Brook started during a casual lunch at M Sushi in Durham. The team from RozieAI, a startup that uses AI to develop customer experiences for brands, was having lunch with the CEO of a client company as well as Michaella Blissett-Williams, the CEO of a chain of hair salons in New York City.
When Blissett-Williams shared with the RozieAI team that AI seemed inaccessible to her company, the team started brainstorming ways to incorporate the technology into the hair salon space. Jyoti Iyer and Vinay Sukumar began developing Brook, a startup that provides an AI-powered phone call receptionist for businesses. They are now the experience lead and product advisor, respectively, for the startup.
Clients can call businesses that use Brook in order to schedule, change or cancel appointments. Brook is integrated with businesses’ back-end systems, and actively updates them when decisions are made in calls with customers.
Brook’s AI-powered receptionist can also explain policies, such as on cancellation or deposits, and can answer questions from customers. In instances when a specific instance or question requies human input, Brook forwards the message to the business’s team.
Currently, Brook is being used primarily by beauty salons. Those salons have seen a 12% increase in revenue growth, which the startup attributes to the software enabling more calls to be answered, which in turn creates more sales opportunities.
Accessibility for businesses and clients
Sukumar said Brook is the only technology currently available that blends the capabilities of integrating with back-end systems, updating client profiles and appointments, and offering natural-sounding phone calls are currently unique.
Beyond its core functions, Brook sets itself apart through its ease of use for salons. The technology requires no setup; once it is integrated with salons’ systems, it starts working. Throughout the time that salons are using Brook, the startup’s team makes sure that they are actively working with the salons to answer any questions and provide support.
Ensuring a great user experience for both customers and salons was a key goal in the development of Brook, Iyer said.
The Brook team has also worked to ensure that Brook sounds like a natural human, rather than AI. Often, when customers call salons using Brook, they think the voice is a new team member, rather than technology, Iyer said.
Throughout the development process, Brook’s team has worked with Blissett-Williams to learn more about the perspective of salons and subsequently implemented features that support these businesses’ unique needs.
“What differentiates us is the entire experience, the experience of calling Brook, the experience of working with us to get onboarded, the experience of getting consultation on how we care about delivering value back to the organization so that they can actually hit their return investment targets,” Vijay Dheap, the ventures lead for RozieAI, said.
Capturing a niche market
Brook is available to salons for a monthly subscription that ranges in price based on when Brook is used. Different tiers are available for salons that only want to use Brook after hours, that want to use it when phone lines are busy, or that want to implement it as their standard receptionist response anytime.
The startup began by developing and refining the phone call voice experience, but Brook has since introduced web chat as well, and the team is working on developing text message capabilities.
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Startup: Brook
Co-Founders: Vinay Sukumar, Jyoti Iyer, Shubham Gilada
Founded: 2025
Team size: 5
Location: Triangle
Website: iambrook.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
As of this writing, Brook is being used by 45 salons. The startup’s team plans to continue working to capture their niche market of the health, beauty and wellness space, which they have identified as a $2 billion market.
“We intend to be very focused on our niche and there’s a lot of growth to be had in that niche,” Dheap said. “You need that ability to rely on the target market really well and then use that as a base for growth.”
Moving forward, Brook will also look to expand its customer experience software into other adjacent industries.
