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. When we first spoke, conversational AI was promising. Now it is powering over 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 not come from novelty, but from accessibility.
In this episode, Raj explains why the future of AI depends on open collaboration rather than 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 look into what happens “above the line,” where enterprises actually design and deploy AI agents, compared to the massive “below the line” investments driving the hardware, cloud, and model layers of AI. For Raj, platforms like Kore.ai act as the bridge, translating technical potential into business outcomes.
We also explore what true democratization of AI looks like in practice. Raj believes no-code platforms are key to giving both large and small businesses the power 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 toward on-device AI in smartphones to the lessons learned from running one of the world’s largest enterprise AI platforms, his perspective blends realism with optimism.
This conversation is a reminder that progress in AI will not be defined by who owns the biggest model but by who makes the technology usable, ethical, and open to everyone. Raj’s message is simple but powerful: read widely, question everything, and collaborate boldly.