“Co-Founders Nikola Mrkšić, Tsung-Hsien (Shawn) Wen, and Pei-Hao (Eddy) Su, wanted to put their Cambridge PhDs in Machine Learning and Dialogue Systems to task, bettering a long-overlooked function of modern business: voice automation, specifically in the contact centre.

“So, in 2017, after stints with Apple, Google, and Meta, they built PolyAI and its initial voice assistants on their own conversational AI models trained for customer service, and the rest is history,” explained Damien Smith, Head of Comms for PolyAI.

PolyAI aims to serve enterprises where customer dialogue is an important part of doing business, including transforming some of the largest companies in a variety of sectors, such as: global logistics, banking, hospitality, home services, insurance, energy, retail, healthcare and telecomms, as well as NGOs and organisations in the public sector.

The tech behind PolyAI

“We’ve always been voice first, and voice focused,” commented Smith. “The models powering our Spoken Language Understanding stack (inc. automatic speech recognition, NLP/NLU and speech synthesis) are proprietary and/or best in class, meaning not only are they the most lifelike on the market, they’re also the most engaging and proficient in truly understanding what callers need and how to resolve their issues.”

He continued: “We’re on a mission to empower companies to be the best version of themselves for their customers. It’s our goal to be the voice powering half of all automated contact centre calls, globally, by 2030.”

The challenges so far

As a startup in the AI market, PolyAI has faced challenges on the journey, but managed to overcome them.

Smith explained: “Conversational AI is a noisy market, especially with the proliferation of LLMs in consumer and business applications. Public perception sets lofty expectations for what is and isn’t (currently) possible when deploying AI within the enterprise, and many newly emergent startups can’t fulfil on slick marketing promises and flashy demos wrapped around open-source models.

“Having been in the industry since 2017, and with established AI researchers at the helm, we have the resources – both in technology and managed services – to deploy a truly enterprise-ready solution for lifelike automation of customer service and support over the phone.”

Highlights of the journey

“Where to start?” enthused Smith.

“In the past twelve months alone, we secured a $50 million Series C raise on a $500 million valuation (also in this raise, became a charter portfolio client for Zendesk Ventures); expanded our global footprint servicing FedEx by launching in our 14th country (in as many languages), won a host of industry awards, including a Gold Stevie for Contact Center Solutions in, deployed the first-of-its-kind, fully generative voice assistant within a major US utility, earned key research mentions by Gartner, Forrester, IDC, CB Insights, Aragon and Zinnov, and grew our ARR by 10x since 2022.”

PolyAI has quickly grown, and it’s no wonder. The role the startup is playing in the industry is pivotal, as customers want more high-quality customer service experiences. The market is on its way to completely transforming and PolyAI is at the forefront of that development.

AI is transforming customer service

Discussing the current customer service and contact centre market, Smith discussed: “The phone is still the preferred channel for consumers, yet the contact centre industry has been plagued for decades by high churn, increased pressure to reduce costs, largely stagnant technology, and now, tasked with meeting ever-escalating customer expectations. This translates to long wait times and frustrated consumer experiences, at times when they need support from brands they trust.”

AI has been transforming every sector, so why should contact centres and customer service be any different?

“Effective AI solutions can fully automate up to 90% of incoming calls, nearly eliminating hold times and delivering outstanding customer experiences, while offering equal reprieve for the human agents who will focus on the more complex issues requiring empathy.”

The future of PolyAI

Experiencing such growth already, PolyAI isn’t planning on slowing down anytime soon.

Smith explained: “We’re 100% dedicated to growing our foothold in the global enterprise marketplace, through direct sales, key technical alliances, and a thriving partnership programme.

“In late 2024, we plan to release our browser-based, self-service platform, enabling any business to create, deploy and manage a world-class voice assistant quickly and easily.”