Gradient Labs Offers $10K Challenge to Prove Its AI Outperforms Any Finance Customer Service Solution

Gradient Labs Challenges Finance Sector with AI Customer Service That Handles 80% of Queries

London-based startup Gradient Labs has launched a bold challenge in the finance industry’s customer support space. Their autonomous AI agent claims to resolve up to 80% of customer queries, and they're putting their money where their mouth is — offering $10,000 to any company that can match or outperform their solution.

Founder Dimitri Masin explains the terms clearly: competitors need to come within 5 percentage points of Gradient Labs’ customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) and meet or beat their automation rates. They aren’t demanding to be outright beaten, just closely matched. This confident move aims to cut through inflated marketing claims common in AI customer service.

The “Infinity Plus One” Problem in AI Claims

Companies often compete with ever-larger, vague claims about their AI’s capabilities. Masin likens this to the childhood game of “infinity plus one” — a cycle of one-upmanship where claims become meaningless. Gradient Labs wants to break this cycle by inviting direct, transparent side-by-side comparisons.

Schrödinger’s Pitch Deck: When AI Claims Are Both True and Not

Gradient Labs points to what they call the “Schrödinger’s Pitch Deck” problem. Many AI vendors claim to be both superior and comparable to all others, depending on the audience. This paradox keeps their true performance hidden until real testing happens. Gradient Labs believes clear, measurable comparisons are the only way to prove actual value.

How the $10,000 Challenge Works

• Request a demo of Gradient Labs’ AI platform.
• Run side-by-side tests against your current customer support automation tool.
• Compare automation rates and customer satisfaction results.

If Gradient Labs’ AI doesn’t outperform, they pay $10,000 to the challenger. This challenge is open to banks, fintechs, insurance companies, and other qualified financial services providers.

Why Focus on Finance Customer Support?

Financial services have complex customer inquiries involving compliance, policies, and multi-step processes that require judgment. Many automation tools fail here and end up handing off queries to humans. Gradient Labs built their AI specifically to handle these difficult cases — not just the easy questions.

Masin highlights that their clients see automation rates between 40-60% right from the start, without lengthy training or tuning. The AI can be plugged in immediately to manage nearly half the support volume. In recent onboardings, the AI consistently delivered higher customer satisfaction scores compared to existing human teams.

About Gradient Labs

Gradient Labs creates AI-powered customer service platforms for regulated industries like finance. Their technology uses advanced language models and secure integrations to automate complex support tasks, boost compliance, and provide faster, more satisfying customer experiences.

This challenge offers a practical opportunity for customer support teams in finance to evaluate AI tools transparently and see if Gradient Labs’ claims hold up in real-world use.

For those interested in expanding their AI skills for customer support roles, exploring specialized AI courses by job could be a valuable step.