Two years after our last conversation, Raj Koneru, CEO and founder of Kore.ai, returns to discuss how the world of AI has changed and how much of it still needs to change. When we first spoke, conversational AI showed promise. Now it powers more than a billion interactions every day for companies like LG, Coca-Cola and Blue Cross Blue Shield. Yet Raj argues that the next real breakthrough will come not from novelty, but from accessibility.
In this episode, Raj explains why the future of AI depends on open collaboration instead of vendor lock-in. Kore.ai’s partnerships with Microsoft, AWS and G42’s Inception in the UAE reflect a commitment to interoperability and shared innovation. He offers a rare glimpse into what’s happening “above the line,” where companies actually design and deploy AI agents, compared to the massive “below the line” investments that power the hardware, cloud, and model layers of AI. For Raj, platforms like Kore.ai act as a bridge and translate technical potential into business results.
We also explore what true democratization of AI looks like in practice. Raj believes that no-code platforms are the key to giving both large and small companies the ability to build their own agents without deep technical skills. He discusses the challenges of scaling responsibly, managing latency, ensuring governance, and keeping AI secure and transparent. From the shift to on-device AI on smartphones to the lessons learned from running one of the world’s largest enterprise AI platforms, his perspective combines realism with optimism.
This conversation reminds us that progress in AI will not be determined by who owns the largest model, but by who makes the technology useful, ethical, and accessible to all. Raj’s message is simple but powerful: read widely, question everything and work courageously together.
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