AI Unveiled

The Future of Machine Intelligence with AI with Igor Marinelli, Co-Founder & CEO of Tractian

The season 2 finale of AI Unveiled features our guest host Lak Ananth [https://next47.com/team-members/lak-ananth/], Global Managing Partner at Next47, and Igor Marinelli, Co-Founder and CEO of N47-backed Tractian [https://next47.com/portfolio/#portfolio-tractian]. They chat about how Tractian is leveraging AI to transform industrial maintenance, the nuances of a co-founder relationship, and how founders must evolve as their companies scale. Igor shares his unconventional entrepreneurial journey—from cold emailing factories at 13 to building Tractian, a leading maintenance intelligence platform. He dives into how AI enables predictive maintenance, using machine learning and signal processing to detect equipment failures before they happen. The discussion covers the challenges of bringing AI into legacy industries, where downtime can mean millions in lost revenue. And how Tractian’s technology turns raw machine data into actionable insights, helping manufacturers optimize uptime, reduce costs, and improve reliability. Their discussion then veers into the challenges facing founders today. From how to identify a scalable problem, being customer-first, why the co-founder relationship is similar to a marriage, and how to create a company of speed and accountability. We hope you enjoy this episode! Timestamps:  * 01:07 - Why building a company around a pain point close to your heart yields success * 15:57 - Using AI to predict, and fix industrial maintenance issues * 25:40 - How to build a co-founder relationship that lasts * 29:02 - Strategies for managing managers in your growth-stage company * 32:44 - Do co-founders need to be friends? * 38:57 - Your customer support is your product At N47, we partner with founders boldly building products that power the world. Learn more at N47.com [https://www.n47.com/]

Turn Call Centers Into Revenue Drivers with Swapnil Jain, Founder & CEO of Observe.AI

In this episode, I speak with Swapnil Jain, Founder & CEO of N47-backed Observe.AI [observe.ai], an AI-powered platform focused on automating customer service and contact centers. Observe.AI helps enterprises enhance efficiency by leveraging AI-powered automation to evaluate customer interactions, support agents and sellers in real time, and boost customer satisfaction. The episode explores the evolution of AI in customer support and how enterprises are adapting to an AI-first world. Swapnil dives into the future of contact centers, predicting that within five years, over 50% of support calls will be fully automated by AI. He discusses the challenges traditional BPOs face, why many will struggle to survive without an AI-first strategy, and how businesses can leverage AI to shift customer service from a cost center to a revenue-generating function. We discuss the convergence of voice, chat, and AI agents in customer support and why agentic AI is a game-changer for real-time automation. Swapnil shares his own leadership evolution, reflecting on the intensity required to build a category-defining company in AI. He also offers insights into the shifting landscape of enterprise AI adoption, the role of small vs. large language models, and how AI is reshaping human-computer interactions. Enjoy! Timestamps:  * 2:40 - Starting an AI company pre-LLM * 9:06 - AI’s impact on human heavy services and industries * 17:38 - Agentic AI breakdown * 31:48 - How to measure the accuracy of your AI agents * 37:40 - Leadership lessons for managing an international workforce At N47, we partner with founders boldly building products that power the world. Learn more at N47.com [http://n47.com/]

AI's Role in Audio Storytelling with Dimitris Nikolaou, Co-Founder, Wondercraft

In this episode of AI Unveiled, I speak with Dimitris Nikolaou, Co-Founder and CEO of Wondercraft, an AI-powered platform enabling creators to effortlessly produce podcasts, audiobooks, ads, and more using synthetic voices. The episode explores the founding journey of Wondercraft, from Dimitris’s experience at Palantir to the decision to build a company before having a specific idea in mind. Dimitris shares how Wondercraft started as a simple experiment and grew into a leading platform empowering creators with user-friendly tools and hyper-realistic voice technology. Dimitris explains how Wondercraft leverages foundational models like OpenAI, Google, and ElevenLabs while developing proprietary tech to offer advanced customization for voice content. With features like emotion adjustments, accent changes, and "director mode," Wondercraft has unlocked new possibilities for creators to deliver impactful and engaging audio content. The conversation dives into AI’s transformative role in creative media, covering topics like how AI simplifies podcast production, enabling niche creators to engage their audiences through audio. We also cover the growing demand for personalized audio ads and Wondercraft’s ability to produce hundreds of tailored variations efficiently. He also dives into some innovative use cases, like AI-powered meditations and revision podcasts for students, as well as how they capitalized on the momentum of  NotebookLM voice overview by offering additional controls.  Dimitris also offers insights into Wondercraft’s growth strategy, from leveraging SEO to building a thriving user community. He discusses the company’s 2025 roadmap, which includes groundbreaking features like video creation, collaborative tools inspired by Canva and Notion, and celebrity voice integrations. Finally, Dimitris shares his perspective on building a mission-driven company, highlighting the importance of empowering human creativity while leveraging AI’s potential. I hope you enjoy this episode! Timestamps:  *04:40 - The founders journey from Palantir to Wondercraft *09:20 - AI’s influence on traditional media and entertainment *15:35 - Shifting podcasts from human hosts to AI ones *19:17 - Personalization in AI audio *37:27 - Scaling to over 200,000 users At N47, we partner with founders boldly building products that power the world. Learn more at ⁠N47.com⁠ [http://n47.com/]

Why Voice AI is the Ultimate Tool for Modern Enterprises with Jean-Louis Quéguiner, Founder & CEO, Gladia

In this episode of AI Unveiled, I sit down with Jean-Louis Quéguiner, Founder and CEO of Gladia, a cutting-edge audio infrastructure platform powering voice-first applications. Gladia’s mission? To make voice the ultimate interface for human and machine interactions, starting with state-of-the-art transcription. Jean-Louis shares his journey from leading AI and big data infrastructure at OVHcloud to launching Gladia, and how the company pivoted from offering 500 APIs to focusing exclusively on voice solutions. He dives into the challenges of building and maintaining real-time voice infrastructure and tackling hallucinations in speech-to-text. Gladia doesn’t do pre-training and instead fine-tunes foundational models. We discuss risk of commoditization as multimodal models mature and how Gladia is able to differentiate by ingesting and modeling their customer’s specific business context and data. The conversation explores AI's impact on industries like healthcare, education, and law, as well as the future of real-time transcription and multimodal AI. Jean-Louis also provides insights into the importance of customer intimacy, how Gladia competes with hyperscalers, and why a long-term focus on real-world business problems is more important than chasing hype. Tune in to learn how Gladia is redefining voice as the interface of the future and what it takes to build a high-impact AI infrastructure company. Enjoy! ------ Timestamps:  *5:03 - What should come first: product or customer development? *9:37 - Industries that will be most impacted by voice AI *14:08 - Tackling hallucination  * 39:36 - The impact of multimodal AI * 44:30- How AI founders can stay ahead of trends ----- At N47, we partner with founders boldly building products that power the world. Learn more at ⁠N47.com⁠ [http://n47.com/]

AI Agents are Taking Over Call Centers with Alex Levin, Co-Founder & CEO, Regal

In this episode, I sit down with Alex Levin, Co-Founder and CEO of Regal, a platform that is disrupting the contact center industry with AI-powered agents.  Our conversation unpacks the transformative potential of AI agents in reshaping how businesses interact with their customers. Alex explains why traditional models of minimizing customer interactions are failing and how Regal enables companies to drive growth by offering scalable, high-touch experiences. He shares his bold prediction that 90% of customer interactions will be handled by AI agents in the near future, so we discuss implications for the global workforce and why he doesn't think there'll be destruction of jobs overall. He talks about the growing importance of the evolving role of "prompt engineers" and the new skill sets necessary for a world increasingly powered by generative AI. I asked Alex how Regal ensures that the customer experience that AI agents provide is good enough. Of course, AI agents are non-deterministic and make errors, but so do human agents. So whether it is reviewing calls, training agents, or determining logic to handoff to level-2 support, many techniques for managing the quality of AI Agents are similar to managing the quality of support by human agents.   Finally, we examine why mid-market companies are adopting AI agents more rapidly than enterprises and how Regal is positioned to address their unique needs. Alex shares his perspective on how businesses can navigate this transition successfully, emphasizing the importance of embracing AI to remain competitive in an evolving landscape. I hope you enjoy this episode! --- Timestamps:  *07:00 - In the near future, 90% of contact center calls will be with AI  *15:10 - The importance of omnichannel  * 19:55 - How to stand out in the competitive AI agent industry * 33:40 - How to assess the quality of your AI agents --- At N47, we partner with founders boldly building products that power the world. Learn more at ⁠N47.com⁠ [http://n47.com/]