Five years after his first appearance on the podcast, PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić returns to VUX World to discuss how conversational AI has evolved from intent-based systems into enterprise-scale AI agents handling millions of customer interactions.
PolyAI began as a research-led spinout from Cambridge University with a singular focus on making automated voice conversations genuinely useful. Since then, the company has grown from a handful of pilot deployments to powering customer service operations for nearly 200 enterprises worldwide, including highly regulated industries such as banking, healthcare, insurance and utilities.
In this episode, we explore what it actually takes to build production-ready conversational AI systems at scale. We go deep into PolyAI's proprietary Raven model, the realities of building and training purpose-built language models for enterprise customer service. We also talk about why most businesses underestimate the complexity of deploying AI agents into real-world operations.
The conversation also touches on PolyAI's brand campaign starring Gordon Ramsay. Ramsay's restaurants have been a PolyAI client for a few years, and the company launched a campaign timed to the Super Bowl in February 2026 with Ramsay dramatising the contrast between legacy phone menus and PolyAI's voice agents. Nikola explains how the partnership came about and why Ramsay's standards made him a fitting brand ambassador for the company.
Show notes
Find out more about PolyAI: https://poly.ai/
Follow Nikola on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikola-mrksic
Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
Sign up for our upcoming webinar - Cutting headcount isn't an AI strategy: https://events.vux.ai/getvocal?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=podcast
Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=audio
Subscribe to our newsletter: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW/?utm_source=podcast_network&utm_medium=podcast
Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms
Read more
