The Times Tech Podcast Nikola Mrksic on PolyAI, Super Bowl ads, and the future of voice AI
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Feb 13, 2026 Nikola Mrksic, Co‑founder and CEO of PolyAI and former Siri team member, talks about building voice assistants for real customer calls. He discusses why voice AI finally works. He describes handling accents and live-call realism. He reflects on job impacts, working with NVIDIA, and a Gordon Ramsay ad showcasing customer-experience tech.
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Virtual Assistant Wins Over Skeptical Caller
- Nikola played a recorded PolyAI call showing a virtual assistant handling a complex CPAP supplies query.
- The caller initially demanded a human but the system resolved the issue and the caller changed their mind.
Three Barriers To Voice AI Adoption
- Nikola identifies three barriers to voice AI adoption: human expectation, assumed failure, and technical capability.
- Overcoming those lets voice systems surprise users and win trust during calls.
Progress Is Incremental, Not Magical
- Progress in voice AI has been incremental rather than a single breakthrough, improving year-on-year.
- Cambridge's long research history and steady advances explain current capabilities, not a single magic moment.