VUX World

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

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

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.

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.ai
• Follow Henry on LinkedIn
• Take our updated AI Maturity Assessment
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Subscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack

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

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

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In this episode, we explore the concept of the "headless enterprise," where AI agents interact with the external world without traditional user interfaces. This discussion delves into the future of ai and its implications for enterprise automation.

We consider how such ai technology could drive significant business growth, focusing on scenarios where AI agents handle interactions seamlessly without a traditional user interface, similar to a headless cms.

00:00 What is the headless AI enterprise?

01:41 How to prepare

03:40 Lipstick on a pig

04:58 AI tinkering vs embedding

07:19 Where to focus your attention

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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.

Find 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

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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. 

Discover 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

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We hit the floor at the European Chatbot and Conversational AI Summit in Edinburgh with a mic and a simple rule: answer a question, then leave one for the next person. What unfolds is a chain of questions and answers from practitioners at Lebara, Lloyds Banking Group, Uber, ElevenLabs, Carrefour, Virgin Money, Tesco, Jaja Finance and more. The result is an organic, unscripted snapshot of what the conversational AI community is actually thinking about right now.

Topics spiral from enterprise AI adoption and the talent crunch, through agentic banking and agent metrics, to some surprisingly personal territory, including AI for mental health support, cardiac research and simplifying the mundane parts of everyday life.

00:00 Intro

02:24 Chris Miles, Group Product Lead - Chatbots & AI at Lebara

03:12 Kellin Sjoerds, AI Engineer at Essent & Willeke van de Wetering, AI Engineer at Essent

04:39 Andrew Lavis, Chatbot Analyst at Virgin Money

05:08 Mathias Fanschek, Head Retail Strategy & Digital Transformation at Raiffeisen Bank International AG

06:12 Andrei Spiridon, Head Retail Strategy & Business Transformation at Raiffeisen Conversational AI Lab

08:20 Alan Nichol, CTO at RASA

09:44 Adrian Matei, AI Product Manager at Jaja Finance

11:00 Nikoletta Ventoura, Senior AI Conversation Designer at Tesco

11:37 Maria Guermonprez, CX and Product Manager at Spix Industry

12:19 Damien Bird, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft

13:12 Gabriele Iuculano, Senior Test Platform Engineer, Schindler Group & Salvatore Raieli, Senior Data Scientist at Oncodesign

14:53 Jared Browne, Group Head of AI Governance & Privacy at Fexco

15:32 Laura Brady, GTM at ElevenLabs

16:20 Laura Ball, Global AI CX GTM and Sales Lead at Zoom

16:50 Sabrina Brunner, Technical Lead at Allianz Direct

18:10 Lorraine Burrell, Conversation Design Lead at Lloyds Banking Group

19:00 Jana Richter, Executive VP AI and Innovation at NFON AG

19:44 Daniel Orenes Ferrandez, Senior Manager - Customer Experience at Uber

21:06 Guillaume Blaquiere, Group Data Architect at Carrefour

21:42 Laura Macleod, Business Applications, Centre of Excellence Lead at Virgin Money

21:57 Kane’s closing thoughts

Find out more about The European Chatbot & Conversational AI Summit: https://theeuropeanchatbot.com

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

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