botts.ai: Product, team and how it was built
botts.ai (Swiss-hosted AI agents for customer chat and phone, and a private chat assistant for teams, Switzerland): Live with paid plans, November 2026. Evidence grade E: no revenue figure was checked. Team: 2 co-founders; the about page lists a third engineer; Latka lists 15 employees in July 2026. Launched October 2024; still running.Added
- Outcome
- Live with paid plans, November 2026
- Evidence
- E no revenue figure was checked
- Launch
- October 2024
- Status
- Still running
- Team
- 2 co-founders; the about page lists a third engineer; Latka lists 15 employees in July 2026
- Outside funding
- None found in any downloaded source
- Main channel
- Not stated
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. Latka says the company has not published its revenue. The company calls HSLU a client, and it lists prices and payment terms. No independent source confirms that these customers pay. Only the company names HSLU. Tio.ch and the Swiss Post blog name no customer. A 20 Minuten article that the company links could not be read, because that site's robots.txt disallows it. The commercial register could not be read either, so the 2025 founding year is the company's own. The count of 15 employees is Latka's and unsourced, and the company's own about page lists three people. No funding round was found. This story is grade E: the business is real and its product, price and customers are described from public pages, but no revenue figure was checked. Aiolum shows it as an idea worth studying, not as proof that it makes money.
botts.ai is a Swiss platform for AI agents. An AI agent here is a program that answers questions in everyday language, using a company's own documents, and can call outside systems. A company can put an agent on its website, on a phone line or in an internal chat for its staff. The company also sells the internal chat as a private alternative to ChatGPT.
Yves Zumbühl and Claudio Berardi run it from Zug. The company's about page says it was founded in 2025 and that the two founders turned a "boutique consulting practice" into a company. A blog post dated 27 October 2024 shows an earlier offer. So does an archived home page of 2 November 2024: custom agents for select clients.
No revenue figure was found in any downloaded source, so this story is grade E. What was checked is a published price list, terms that set out payment, and customers named on the company's own pages. The company calls them clients; no independent source confirms that they pay.

Why did botts.ai work?
Four causes, in the order they mattered. Each one is a reusable lesson.
It sells Swiss hosting to businesses that must know where data goes
The about page says the services run on Swiss infrastructure and that customer data does not train models. The security page lists Infomaniak in Switzerland and Microsoft Azure in Zurich among its subprocessors. Tio.ch's subheading quotes the founders: "Perché così sapete esattamente dove sono i vostri dati, e che vi tutela la legge elvetica" (so you know exactly where your data is, and Swiss law protects you) (translation).
Each plan includes a monthly allowance of credits that models use up
The pricing page gives every plan a monthly credit allowance: 1,200, 10,000 and 30,000 credits. The changelog of 5 June 2026 mentions "clearer credit pricing" with per-model rates. Larger plans add agents, phone numbers and members.
The company ships a changelog entry about every four days
The changelog lists 60 dated entries between 25 February and 8 November 2026. They include phone agents, a documentation site, scheduled tasks and new open-weight models.
How it was built
These details come from the company's security, privacy and changelog pages. They are grade C. [10, 11]
- Hosting, database, file storage and some AI inference run at Infomaniak in Switzerland, the security page says.
- Text and voice models come from Azure OpenAI in Zurich. Open-weight models come from Nebius in the EU and from Sference on European GPUs.
- Phone numbers and call routing use Twilio. Payments use Stripe. Transactional email uses Lettermint.
- The free Web Page Roast tool loads pages with a crawler on Modal Labs and sends them to Anthropic Claude, the privacy policy says.
Tools named in the sources
Each one opens its page in the Tools tab, with every story that uses it.
Who tried this before botts.ai, and why did they fail?
Two companies in a database of failed startups sold website chat or automated answers to businesses, as botts.ai does. The values below are from that database, read on 12 November 2026, and are not independently verified.
Answerly
The promiseFewer support tickets, through FAQ matching and automated answers on company websites.
Why it diedThe record says matching questions to written answers needed months of manual setup. It also says the customers who needed automation most had the hardest cases.
RightHello
The promiseLive chat that turns website visitors into buyers for online shops.
Why it diedThe record says it was too feature-rich to compete on price and too alike others to justify a premium. Intercom, Drift and Zendesk had far more money.
The failed startups come from our database of 1,749 dead startups, retold here in our own words. Its entries are AI-assisted summaries of public sources, so these cards carry no evidence grade.
What changed
The RightHello record says larger chat vendors beat it. The Answerly record names the cost of setup: months of writing answers by hand. The botts.ai home page says an agent can be "live before lunch".
The company is also a Swiss niche, not a general chat tool. It prices in Swiss francs and puts Swiss hosting in front. Whether that holds against Intercom or Zendesk is not shown by any source.
Can one person copy botts.ai now?
The idea, yes. The proof, not yet.
A small team can copy the pattern: one narrow audience, one legal reason to prefer a local host, and a public price list. No source shows how much money this one makes.
Where it is still open: Local-hosting agents for one regulated trade in one country: law firms, clinics, fiduciaries or insurance brokers.
- 1Pick a country or sector where data residency is a purchase reason.
- 2Show every plan and its limits on one page, as this company does.
- 3Offer a free trial without a credit card.
- 4Keep a public changelog.
How much revenue does botts.ai make?
Each row shows the evidence grade and the source numbers from the list at the end of this page. The grades are explained in How Aiolum verifies.
| Fact | Value | Grade | How we know | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paid plans, November 2026 | CHF 19, CHF 169 and CHF 699 a month; Enterprise custom | C | Pricing page, read 11 November 2026: "Personal ... 19 CHF/Monat", "Business ... 169 CHF/Monat", "Business Pro 699 CHF /Mt." (German page). In US dollars at the Federal Reserve rate: about US$23.19, US$206.30 and US$853.27. | [1, 17] |
| Payment terms | subscriptions payable in advance; setup fees for custom projects by quote | C | Terms, version of 12 August 2026: "Subscriptions are payable in advance, monthly or annually." and "One-off setup fees for Custom Solutions are due as per the quote." Payments run through Stripe, the security page says. | [4, 10] |
| Company founded | 2025, in Zug | C | About page: "Gegründet 2025 in Zug, Schweiz" (founded 2025 in Zug, Switzerland) (translation). The operating company is botts.ai gmbh, with a commercial-register number on the page. | [2] |
| Earlier start | October 2024, an offer of custom agents | C | A blog post by Yves Zumbühl dated 27 October 2024 lists agent projects. An archived home page of 2 November 2024 says "Currently Partnering with Select Clients" and offers a "Custom Agent". Both predate the 2025 founding date. | [6, 7] |
| Earlier consultancy | a "boutique consulting practice" before the company | C | English about page: "So they turned a boutique consulting practice into a company." The German page says "Boutique-Beratung". No source gives the consultancy's start date. | [2, 3] |
| Founders and team | 2 co-founders; a third engineer on the about page; Latka lists 15 employees | D | The about page names two co-founders and a third engineer. Latka, updated 5 October 2026, lists 15 employees in July 2026 and does not say where the count comes from. | [2, 14] |
| Customers named by the company | Wabool, HSLU, StuCard and UZH | C | The company's about-page data has four cards headed "In production". Their attributions are "Max · Wabool", "HSLU · Lucerne University of Applied Sciences", "StuCard · Money Hacks initiative" and "UZH · University of Zurich". A blog post of 14 November 2025 says "Our clients, including trusted institutions such as the University of Lucerne (HSLU)". | [3, 5] |
| Revenue | not disclosed | D | Latka's page, updated 5 October 2026, says: "botts.ai has not published its revenue, and GetLatka has no sourced estimate yet." | [14] |
| Paid consulting beside the software | AI Assessment, CHF 2,000 excluding VAT | C | The company's AI Assessment page: a free first call, half a day on site and a written report, "CHF 2,000 excl. VAT". The pricing page lists it under the four plans. | [9, 1] |
| Press and membership | Tio.ch interview, 9 September 2026; swissAI member; Post blog, 7 July 2026 | C | Tio.ch describes the company as run by two young entrepreneurs in Zug. The swissAI member list has "botts.ai gmbh". A Swiss Post blog names Yves Zumbühl as a speaker. None of the three names a paying customer. | [13, 15, 16] |
| Changelog entries | 60, from 25 February to 8 November 2026 | calc | Calculated: a count of the dated entries on the company's changelog page, whose first entry is 25 February 2026. | [8] |
| Time from the earliest dated page to November 2026 | 24 months | calc | Calculated: 27 October 2024 to 12 November 2026, in whole months. | [6] |
How to read this table: a grade C value is what the company says on its own pages. A grade D value comes from a directory, a third party that gives no method. A "calc" value (grade X) was computed on this page. No value comes from a payment processor, a filing or a journalist's check of documents.
| Plan | Per month, billed yearly (US$) | Per month, billed monthly (US$) | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal | 23.19 (CHF 19) | 1,200 credits, 1 agent, 1 user, internal chat only | |
| Business | 206.30 (CHF 169) | 10,000 credits, 2 agents, 4 deployments, 1 phone number, 3 members | |
| Business Pro | 853.27 (CHF 699) | 30,000 credits, 5 agents, 8 deployments, 2 phone numbers, 8 members | |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | unlimited agents, dedicated support and a service-level agreement |
The page prices are in Swiss francs (CHF). They are converted here at 0.8192 CHF per US dollar, the Federal Reserve H.10 rate of 6 November 2026. The page has a Monthly and a Yearly toggle. The yearly prices were not in the downloaded text; the first price column is empty. Each plan includes a monthly credit allowance. Personal has a free first month and Business a free 14 days, both without a credit card. Enterprise is priced on request.
When did botts.ai launch, and how did it grow?
From a custom-agent offer for select clients in October 2024 to a platform with a public price list and a weekly changelog in November 2026.
- 27 October 2024CA blog post by Yves Zumbühl lists agent projects for clients and asks companies that want "a customized AI agent system" to get in touch. [6]
- 2 November 2024CThe archived home page offers four agent types and says the company is "Currently Partnering with Select Clients". [7]
- 2025CThe about page gives 2025 as the year the company was founded in Zug. [2]
- 14 November 2025CA blog post by Yves Zumbühl says the company's clients include the University of Lucerne (HSLU). [5]
- 25 February 2026CFirst entry of the changelog. Phone agents arrive on 8 March 2026. [8]
- 9 August 2026CThe changelog says the plans are now Personal, Business, Business Pro and Enterprise, with free trials without a credit card. [8]
What could go wrong for botts.ai?
The risks are the mirror image of the causes above.
What is not verified
No revenue figure was found. Latka says the company has not published its revenue. The company calls HSLU a client, and it lists prices and payment terms. No independent source confirms that these customers pay. Only the company names HSLU. Tio.ch and the Swiss Post blog name no customer. A 20 Minuten article that the company links could not be read, because that site's robots.txt disallows it. The commercial register could not be read either, so the 2025 founding year is the company's own. The count of 15 employees is Latka's and unsourced, and the company's own about page lists three people. No funding round was found.
Consulting beside the software
The company began with custom agents for select clients. It still sells an AI Assessment for CHF 2,000 and a "Custom Solution" project by quote. Its pages call it a platform and offer self-service plans, so this story treats it as software with a consulting add-on. A 2024 blog post also mentions a health support agent on WhatsApp as a client project.
Logo wall, counters and badges
The home page labels a customer row "Im Einsatz bei führenden Organisationen" (in use at leading organisations) (translation). The row shows eight logos: Delta, digilaw.ch, HSLU, Skribble, StuCard, TicinoCure, UZH and Wabool. The page data holds the line "Hundreds of users already trust botts.ai." No logos or counts were verified. The case cards give a first name and a company, such as "Max · Wabool". An "As featured on" page lists press, directories and events. Only the company's own page gives that list. swissAI membership was confirmed on swissAI's member list. "GDPR compliant" and "Swiss nDSG" are the company's claims and were not checked.
Pages that differ
The about page says agents run on WhatsApp. The documentation lists WhatsApp as "Coming soon", greyed out in the channel picker. The plan names changed on 9 August 2026, and a May 2026 changelog entry names an older plan set. The May 2026 plan set had a Free plan, and today Personal is free for the first month. The security page puts Azure in the Zurich region. The voices page says "we use Azure (Sweden) for speech synthesis".
Sources
The grade next to each source is the best grade that the source can support. "Read in full" means that the text of the page was downloaded and the numbers were checked in it.
- C botts.ai pricing page (English and German), downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the plans, the credits, the limits and the AI Assessment line. The yearly prices are not in the downloaded text.
- C botts.ai: Über uns (About us), downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full, in German. Source for the founders, the 2025 founding, the earlier consultancy, the third team member and the Swiss hosting claim.
- C botts.ai about page, English, downloaded 11 November 2026Read the page data. Source for the four customer cards, the label "Trusted by leading organizations" and the line about hundreds of users.
- C botts.ai Terms & Conditions, version of 12 August 2026Read in full. Source for self-service plans, Custom Solutions, payment terms and the rule that voice agents must not hide that they are AI.
- C botts.ai blog, 14 November 2025: Team and Story: the people behind botts.aiRead in full. A post signed by Yves Zumbühl. Source for the founders and for the claim that HSLU is a client.
- C botts.ai blog, 27 October 2024: What We're Building at botts.aiRead in full. A post signed by Yves Zumbühl. Source for the earliest dated page and the 2024 projects.
- C Internet Archive copy of botts.ai, 2 November 2024Read in full. Source for the 2024 offer: four agent types and "Currently Partnering with Select Clients". The earliest copy the archive lists.
- C botts.ai changelog, downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the 60 dated entries, the phone agents, the plan names and the trials.
- C botts.ai AI Assessment page, downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the CHF 2,000 consulting offer.
- C botts.ai Security and Trust Center, downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the subprocessors: Infomaniak, Azure, Nebius, Sference, Twilio, Stripe, Lettermint and Modal Labs.
- C botts.ai Privacy Policy, downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the use of OpenAI, Anthropic, Twilio, Modal Labs and Google Analytics, and for the statement that the chatbot runs on customers' websites.
- C botts.ai documentation: Deployments, downloaded 12 November 2026Read the section on channels. Source for the three live channels and for WhatsApp as "Coming soon".
- C Tio.ch, 9 September 2026: La pazza idea di un'IA "svizzera" che in Ticino sta piacendo parecchioRead in full, in Italian. Source for the two founders in Zug and the data-residency argument. It names no customer.
- D Latka: botts.ai company profile, updated 5 October 2026Read in full. Says revenue is not published and lists 15 employees in July 2026 without a method.
- C swissAI: landscape of Swiss AI companies, downloaded 12 November 2026Read the member list. It has the line "botts.ai gmbh KI-Chat-Agenten Plattform Zug Mitglied".
- C Swiss Post Digital Commerce blog, 7 July 2026: Wie KI zum Conversion-Hebel im E-Commerce wirdRead in full, in German. Names Yves Zumbühl of botts.ai as a masterclass speaker. It names no customer.
- A Federal Reserve, Foreign Exchange Rates H.10, release of 9 November 2026Read the Switzerland row: 0.8192 francs per US dollar on 6 November 2026. Used for the plan prices in US dollars.
- C botts.ai home page (German), downloaded 11 November 2026Read in full. Source for the customer-row label "Im Einsatz bei führenden Organisationen" and the product description.
- C botts.ai AI Voices page, downloaded 12 November 2026Read in full. Source for the eight stock voices and for speech synthesis on Azure in Sweden. The page offers no voice cloning.
- C database of failed startups, record pages of the failed startups named above, read 12 November 2026Record pages read on the website on the day of writing. AI-written summaries, not independently verified. Source for the failed predecessors.
Run this company? Send corrections or a verified figure to aiolum@livyden.com