Chatflow chief maps AI customer-care drive for Caribbean agencies and banks

Michael Mullins, who leads Chatflow as founder and chief executive, describes the venture as an artificial-intelligence customer-care layer meant to pair machine speed with human warmth across the Caribbean and similar markets.

Mullins traces the idea to frustrations he saw while working in the business-process outsourcing field: callers in this region often endure roughly twenty-five minutes on hold, he says, only to lose the line. He wanted software that could resolve routine questions while grasping local accents and everyday cultural context for a population he puts at more than forty-four million people who, in his view, still lack dependable help.

Early desk research involved ringing relatives, friends and companies to learn where service broke down. Long waits stood out, especially at busy intervals, so Mullins leaned on channels people already use daily—text threads on handsets—rather than forcing everyone through voice trees. He argues many enterprises still under-use digital touchpoints and should mirror the omnichannel posture mature offshore contact centres already maintain.

Artificial intelligence, he contends, belongs in that digital lane so answers land quickly and correctly. Users should reach a brand through its website or WhatsApp, pose product, service or stakeholder questions, receive guidance and move on without queue music; internally the team brands that posture “zero friction customer support.”

Government ministries and regulators, together with banks and insurers serving broad retail bases, now draw most of Chatflow’s early interest, Mullins adds, because those sectors report the weakest satisfaction scores. The start-up wants to import the service quality Jamaica’s outsourcing industry sells abroad and apply it at home and overseas.

Breaking into fresh territories is hard for a young company, Mullins acknowledges, crediting JAMPRO with opening a trade mission to Guyana—a market he calls a natural sibling—where legacy systems linger and an integration-friendly assistant could advance digitisation faster. Since that trip, he says JAMPRO has also brokered introductions across the wider global services community, shifting him from former back-office staffer to regional vendor.

He singles out Caribbean Investment Forum 2025 as a standout showcase, less for trophies than for free visibility before investors who expect founders to articulate product fit and financial literacy without Silicon Valley-style capital depth. Caribbean Export and JAMPRO, he adds, shepherded the process smoothly and earned his gratitude.

Over the next four years a roadmap nicknamed “reduce the wait and automate” targets Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and other dialect-rich regions global incumbents struggle to parse; Mullins cites fresh research—he mentions issuing a paper—finding consumers angry in seven out of ten cases when bots reply “we don’t understand you,” a gap he treats as Chatflow’s edge. Building the stack in Jamaica while selling abroad, he insists, proves the island can nurture AI-first exporters aligned with JAMPRO’s mandate, a partnership he expects to deepen as conversations widen.