoxville startup is the first to be backed by both Market Square Ventures and UT Ventures.
When you think of Tennessee’s music and entertainment hub, Nashville probably comes to mind. But Carey Archer, founder and CEO of Asqr.ai, is throwing Knoxville’s name in the mix.
His startup uses AI to fix one of live entertainment’s most stubborn problems: customer service. Backed by Market Square Ventures and UT Ventures, the platform replaces traditional help desks with AI-powered guest intelligence that actually provides solutions. This benefits the people who produce the events and the attendees.
“I’m more excited about this than anything I’ve ever built,” Archer said. “I can really see this becoming something truly special.”
From the stage to operations
At his core, Archer is a musician. He played in bands throughout college and jokes that while a full-time rock star career didn’t pan out, he still gets his fix playing keys locally for Erick Baker. Knowing the industry firsthand also gave him a launchpad into band management.
That led to work with Ted Heinig, now head of Live Nation Entertainment, and eventually to a meeting with Ashley Capps, the Knoxville promoter behind AC Entertainment, Big Ears Festival and, with Superfly Presents, the Bonnaroo Music Festival. Capps needed help as Bonnaroo started taking off, and Archer “talked his way” into the COO role.
“I definitely did not have the chops, but I’ve always been a super organized person,” he said. “I loved building systems.”
As Bonnaroo grew, Archer built the technology that ran its logistics, which he compared to building a city. Think 5,000 temporary staff who all need lodging, meals, radios, transportation, contracts and pay.
He later took that technology to market as Dataflow Enterprises with Knoxville entrepreneur Robby Black, who now serves as Asqr.ai’s CTO. The two eventually sold the company but learned that event producers needed guidance just as much as the software itself.
“It’s like we created a pro set of golf clubs, and we were selling them to people who had no idea how to play golf,” he explained. “What they really needed were golf instructors.”
That insight took him into consulting, including roughly 10 years helping scale Coachella and Stagecoach. He then joined CID Entertainment, a VIP experiences company, and co-founded sister company CID Presents, which produces all-inclusive destination concerts at resorts with artists such as Luke Bryan and Phish.
Then the pandemic brought live events to a halt, and Archer was back to square one.
An industry ready for AI
Starting over was hard, but Archer said it was also a good time to innovate. Looking at his experience and connections, a few things stood out.
Even the biggest entertainment companies often lack sophisticated technology. Giants like Live Nation are largely collections of smaller producers, each with its own systems and teams. Add on top of that the lesson he learned at Dataflow, that event producers need guidance as much as software. Then, there’s also the flood of fan questions hitting small teams with limited tools. For example, a single festival can receive more than 20,000 emails over a few months.
That creates three problems:
- Who or what sorts and answers them?
- Most of the answers are already in the FAQ, but fans don’t read it. “Nobody wants to read fine print,” Archer said. Even so, these workers will most likely just encourage customers to check out the FAQ and there is no solution there for a follow-up question.
- Help desk platforms such as Zendesk can be powerful but expensive, technical and built for companies that sell a single product. Event producers often run many events or brands at once, and each needs its own set of answers.
Archer built Asqr.ai to solve all three, something AI has made far easier. He started building the platform late last year and launched it in April.
The early results are impressive:
- In a pilot with a major festival, AI answered 86% of guest questions, settling 7,278 emails without anyone on the team stepping in.
- A new client can be up and running in 10 to 15 minutes tops.
- This summer, the platform supported four Danny Wimmer Presents festivals as well as San Francisco’s Outside Lands, whose producers are now expanding its use to their other venues.
- There is a running pilot with the Tennessee Theatre and Sofar Sounds, which operates in 300 cities.
Built in Knoxville, backed in Knoxville
Archer likes to say that landing in Knoxville and getting in with Ashley Capps of AC Entertainment was partly chance, but that the music scene anchored by the Tennessee Theatre and the Bijou Theatre is what made him stay.
Today, he can say that building a growing startup here adds another layer. It’s now two local venture capital organizations, Market Square Ventures and UT Ventures, keeping him rooted here even more.
“It’s incredibly validating to have people close that I can sit down and talk to. I love the the diversity of each of the groups. There’s a lot of different, really smart investors behind those funds that all bring different value, insight and connections to the table. Plus, the two collaborate to support what we’re trying to accomplish.”
Marty Brown, president and CEO of PYA and publisher of Teknovation, is uniquely positioned to speak to this collaboration because he is involved with both venture capital organizations.
“UT Ventures gives UT alumni a meaningful way to put their capital to work behind companies connected to the university,” Brown said. “Market Square Ventures focuses on early-stage startups in Tennessee, the Southeast and Appalachia. We aim to invest in exceptional founders in a traditionally overlooked region where our capital and connections can make a big impact. The two go hand in hand.”
“Personally, I’m a heavy user of live event platforms across the country,” he added. “I’m thrilled that a Knoxville-based company has built such an elegant solution.”
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