How AI-driven userization is redefining enterprise software, accelerating ROI, and driving global digital adoption.
Vara, as the Co-founder and Head of R&D at Whatfix, you’ve led the company through some significant growth and technological advancements. Can you share how Whatfix’s journey has shaped your perspective on digital adoption and AI in the enterprise world?
At Whatfix, our journey has closely mirrored the enterprise world’s growing appetite for intuitive and intelligent software. What started as a push for digital adoption has now matured into a movement around userization, ensuring software works for the user, not the other way around. The recent advances in AI, especially generative AI, have supercharged this vision. We are going all-in on AI, not just to automate tasks, but to create deeply personalized, context-aware user experiences.
This evolution is reflected in our platform—across DAP, Product Analytics, and Mirror—which empowers enterprises to not only onboard users but also continuously optimize their experience with real-time insights and personalized guidance. AI is not just a layer we’ve added—it’s becoming the foundation that drives smarter, more human-centric software interactions at scale.
With the recent exponential growth of Whatfix, particularly after securing $125 million in Series E funding, how do you foresee the next phase of growth for the company and its role in shaping the digital adoption landscape?
The Series E funding round has reinforced Whatfix’s position as the largest pure-play digital adoption platform. It’s fueling the next phase of our growth – both globally and vertically. We’re scaling rapidly across North America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East and expanding into new sectors like the public sector. A key milestone is our partnership with the U.S. Army’s PEO-Enterprise to support user adoption and training for the Integrated Personnel and Pay System – Army (IPPS-A).
But growth for us isn’t just about scale, it’s about shaping the future of how users interact with software. We’re doubling down on an AI-first strategy rooted in userization: making digital experiences intelligent, adaptive, and human-centered. Our proprietary ScreenSense technology powers this vision, enabling real-time perception, intent detection, and interaction across applications.
Looking ahead, we are considering an IPO within the next two to three years, focusing on achieving sustainable growth and solidifying its market position before going public With our strong financial trajectory, customer-first approach, and AI-powered product suite, we are excited about what the future holds for Whatfix as we continue to redefine the digital adoption landscape.
What can you tell us about the latest AI enhancements, especially ScreenSense, and how these innovations are helping organizations accelerate AI adoption?
With the surge of AI tools and applications and copilots, we are witnessing a greater need of the adoption of these tools to realize their true potential and generate ROI on tech investments. Whatfix product suite helps businesses accelerate ROI, productivity, and user satisfaction on their digital investments, including AI, by streamlining application deployment across its lifecycle from training to deployment to adoption.
Whatfix ScreenSense™ is an innovative AI technology, the foundation that powers the next generation of Whatfix’s product suite—the Digital Adoption Platform (DAP), Mirror, and Product Analytics. It’s a comprehensive engine that goes beyond simply “seeing” applications.
It operates across three intelligent layers:
i. Perception: Understands visual elements and workflows like a human
ii. Intent Detection: Recognizes the user’s role, behavior, and context to deliver personalized guidance.
iii. Interaction: Empowers teams to create automated, no-code guidance and workflows with simple point-and-click tools.
We have secured 6 patents and have 17 pending for ScreenSense™, revolutionizing digital adoption with intelligent, intuitive solutions.
We are now augmenting ScreenSense with the power of Computer using agents, which will take intent detection and automation even further- dramatically reducing effort for content authors.
Digital adoption platforms (DAPs) are becoming essential for enterprises. How do you see DAPs evolving in the next few years, and what role will AI play in their development?
In the coming years, DAPs will anticipate user needs, deliver personalized guidance, and continuously optimize digital experiences without manual intervention. AI will enable DAPs to predict user actions, proactively offer support, and automate complex workflows, reducing the need for human involvement in routine tasks. These intelligent platforms will analyze user behavior in real-time, adapting to ensure a smoother, more intuitive experience.
This evolution will streamline onboarding, improve tool utilization, and drive greater productivity, helping organizations accelerate digital adoption and transformation with minimal effort. ScreenSense is innovating towards a future where Artificial Intelligence profoundly enhances its three intelligent layers. This evolution will introduce intelligent entities we call Computer Using Agents (CUAs) or Operators. These agents will handle the intricate work of understanding application nuances and interpreting user intent based on both immediate signals and data provided by DAP. Consequently, ScreenSense will deliver on-the-fly guidance that is highly relevant and requires no upfront configuration from content authors.
The concept of “userization” that Whatfix promotes is quite unique. How does this approach change the traditional ways businesses implement and use enterprise software?
Traditionally, businesses expect users to adapt to complex systems and figure out software on their own. This often leads to long training periods and delays in adoption. Userization changes this approach by making technology adapt to the user.
The idea of userization is at the center of our technology innovation. We believe that technology should adjust to users, not the other way around. Instead of making users learn complex software by themselves, userized platforms give real-time support, clear guidance, and personalized experiences. This helps create a smooth and efficient way to work with digital tools.
When businesses adopt userization, they build a technology environment that puts the user experience first. Personalized adoption platforms and the use of product analytics help organizations become more efficient, innovative, and engaging for employees.
With AI now embedded in Whatfix’s products, how do you ensure that the technology remains intuitive and user-first, allowing employees to easily adapt and maximize the value of their software investments?
At Whatfix, we ensure that our AI-powered products remain intuitive and user-first by integrating intelligent, context-aware features that adapt to each employee’s unique needs and workflow. Powered by ScreenSense™, our products—DAP, Product Analytics, and Mirror—understand user behavior, intent, and workflows to deliver intelligent assistance right when it’s needed.
Product Analytics provides valuable insights into user behavior, identifying areas of friction and enabling organizations to optimize workflows for greater ease of use. DAP integrates real-time, in-app guidance tailored to each user, offering personalized support that helps employees navigate complex tasks with minimal effort. Mirror, our simulation product, allows users to practice and familiarize themselves with workflows in a risk-free environment. It enables them to experiment with software features, building confidence before using them in real scenarios.
This combination of AI-powered tools ensures that employees can quickly adapt to new technology, driving higher adoption rates and maximizing the value of software investments with minimal disruption.
Given Whatfix’s impressive clientele, including major companies like Schneider Electric and Microsoft, how does the company tailor its digital adoption solutions to meet the unique needs of such diverse industries?
Customer-centricity drives everything we do. We take the time to deeply understand the unique needs and goals of each organization, which enables us to tailor our digital adoption solutions to deliver maximum value. As a result, 50% of Whatfix’s product roadmap is shaped directly by customer feedback.
Our commitment to customer-first solutions has earned us recognition as the Top Customer’s Choice Vendor in Gartner’s Voice of the Customer Report for two consecutive years. We consistently achieve outstanding results, demonstrated by a B2B SaaS Net Promoter Score (NPS) above 45, a Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) average of 99.8%, and a 4.6/5 rating on Gartner peer sites. In 2023, our Net Revenue Retention (NRR) for enterprise customers reached 114%, with 45% of existing customers choosing to expand their partnership with Whatfix.
Whatfix’s solutions are versatile and industry-agnostic, supporting a wide array of sectors, including banking, manufacturing, technology, insurance, and pharmaceuticals & life sciences. With over 700 customers across 40 countries, including 80+ Fortune 500 companies, we are also expanding our presence in the federal sector, further enhancing our global impact.
Whatfix has been known for its innovative approach and technology. Can you share how Whatfix’s patented technologies have contributed to the company’s success and how they give you a competitive edge in the market?
Whatfix’s patented technologies and innovative approach have provided us with a clear competitive edge in the market. Over the years, we have aggressively invested in ScreenSense, the foundation of Whatfix’s product suite, making us the largest independent, pure-play Digital Adoption Platform (DAP), expanding beyond DAP to offer a comprehensive multi-product suite.
Our relentless focus on innovation has earned us significant industry recognition and reinforced our leadership position. With 50% of our product roadmap driven by customer feedback, Whatfix remains agile and responsive to evolving customer needs, ensuring high levels of satisfaction and loyalty. Our application-agnostic solutions seamlessly support any deployment model—cloud, self-hosted, or on-premise—across diverse industries.
As AI adoption accelerates, what challenges do you foresee companies facing when trying to fully integrate AI-driven solutions into their operations, and how can Whatfix help overcome these barriers?
As enterprises embrace AI, they often hit barriers beyond technology—challenges like employee resistance, skill gaps, unclear use cases, and the complexity of scaling AI across diverse teams and workflows. There’s also the human factor: fear of change, lack of confidence, and uncertainty around how AI fits into daily work.
Whatfix addresses these challenges head-on with our AI-powered digital adoption solutions. At the core is ScreenSense™, which delivers real-time, context-aware guidance and automation tailored to each user’s role, behavior, and intent. Whether it’s onboarding users to a new AI tool or helping them discover high-impact use cases in the flow of work, Whatfix provides just-in-time enablement.
Whatfix has recently expanded its product suite and continues to innovate. Could you elaborate on the new products that are contributing to your growth and what sets them apart from existing solutions in the market?
We are entering a new era at Whatfix, one where digital adoption meets intelligent enablement at scale. Our expanded product suite reflects this shift, with several key innovations driving our growth:
i. Mirror enables immersive, simulation-based training that allows users to practice in a risk-free environment. It’s redefining how enterprises onboard and upskill without disrupting real workflows.
ii. DAP on OS brings contextual, in-the-moment support to desktop environments, helping users navigate cross-application tasks seamlessly, beyond just the browser.
iii. DAP for Copilots is our purpose-built solution to accelerate the adoption of generative AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot and Google Gemini. It guides users with intelligent prompt recommendations, offers cross-app contextual support, and provides deep analytics to uncover adoption gaps.
At the heart of all these innovations is ScreenSense™, our patented AI engine that powers human-like perception, intent detection, and automation across the platform. Whatfix isn’t just enabling adoption, we are transforming how enterprises experience and scale digital transformation. We are helping organizations extract real value from their technology investments faster and with less friction by making software more intuitive, intelligent, and outcome-driven.
A quote or advice from the author.
“At Whatfix, we have always believed that the future of technology lies in userization—where software intelligently adapts to users, not the other way around. It’s about building AI-powered, intuitive experiences that proactively guide and empower individuals in the flow of work. For tech leaders, the path forward is clear: build systems that understand user intent, personalize experiences in real time, and reduce friction at every touchpoint. This is how we scale digital transformation—with intelligence, empathy, and user-first design at the core.”
Vara Kumar
Cofounder and Head of R&D at Whatfix
Vara Kumar is the co-founder and Head of R&D and Solutions at Whatfix, driving innovation and strategic growth for the company. He co-founded Whatfix with Khadim Batti in 2014 with the vision of empowering individuals and organizations to work symbiotically with technology to maximize their potential. Based in the U.S., Vara leads the company’s multiproduct strategy and vision for product development and adoptions, technology development, and innovation, helping accelerate successful integrations for customers and partners. Under Vara’s leadership, the company has pioneered ‘userization,’ a groundbreaking approach that shifts the focus to making technology adapt to users, rather than requiring users to adapt to the technology. He is passionate about building technology that users love.