VUX World

Kane Simms

Interviews with the best brains in AI, sharing how to improve customer experience and business operations using emerging AI technologies such as voice AI, conversational AI, NLP, Large Language Models (LLMs), generative AI and more. We educate business leaders and teams on why and how AI technologies are revolutionising the way consumers engage with businesses and the internet, why that matters and how to implement it properly. “One of the most consistently insightful and deeply respected podcasts in the industry”Bradley Metrock, Score Publishing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 2 days ago

    How the company behind Confused.com and Uswitch uses AI to resolve up to 70% of customer conversations with Anna Fedorchuk, RVU

    When you switch off your call centre, AI has no safety net to fall back on. RVU did exactly that, building an AI-first customer operations function that serves millions of UK consumers. In this episode, we’re joined by Anna Fedorchuk, Customer Operations Manager at RVU, the company behind brands including Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk. Anna shares how her team transformed customer support from a traditional contact centre into an AI-first operation, achieving AI resolution rates of 65-70% while maintaining a strong customer experience. We discuss how RVU rolled out AI across chat, email and social media without relying on engineering teams, and why building the right knowledge base mattered far more than chasing the latest model. Anna walks us through how AI categorisation and carefully designed workflows lifted resolution rates across genuinely complex customer journeys, where similar keywords across energy, broadband and mobile made accurate routing a real challenge. Anna also describes how Claude and Intercom now work together to analyse conversations and surface operational insights in the team's own language. People are a big part of this conversation. Anna explains how involving her team early gave each agent their own vertical to run and a real sense of ownership, and how AI even softened the stress of handling difficult complaints. She closes on what's next: data connectors and more agentic customer experiences. Show notes
 Follow Anna on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-fedorchuk-b84232102/⁠ Follow Kane on LinkedIn: ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms⁠ Take our AI Maturity Assessment: ⁠⁠https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio Subscribe to VUX World: ⁠⁠ https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: ⁠⁠ https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms⁠

    40 min

  2. 19 Jun

    Omotenashi: Japanese concept of hospitality and what CX teams can learn from it with Daniel Orenes Ferrández, Uber

    Japan has one of the lowest average NPS scores in the world, and the reason is cultural: Japanese customers expect more. Daniel Orenes Ferrández, Senior Manager of Customer Experience at Uber, discusses Omotenashi, the Japanese philosophy of anticipating customer needs and apologising sincerely before resolving a problem. Daniel has lived and worked in Japan for over a decade, including five years leading conversational AI initiatives at Rakuten. He explains why the Japanese language has between ten and fifteen ways of saying sorry, why choosing the right level matters as much as solving the issue, and how generative AI prompts can now select an apology tone based on contact type and severity, something fixed NLU responses could never do. The conversation covers Aimai, the Japanese concept of ambiguity used to maintain conversational harmony. Japanese speakers rarely say no directly, and AI systems need specific prompting to catch these signals in sentiment analysis. We also discuss the escalation strategy, digital mascots, integration with the Japanese messaging app Line, and practical guidance for global brands deploying conversational AI in Japan. Show notes
 Read Daniel's Substack, Japan CX Insider: https://danielferrandez.substack.com/ Follow Daniel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielorenesferrandez/
 Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms
 Take our AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
 Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio
 Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms

    46 min

  3. 12 Jun

    The trust layer banks need for an agentic future with Mathias Fanschek, Raiffeisen Bank International

    What happens when customers stop opening banking apps and start managing their finances through AI assistants? In this episode, we sit down with Mathias Fanschek, Head of Digital Transformation and Retail Strategy at Raiffeisen Bank International, to explore how one of Europe's largest banking groups is preparing for a future of headless banking, agentic commerce and AI-powered customer experiences. With 18 million customers across 11 markets and managing over €200 billion in assets, Mathias shares what it really takes to move generative AI from experimentation to production. We had a good discussion about virtual mobile assistants, transforming legacy data infrastructure, and managing executive expectations in a rapidly changing, highly regulated landscape. You'll also hear Mathias' perspective on Revolut's new PRAGMA model, why context is the missing ingredient in today's AI experiences and how banks can remain trusted intermediaries as customers increasingly interact through AI-powered distribution channels.

    38 min

  4. 21 May

    What most companies get wrong about voice AI with Henry Vaage Iversen, boost.ai

    We sit down with Henry Vaage Iversen, Co-Founder and CCO at boost.ai, to explore why voice AI is finally reaching mainstream deployment across banks, insurers, telcos and other regulated industries.We dig into what's changed in the technology, why phone volumes continue to rise and how large language models are reshaping what's possible on the voice channel. Henry shares practical lessons from deploying conversational AI at scale, including how some customers are now achieving 60-75% voice automation. We also discuss why the gap between chat and voice experiences still catches companies off guard, and what it really takes to get voice AI right in terms of testing, latency, and conversation design.We explore why layering AI onto legacy channels only gets you so far, and why the real opportunity lies in rethinking customer journeys from scratch. The conversation wraps with a story about what happens when AI agents start calling other AI agents, something our team recently experienced firsthand. Show notes Find out more about boost.aiFollow Henry on LinkedInTake our updated AI Maturity AssessmentSubscribe to our newsletterSubscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack

    54 min

  5. 17 May

    How PolyAI built a voice AI model that handles millions of customer calls with Nikola Mrkšić, Co-founder and CEO

    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

    58 min
  6. Most AI projects fail. Here's how to pick the ones that don't with Thomas Schaefer, Uniphore

    7 May

    Most AI projects fail. Here's how to pick the ones that don't with Thomas Schaefer, Uniphore

    Enterprise AI projects fail more often than they succeed. The MIT figure Thomas Schaefer cites puts that at 95%. The reasons are rarely the model. They are the architecture beneath it, the data that feeds it, and the use case selection that determines whether any of it was worth starting. Thomas Schaefer is Director of Sales Engineering at Uniphore, based in Germany. He has over 20 years in enterprise technology, including 12 years at Jacada across solution architecture, professional services and presales leadership across EMEA and APAC. He joined Uniphore in 2021 and works with enterprise clients on AI transformation, agentic workflow design and the operationalisation of business AI at scale. Show notes Discover more about the CCW UK Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdig... Find out more about Uniphore: https://www.uniphore.com/ Follow Thomas on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-schaefer-4027a611/ Follow Kane on LinkedIn: / kanesimms Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26b... Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5... Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    51 min
  7. Building enterprise AI agents in hours with Merlin Bise, CTO at Inbenta

    24 Apr

    Building enterprise AI agents in hours with Merlin Bise, CTO at Inbenta

    Enterprise AI tools can spin up a prototype in an hour. Getting that prototype to production with the accuracy, security, and scale a real business needs still takes months for most companies. Inbenta says its new Encore platform closes that gap in days or even hours. Merlin Bise, CTO at Inbenta, returns to VUX World to walk through how Encore builds production-grade AI agents on the fly when a customer deploys a use case. The platform ingests content from websites, documents, recordings and connected systems like SharePoint, then combines large language models with Inbenta's proprietary NLP, customer-specific lexicons and real-time intent generation to deliver near-zero hallucination rates. The hallucination numbers from raw models remain striking. We discuss a report that shows hallucination rates across different LLMs, including those from companies such as OpenAI, Google, and xAI. Inbenta's approach constrains the model to verified content and context, then layers intent-based NLP on top. In one customer test of 200 questions, they found a single hallucination, caused by a query that fell outside the content boundaries.  We also discuss the broader trajectory of enterprise AI. Most deployments today focus on replacing existing activities or functions. The bigger opportunity lies in using AI to imagine entirely new kinds of value. Merlin predicts that hyper-automation, which combines agentic intelligence with robotic process automation, will be the defining shift in the next 12 months. Show notesFind out more about The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccw-uk/agenda-mc/?utm_source=VUX%20World&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=47758.003_VUX_Social_Post_Agenda&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7634824 Find out more about Inbenta: https://www.inbenta.com Follow Merlin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merlin-bise-8277696b Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1hr 13min
  8. Where generative AI earns its place in fintech. Lessons from Jaja Finance with Adrian Matei

    17 Apr

    Where generative AI earns its place in fintech. Lessons from Jaja Finance with Adrian Matei

    Most teams are still asking where to use AI. The better question is where not to. In this episode, Adrian Matei, Product Manager from Jaja Finance, breaks down what actually happens when generative AI meets real users and real constraints. The result is far less hype, far more discipline, and a clear view of what it takes to ship AI that works. We talk about Jaja’s chatbot, Airi, which is a RAG-based agentic system with six agents in production, serving customers who often face sensitive financial situations, such as debt. Adrian explains the design philosophy behind Airi’s tone, which was developed in collaboration with Jaja's commercial and communications teams to ensure it matches the brand across every customer touchpoint. A significant part of the conversation focuses on the practical realities of building production-grade generative AI systems. Adrian shares his thinking on when to use generative AI and when deterministic, rule-based approaches are simply the better choice. We also touch on broader themes, including the future of AI at the edge and the emerging role of personal AI assistants.  Show notesDiscover more about the CCW UK Summit: https://europe.customercontactweekdigital.com/events-ccw-uk/agenda-mc/?utm_source=VUX%20World&utm_medium=Media%20Partner&utm_campaign=47758.003_VUX_Social_Post_Agenda&utm_term=&utm_content=&disc=&extTreatId=7634824 Follow Adrian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriangmatei Follow Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/a26bf9Rr?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=audio Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeW Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimms Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1hr 4min
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4.9
out of 5
17 Ratings

About

Interviews with the best brains in AI, sharing how to improve customer experience and business operations using emerging AI technologies such as voice AI, conversational AI, NLP, Large Language Models (LLMs), generative AI and more. We educate business leaders and teams on why and how AI technologies are revolutionising the way consumers engage with businesses and the internet, why that matters and how to implement it properly. “One of the most consistently insightful and deeply respected podcasts in the industry”Bradley Metrock, Score Publishing Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Kane Simms
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    380
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Kane Simms
  • Show Website
    VUX World

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