Andreas Tussing co-founded Charles together with Artim “Addi” Weisbeck, originally to sell premium basics directly via WhatsApp. Building the first WhatsApp store revealed a bigger opportunity: the software powering conversations, context and checkout was the real product.
Today, Charles is a conversational commerce platform combining WhatsApp, web chat and generative AI agents. In this episode, we explore why meaningful customer experiences go beyond templates, how agents enable real conversations — and why brands must protect direct customer relationships in an AI-driven world.
In this conversation you’ll learn:
- how Charles evolved from a fashion idea into a SaaS platform
- why WhatsApp only became business-ready in recent years
- how conversational commerce differs from traditional marketing
- why AI agents act more like employees than automation
- how training, rules and knowledge bases are built
- why observability is key to trust
- how web chat and WhatsApp work together
- why authenticity matters even more in the age of AI
