Appointment scheduling AI pioneer x.ai notified customers today they they are shutting down x.ai’s standalone scheduling tool. The email and blog posting from co-founder Dennis Mortensen stated that the “sunset process” would begin, and the final day of x.ai operation would be October 31, 2021. x.ai was acquired by Bizzabo in June 2021.
The email from Dennis Mortensen said that the company had “decided to prioritize building x.ai’s powerful scheduling and recommendations directly into Bizzabo’s event management platform.”
The notification stated that:
- End of service will be Oct. 31, 2021. It’s very important you have time to transition and adjust your workflows and we’re here to support you. You can continue to email help@human.x.ai with any questions.
- We are still very much believers in the power of scheduling software and we want to help you migrate to another platform so you can continue to reap the productivity benefits you saw with x.ai. We’ve written a high-level guide on x.ai alternatives.
- We’ve built tools to help you export your x.ai data from my.x.ai/export. Our hope is that you can use this as you get set up with a new tool or platform.
The notification provided a link to x.ai alternatives, which included Doodle, CalendarHero (formerly Zoom.ai), Calendly, YouCanBook.me, and other solutions.
The TASBIA™ Bottom Line
Although it may be puzzling that x.ai is not suggesting a migration to their own (Bizzabo’s) platform, it now appears that the acquisition was more about core technology and people than the x.ai customer base. It’s not unheard of for companies to recommend competitors after shutting down, but less so after an acquisition.
x.ai positioned itself as an “essential tool for individuals and teams across industries”, operating in more than 200 countries. In 2020 x.ai had 363% more users and 182% more meetings scheduled. Although we don’t know the exact number of customers, we can assume that thousands of their users will be migrating to a new solution.
Bizzabo originally stated that by acquiring x.ai, they were extending their mission to “create impactful and rewarding experiences at events”, and that they plan to leverage x.ai’s “powerful AI infrastructure so that 5,000 different attendees can have 5,000 different experiences, each curated and personalized for them.”
We have used x.ai at TASBIA and have appreciated the simple setup and strong performance. Sorry to see it go!
