The customer experience industry will become a $5 trillion market by 2030, according to Netomi founder and CEO Puneet Mehta, who says the growth will create demand for stablecoins and blockchain-based payments infrastructure rather than withdrawing capital from cryptocurrencies.
Mehta said companies currently spend approximately $500 billion a year on knowledge work related to customer experience. As AI expands beyond customer service into sales, conversion, upselling and cross-selling, expect the market opportunity to increase tenfold by 2030.
“Today, the customer experience is structured like a silo,” Mehta said. “That layer of technology and people doesn’t fully communicate with all the systems and processes autonomously in the enterprise. Once that starts happening, it opens up a much bigger category.”
Mehta, whose company recently raised $110 million in a Series C round backed by Accenture Ventures and Adobe Ventures, argues that the rise of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies should be seen as complementary trends rather than competing sectors.
“The idea that AI is simply sucking capital out of cryptocurrencies is a fundamental misunderstanding of where the technology is headed,” said Mehta, who previously worked as an engineer and data scientist at IBM and later held similar positions at JPMorgan, Citi and Merrill Lynch. “We are not in a zero-sum battle for venture dollars.”
Mehta’s view that AI agents will require faster financial infrastructure aligns with a growing argument among crypto executives that autonomous software could become a major driver of stablecoin adoption.
Fiat-pegged cryptocurrencies are entering a new phase of adoption, with large corporations using them for cross-border treasury flows while AI agents begin using blockchain rails for autonomous payments, executives from Bridge and Deus $719 billion by 2035.
AI enabling cryptocurrencies
According to Mehta, the next phase of enterprise software will depend on autonomous AI agents capable of handling increasingly complex business functions, including financial transactions.
“AI agents are moving money and assets faster than legacy companies can keep up,” he said. “A self-employed agent cannot rely on traditional banking systems that take days to settle transactions through manual paperwork.”
Mehta maintains that fully automated software systems require two key components: artificial intelligence systems capable of making decisions and a blockchain payment infrastructure capable of moving money instantly.
“To achieve true end-to-end automation, these software systems require always-on capital pathways that operate 24/7,” he said.
That requirement could drive greater demand for stablecoins and blockchain-based settlement networks that operate 24/7. Stablecoin issuers and crypto payments companies have increasingly positioned their products as tools for real-time settlement and cross-border transactions.
Still, many enterprise software companies remain reliant on traditional payment providers and banking networks, and it remains unclear how quickly blockchain-based settlement systems will become a standard component of AI-powered commerce.
unicorn status
Netomi’s latest raise brings its total funding to $168 million. Mehta declined to disclose the company’s valuation, but said the company is approaching unicorn status.
Netomi, whose customers include global giants such as Delta, United Airlines, MetLife, ESPN and ATB Financial, is building a unified AI platform rather than a collection of disconnected tools, he said.
While many enterprise AI vendors focus on individual functions like customer service, legal operations or sales support, he explained, Netomi is building systems that work across all of those functions and share information between them.
“Most companies are creating point solutions,” Mehta said. “They are solving one problem at a time. We believe the future is a connected enterprise where AI systems do not operate in silos but work together across the entire organization.”
UPDATE (June 10, 17:10 UTC): Adds a section about Netomi approaching unicorn status.
