Cotalker’s Nicolás Duran is Building Latin America’s #1 AI-augmented Workflow Platform — and Taking on Global Giants

~Akanksha Harsh

In Miami and Santiago, Chile, the industry of enterprise workflow automation is experiencing a brewing revolution. Through years of tech entrepreneurship, slow changes have started rolling out, driving large-scale digital transformations.

Meet Nicolás Duran, the dynamic Founder and CEO of Cotalker Inc., who’s changing Latin America with his software innovation throughout major players in banking, logistics, consumer goods, mining, pharmaceuticals, and beyond.

With over 15 years of experience, Duran now leads Latin America's top-ranked Business Process Management (BPM) software — becoming recognized by G2 as one of the most formidable players in the global top seven in the industry. As an expert in designing AI-enabled systems, Duran has embedded artificial intelligence into the core operations of his clientele, and knows exactly what he’s delivering, saying: “Combining direct customer feedback with cutting-edge technology—especially AI—to create solutions that don’t yet exist. We iterate quickly based on real needs and deploy at scale.”

Duran’s journey, however, started slow and small. His ventures first began in events and digital agencies, where the world first witnessed his founding of Epicnoise. As a sports and cultural events company, Epicnoise organized large-scale events all over the nation.

As Duran cut his teeth on nerve-wracking pressure to execute marketing and business operations, he transitioned into the digital realm as the co-founder and CEO of Reframe, an agency focused on digital and software development. This venture led him to deepen his knowledge and experience in software development, analytics, operations, and product strategy, eventually forming the foundation for his AI-driven innovations.

At this point, Duran has covered practically every industry in leading his work, pointing out the stand-out global fields: “Automation of operational processes, especially maintenance and field service workflows for industries with critical infrastructure (ports, mining, energy). We provide end-to-end traceability, work orders, and asset management.”

Early Ventures

Before any innovation or automaton, however, Duran was first and foremost a young, Chilean college student. While studying business at Universidad Alfonso Ibanez, one of the top universities in Chile, Duran was already exploring various ventures. As a young entrepreneur, his passion was still colored by his personal experience: he became a young father at 19, which drove him to pursue different kinds of work, and he was also a dedicated athlete. He developed discipline from his sports, and later broadened his horizons by staying at an exchange program in California.

His first venture was a school project. He combined his commitment to athletics and innovation by creating a major skateboarding project for an entrepreneurship class, followed by a mountain-biking competition. At first, Duran lost money, but he took the silver lining: he charged it all to experience.

And such experience paid off. From a school project, Duran was able to create Epicnoise, a cultural and sports events company. While they initially lost money, Epicnoise quickly ascended the ranks and produced international events, bringing athletes from Canada, the US, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. In his work on Epicnoise, Duran had to heavily emphasize marketing the events — which led him to his second venture.

After all, what event can thrive without marketing? Duran went ahead and addressed a gap that all companies know today: the use of social media as a marketing tool. Social Feedback was one of the first social media agencies fifteen years ago, when even Facebook was a novelty. As the world started to transition to large-scale social media use, Duran made sure they were the agency that introduced companies to social media strategy. At one point, Social Feedback handled Chile’s Lollapalooza campaign, organically growing followers from zero to a million.

Soon enough, their roster of clientele started asking for development services. Again, Duran saw the gap and immediately filled it by founding Reframe, a software factory focused initially on Facebook applications and social apps. As he built solutions for major clients, Duran fell into the flow of the SaaS industry. Under Reframe, he experimented with products such as Social Trix, Follow Keywords, and Hike, all focused on social media strategy.

After all of his experience, Duran has been ready for the next big thing. Enter the age of artificial intelligence. As he describes it, the now AI-focused Cotalker was born from all his early ventures, saying: “The most successful idea became Cotalker—a communication and process automation platform initially pitched to large enterprises like CCU (Heineken/Pepsi distributor in Chile). It evolved into checklist and workflow automation for sales forces and field operations. Today, Cotalker is my main company.”

From Low-Code to AI-Augmented Powerhouse

From events, social media strategy, and SaaS, what sets Duran apart is his shift from static automation to adaptive, AI-first platforms. Cotalker started in 2016 as a low-code SaaS platform, focused on process automation and digital transformation. As Cotalker started, it had all the early signs of being a powerhouse.

It was able to raise over USD 4 million in venture capital from top Latin American funds, for example, such as Genesis Ventures, Manutara Ventures, and Dadneo. In 2021, Duran managed to raise USD 3.2 million from venture capital funds alone, essentially transforming it into a partner platform, eventually enabling consulting firms to sell and implement their original solutions.

In 2024, Duran led Cotalker to another success, achieving over USD 1.9 million in revenue and achieving 31.4% of year-over-year growth. Today, Duran speaks of Cotalker with pride: “I’m proud of positioning Cotalker as the primary AI workflow solution for major banks despite competition from Salesforce Einstein, OpenAI, and Google Gemini.  Clients like BCI (second-largest bank in Chile) and City National Bank of Florida (largest in Florida) use Cotalker as their AI interface for executives and staff.”

Duran’s expertise lies in his ability to embed artificial intelligence directly into operational decision-making and system design. Under Duran’s leadership, Cotalker evolved in order to integrate AI seamlessly.

Even as Cotalker continues to transform, Duran makes sure that everything remains sustainable. The engineering team, for one, focuses on three things — and one of them is simply dedicated to maintaining Cotalker’s legacy as a product. The other two scale the partner platform for more collaborations over various fields and the final team focuses on building Cotalker’s AI product.

The AI assistant, called Luke, is there to help out every kind of business. Just input the business process you need, and it automatically designs and deploys a complete workflow application, essentially replacing traditional consulting with instant AI-driven automata. Users can basically describe processes in natural language, and Look autonomously generates and deploys adaptive applications—cutting development time from weeks to minutes.

With this innovative approach, Duran’s work is highly commended. Duran states:  “We consistently rank as the top workflow/low-code platform globally for user experience and interface on G2 reviews—competing against billion-dollar companies. We also receive feedback from end users at companies like CCU that our automation reduces stress and allows them to go home earlier while being more productive.” Not only does AI make business easier, it also helps out all the workers involved.

Take Coopeuch, for example. As Chile’s fifth largest bank, there’s no doubt that business processes and logistics can get complicated, often leading to bottlenecks. For Coopeuch, the bottlenecks lay in loan and credit approvals. While high-value loans still require human review, there are loads of applications that could be standardized and made easier via AI. With the help of Cotalker, standard applications are now fully automated.

On this, Duran says: “applicants receive approval in minutes instead of days or weeks. This has transformed bank operations, dramatically improving efficiency and customer experience.” Building AI for such frontline teams reinforces clarity, responsibility, and usability, especially in high-stakes environments.

This innovation didn’t go unseen. Cristiano Contreras, the Technology Manager of Coopeuch, admired their collaboration on critical workflow automation initiatives: “Cotalker, under Nicolás’s leadership, has become Coopeuch’s corporate workflow platform, now used daily by approximately 600 employees across multiple departments. His role was transformative for our company. Credit approvals that previously took several days now occur in seconds, transforming the member-service experience.”

Beyond his professional skill, Contreras also took note about how much Duran added a personal, passionate touch to the workload, saying: “His personal involvement, from process mapping and system architecture to integration and deployment, was instrumental in ensuring successful implementation. The cooperative entrusted him with critical operations due to his reputation for delivering secure, high-performance workflow systems uniquely suited to the demands of the financial sector.” Once Duran is trusted with responsibility, he shows up every step of the way.

Challenging Global Behemoths

Duran has already achieved so much in Latin America, but he’s currently also eyeing global giants to expand to. He primarily works with large enterprises — including Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Colombia — spanning every industry from banks to retail and manufacturing. Despite the various industries that Duran has covered, the main service remains the same: the need to automate operational processes. In his expansion to global operations, it is guaranteed he’ll be able to deliver the same quality of work.

As the company continues to expand under its leadership, a growing number of strategic partnerships are emerging across critical industries. Organizations in high-stakes sectors, such as energy and fuel distribution, such as Copec, Terpel, and Pelp, have chosen this platform due to the founder’s extensive expertise in service-station operational technology and his demonstrated success working with major players in the fuel and energy markets.

Duran’s distinctive capability to integrate enterprise systems like SAP, automate sophisticated workflows, and optimize field operations has positioned him uniquely to drive these initiatives forward. It is precisely this combination of personal technological vision, hands-on leadership, and the platform he has built that has established it as a trusted and essential partner in enabling large-scale operational transformation for demanding enterprise environments.

This type of recognition underscores the broader value the solution provides: deep technical proficiency, proven results in regulated and complex industries, and founder-driven innovation that consistently addresses real-world operational challenges at scale.

Beyond his outstanding work, Duran is also a skilled mentor. His mentorship in Start-Up Chile and evaluations for CIC Miami amplify his influence on the global scale, especially on advising startups on AI strategy.

As a professional, Duran may be one of the most equipped out there in getting global giants as clients — one can simply look at the amount of awards and features he has garnered. He was the winner of the BCI Labs Innovation Program in 2016 and Smart and Sustainable B2B Solutions for Cities in Chile, all while being featured in Bloomberg, Diro Financiero, La Tercera, and DF MAS. At the same time, he was a speaker at a symposium in Medellin, Colombia, and was selected as the Oracle Startup Idol Latin America in 2019.

In a crowded market, Duran's blend of technical vision and practical execution delivers lasting value. Whatever his next move may be, Duran is the one to watch for his unique expertise in bridging tech services and AI seamlessly.

About the Author: Aakanksha Harsh is a business and technology writer covering digital innovation, startups, and industry trends.