Send us a text In this concluding episode of the 'Anatomy of a Voice Assistant' series, CTO Shawn Wen discusses the intricacies of speech synthesis in voice assistants, emphasizing the importance of authentic, human-like voices in improving user engagement and containment rates. Kylie and Shawn chat about the evolution of AI voices from the early d…

Send us a text Our own Brian Thompson, VP of Product Marketing, joins CEO Nikola to discuss Salesforce's recent AgentForce announcement. This new initiative is presented as a big shift toward autonomous AI agents within large enterprises and while at least one the dyad sees it as a rebrand of Einstein Copilot, others may view it as a step towards m…

Send us a text 50th episode! Damien welocmes newcomer to the pod Oliver Shoulson, PolyAI's senior dialogue designer, about what dialogue design entails and why it's crucial in the era of advanced language models (LLMs). Oliver explains that dialogue design goes beyond just scripting responses; it's about making AI interactions feel natural to human…

Send us a text Damien and CEO Nikola Mrkšić discuss recent AI headlines, including Klarna's decision to ditch Salesforce and Workday, Apple's new on-device AI approach and the Apple Intelligence hype, Sam Altman's investment in solar storage, and the big enchilada: an early take of OpenAI's new 'Strawberry' o1 reasoning model, highlighting its impr…

Send us a text Host Damien and PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić discuss the latest in an increasingly vague spate of regulatory actions: this time, the AI Framework Convention treaty from the Council of Europe. The treaty, aiming to balance AI advancements with human rights and democracy, is broken down for its practicality, technological neutrality, and t…

Send us a text It's the third in a series of technical deep dives for building IVAs, and for this episode, it's all about LLMs. Kylie chats with Shawn Wen, co-founder and CTO at PolyAI, who explains why LLMs can accomplish 70% of what’s needed for voice assistants, and more importantly: what's involved in the remaining 30%. The discussion touches o…

Send us a text Damien and Nikola chat about the controversial rise of anti-AI sentiment among brands, especially in the creator industry. They explore recent anti-AI pledges by notable brands like Procreate and Dove, scrutinizing whether these are sincere stances or marketing tactics, deliberating the balance between human artistry and technologica…

Send us a text Damien interviews Kenn So, an AI researcher, enthusiast and author of the Generational substack. Kenn offers insights in to technical trends and consumer expectations of generative AI, happenings in the AI VC/investor space, challenges facing AI startups, and observations in current and future M&A activity. Plus, we learn about Sherl…

Send us a text In our second technical dive in the the anatomy of a voice assistant, Kylie hosts Shawn Wen, co-founder and CTO of Poly AI, to analyze the complexities of building voice assistants. He highlights the challenges faced in speech recognition, such as dealing with errors, latency, and user experience. Shawn also discusses the inefficienc…

Send us a text Damien and Nikola discuss the evolution and significance of small language models (SLMs) amid the ever-growing landscape of their bigger bretheren, large language models (LLMs). They dissect the predicted rise of SLMs, their applications in privacy-focused and low-power devices, and the implications for enterprises balancing cost, ef…

Send us a text From political campaigns inundating platforms with AI-generated content to the intricacies of voice AI and deepfake technologies, Damien and Nikola offer practical tips on distinguishing real from fake. Learn how pronunciation differences, odd question prompts, and latency can help you identify AI bots posing as human callers. This e…

Send us a text Damien welcomes back Michelle Schroeder, SVP of Marketing at PolyAI, to discuss the growing role of automation in daily life and enterprise operations. They explore public perceptions of automation through examples like automated vacuum robots, brain surgery bots, and services like Amazon Go. Emphasizing the dividing line between suc…

Send us a text It's getting technical up in here! Kylie welcomes PolyAI CTO & Co-Founder Shawn Wen to the show to discuss the complexities of building high-quality voice AI systems. From the limitations of large language models (LLMs) to the nuances across each layer of the tech stack, they'll cover setting up audio channels, streaming speech recog…

Send us a text Damien and Nikola brag about their impressive Duolingo streaks... and then discuss the impact of AI on modern journalism - including issues from OpenAI and Perplexity's data-scraping controversies to the ethical implications on the journalistic landscape. They debate (kind of) over the balance between maintaining journalistic integri…

Send us a text Guest host Steven Fine and series regular Nikola Mrkšić discuss the current landscape of AI adoption in businesses, drawing on McKinsey's recent The State of AI report. They explore topics such as the rapid increase in generative AI usage, the challenges of integrating AI into existing business workflows, and the debate over building…

Send us a text Damien outs himself as a generative AI avatar (not really though), while he and PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić discuss the growing workforce adoption of generative AI in modern enterprises. They explore the pros and cons, including overcoming discovery issues, optimal use cases across various business functions, training and governance, an…

Send us a text Damien welcomes Michael Chen, Vice President of Alliances at PolyAI, to chat working with big tech platforms to deploy conversational AI solutions for millions of users. The episode highlights the difficulties in transitioning these solutions from sandbox environments to large-scale production, the inherent challenge of probabilistic…

Send us a text Damien and Nikola from PolyAI chat about the past six months of artificial general intelligence (AGI) progress. Key points of fiery discussion include the definition and goals of AGI, the recent advancements in multimodality in AI, and the significant progress in the industry over the past six months. They explore the exponential imp…

Send us a text New guest, who dis? This episode, Damien invites Nathan Liu, VP of Deployments at PolyAI, discusses the company's approach to making the world's most lifelike voice assistant, emphasizing the synergy between AI and human voice actors to enhance voice assistant quality while safeguarding actors' interests. The conversation touches on …

Send us a text In this episode of the 'Deep Learning with PolyAI' podcast, Nikola and Damien discuss PolyAI's recent $50 million Series C funding round led by NVIDIA's NVentures, alongside other notable investors. They explore the company's growth, innovative engineering, and the future of voice AI technology. The conversation also touches upon the…

Send us a text Damien welcomes Fertitta Entertainment's contact center director Brian Jeppesen to the pod to discuss Brian's long career in customer service, the nuances of the casino-hoteling industry, and why roadblocking by IVR is an outdated approach. Introducing: Conversations - a collection of provocative chats with the next generation of CX …

Send us a text Damien and Nikola tackle the age-old tech question: should enterprise contact centers build or buy AI solutions? They cover pros and cons considered in the decision-making process, highlighting the importance of established vendors, internal capabilities, technological advancements, user experience, and the need for accountability an…

Send us a text Damien welcomes Business Value Analyst Steven Fine to the pod and discusses the evolution of measuring success in contact centers, focusing on integrating AI and automation technologies to improve customer experience and operational efficiency. Their chat emphasizes the importance of marrying sentiment analysis with Customer Satisfac…

Send us a text Today's chat between Nikola and Damien delves into the concept of 'AI washing,' where companies exaggerate their level of investment in AI technology to capitalize on the current hype. The episode covers the evolution of AI, the challenge of distinguishing genuine AI applications from superficial ones, the potential need for regulati…

Send us a text Nikola and Damien delve into the topic of humanizing technology and AI, touching upon the preference for non-human interactions in vulnerable states, the challenges of identifying automated systems during conversations, and the importance of transparency in AI interactions. Opinions on the potential cultural impacts of humanized AI, …

Send us a text In today's episode, Michelle and Nikola discuss the challenges and strategies involved in managing disruptive change, particularly related to deploying AI in large businesses. Their talk emphasizes the importance of champions within organizations, the role of companies like Accenture, starting small to de-risk projects, and the impac…

Send us a text Join Damien and Tomasz, a senior machine learning engineer at PolyAI, as they discuss the key highlights of NVIDIA's megacon GTC. They discuss standout sessions, including the announcement of NVIDIA Blackwater platform for reducing cost and energy requirements of high-performance AI systems. They also talk about the concerns around t…

Send us a text Laura debuts hosting in today's episode, which discusses various concerns and myths around generative AI, particularly addressing Gartner's prediction of a customer's death due to bad information from AI chatbots. It also delves into real-life scenarios such as the Air Canada lawsuit, mishaps with Google Gemini, and the overall impac…

Send us a text Today's episode covers the potential impact of successful AI implementation in contact centers on the career growth, and promotion of contact center leaders. We're highlighting how AI can provide strategic insights, drive operational efficiencies, and add value beyond just automation. Michelle and Nikola also touch on the importance …

Send us a text Michelle and Nikola discuss the impact of recent AI advancements on customer experience, including the developments in generative AI, multimodal explorations, and new AI products. They cover topics such as the potential for AI memory, personalization, and consumer data privacy, as well as the evolving consumer expectations and trust …

Send us a text PolyAI's Global VP of Solution Consulting Brad talks with CEO Nikola about the future of customer data in the contact center. They discuss the value of data in improving customer service, the challenges in gathering practical data faced by traditional contact centers, the role of AI in capturing and analyzing data, and the potential …

Send us a text Nikola and Michelle dish about the future of fully automated support systems, the pros and cons of effective accelerationism, and the balance between automation and human interaction in the contact center - now and tomorrow. Follow PolyAI on LinkedIn Watch this and other episodes of the Deep Learning pod on YouTube…

Send us a text Kylie Whitehead and Meghan Berton discuss the importance of implementing guardrails to limit a system to its intended scope and ensure the generated outputs are safe. They also touch on topics like user input filtering, hybrid generative AI solutions, hallucination management, and preventing offensive or biased responses. These and h…

Send us a text Damien and Nikola discuss the importance of safeguarding when deploying generative AI instances, specifically calling out the recent DPD debacle, where a chatbot was manipulated to produce inappropriate content. The episode also touches on the concept of retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and the potential flags to watch out for w…

Send us a text Kylie and Michelle converse about the role of brand in the contact center, highlighting the disconnect between the effort put into creating engaging brand experiences and the impersonal nature of current contact center operations. They explore the challenges brands face in maintaining a consistent brand experience and personal connec…

Send us a text In this insightful episode, host Kylie Whitehead converses with Dr. Ivan Vulić, a Senior Scientist at PolyAI and a Principal Research Associate at the University of Cambridge. They discuss the development and advantages of 'Pheme', a new, more efficient model for voice generation developed by PolyAI. Unlike existing Text-To-Speech (T…

Send us a text In this episode, Michelle and Nikola discuss the year in review for PolyAI and the advancements in conversational AI. They also talk about New Year's resolutions and the impact of generative AI on various industries, including therapy and entertainment, address skeptics and deniers, and conclude by creating a virtual assistant for Ni…

Send us a text Join hosts Michelle and Nikola as they dive into a potentially industry-shaping lawsuit: the New York Times vs OpenAI. They explore various aspects of this case, including implications for copyright, fair use, and the value of journalism in today's AI-driven world. The duo also touches upon potential threats to traditional journalism…

Send us a text Join host Kylie Whitehead as she discusses the transformation of voice generation with PolyAI's head of machine learning, Paweł Budzianowski. They delve into the history of voice generation, discussing its inception in the 1950s and the influence of movies like 'Her' on its development. They also explore the shortcomings of current A…

Send us a text In this episode of Deep Learning with PolyAI, Michelle and Nikola shed light on the potential of AI and voice technology in enhancing the retail customer experience. They talk about the challenges retail faces, the importance of brand consistency, the impacts of seasonality on the industry, and how AI can streamline processes while m…

Send us a text In this highly reactive episode of Deep Learning, Damien and Nikola talk about the recent announcement of the AI Alliance and Google's Gemini release. They discuss the formation and purpose of the AI Alliance, the role of academia in the AI space, and the potential impact on the future of organizational design. They also speculate ab…

Send us a text The Deep Learning pod is back, and this week Nikola and Michelle discuss effective altruism, its influence on technology builders, and its potential role in the recent OpenAI drama. Is it a guise for-profit entities to deflect scrutiny? Should it be the guiding force for AI regulation, or at minimum, responsible deployment? What's Pe…

Send us a text In this thought-provoking episode of Deep Learning with PolyAI, hosts Damien (Communications) and Nikola (CEO & Co-Founder) delve into the topic of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its broad implications. Nikola shares his expert understanding of AGI, contrasting it with popular views of AI and shedding light on the effects …

Send us a text This week, hosts Michelle Schroeder (SVP, Marketing) and Nikola Mrkšić (CEO, Co-Founder) of PolyAI talk about the crux of boosting both operational efficiency and customer experience. The hosts examine how the pitfalls of traditional interactive voice response (IVR) systems have shaped customer perceptions, and how a blend of AI and …

Send us a text PolyAI's Michelle and Nikola unpack announcements from this week's DevDay, touching on GPT-4 Turbo, the impact of consistent model output, the marketization of custom GPTs, and the intriguing possibilities of new text-to-speech capabilities. Additionally, we touch on the importance of reproducibility and security considerations in en…

Send us a text In this episode of the PolyAI podcast, host Kylie Whitehead interviews Paweł Budzianowski, the head of machine learning at PolyAI. They dive into the past 70 years of speech recognition, moving from hidden Markov models to deep learning transformations and beyond. Plus, Seinfeld and Jordan Peele in the speech zeitgeist? 00:43 The Imp…

Send us a text In a continuation of last week's episode, PolyAI's Michelle (SVP Marketing), Nikola (CEO) and Yan (COO) delve into the challenges of enterprises building upon LLMs, and the importance of explainability, accountability, and safety in all aspects of AI deployment. Also, is hybrid the way in the short term? Follow PolyAI on LinkedIn Wat…

Send us a text Ooh, a new look! Michelle (SVP Marketing), Nikola (CEO), and Yan (COO) discuss the changing landscape of conversational AI, the impact of generative AI, control and expectations, and the potential for brands to sculpt their voice assistants to enhance customer experiences. Follow PolyAI on LinkedIn Watch this and other episodes of th…

Send us a text This one starts off strong! Episode 3 in a weekly series touching on AI, voice and the customer experience. Today, Michelle and Nikola of PolyAI discuss the specific applications of genAI in the contact center, and what risks/benefits exist on both sides of the call. Follow PolyAI on LinkedIn Watch this and other episodes of the Deep…

Send us a text There's a lot of hype around the application of generative AI to the voice channel. Listen in as Nikola and Michelle discuss who's doing it and how, what pitfalls organizations need to be aware of, and what you can expect from the next generation of models like GPT 4.0 and beyond. Follow PolyAI on LinkedIn Watch this and other episod…