Seventeen is the media world’s go-to age of bittersweet nostalgia. This important age not only has its own magazine but is often referred to as the gap between adulthood and childhood that should be seen as a huge growing experience.

Although most 17-year olds will be experiencing their first year of entering the world on their own, Synthetix is celebrating respected maturity within the AI and online customer service technology sector. We’ve been revolutionising online customer service with our effortless integration of AI-powered customer contact channels like Virtual Agents (Intelligent chatbots), Live Chat, Visual IVR, Intelligent FAQ Search, Agent Knowledgebase and Email Management. We even empower developers to create their own online customer service tools through our APIs.

Noticing our founders displaying a few emotional tears allegories, when blowing out our birthday candles, everyone at team Synthetix felt proud and an immense sense of achievement, especially since even during Synthetix’s humble beginnings, with no outside investment, we’ve had the privilege to work with some of the world’s most innovative brands such as the London 2012 Olympics, the BBC, Samsung and Ford (to name just a few). The client list today still boasts impressive names, albeit a lot longer, and we still have a personal relationship with each brand on our prestigious list.

When you think back 17 years ago what do you remember? Here’s a few highlights team Synthetix remembers (albeit, that some of us where still in nappies)

• 17 years ago, you needed to physically attach a phone line to your computer to access the internet - scary but true.
• Hotmail email addresses were de rigueur and the gmail domain was owned by Garfield.
• Mobile phones had antennas or cool flip screens, they weren’t really ‘smart ‘and we used them to make phone calls and send an occasional SMSs.
• And online shopping wasn’t really that popular and quite limited, especially when it came to payment (think paper cheques and fax).

Please feel free to share your memories.

So, until next year’s big 18^th birthday, cheers to the next exciting year!

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