00:00 Speaker a
Joining me right now is Keyvon Mohajer, Co-Founder and CEO of Soundhound AI. nice to meet you. Thank you for coming to the studio.
00:08 Keyvon Mohajer
Thank you for taking me.
00:09 Speaker a
So you've more than tripled in a quarter, with three major business lines, cars, enterprises, restaurants. Where did the demand come from?
00:19 Keyvon Mohajer
It actually came from all of them. So, it was our strongest record quarter strong on record. All business units have been successful. We grew with AI for automobiles, AI for restaurants, and AI for businesses. We closed new deals, we had cross-sells in these units, which was amazing. He also made a lot of progress with Voice Commerce. This was demonstrated earlier this year.
00:43 Speaker a
How does Voice Commerce work?
00:46 Keyvon Mohajer
So this is a great example of Agent AI. So, everyone talks about agent AI as a vision for the future, but Soundhound actually makes it happen on a massive scale for our reach and technology. So imagine you're going home from work, um, historically, you've limited AI use cases in your car. Maybe you set the navigation or settings, uh, the fan speed. What if you could do more? If you can find a restaurant that your family likes and orders, um, um, talk to the car and for dinner, and maybe you might have you book an appointment for the next few days. Well, we work with European car manufacturers in North America, well-known, well-known auto OEMs. Well, there are participation from restaurants and merchants with national and global coverage. It really works and everyone is in a hurry to be a part of it.
01:30 Speaker a
So, can I buy a car that has this product now, or is this in development when this will come to the car?
01:37 Keyvon Mohajer
Well, you can buy a car with a Soundhound. That's why we drive millions of cars. It's one of our business. Well, we currently run a pilot with several OEMs, car OEMs. Some people are using us now, others are not using us, but they are going to use us. It's a new near future.
01:57 Speaker a
Well, one reason I like talking to Keyvon is the overall idea of AI Gen Ai, Agentive AI is sometimes very conceptual and in some ways it's more realistic, so I think I like talking to you. So I would like to ask you about another example. Well, as we mentioned before, you have a lot of restaurant deals. Couple, uh, new things you think you've signed, like a red lobster. Well, if I were a customer, how can I interact with AI at these facilities?
02:36 Keyvon Mohajer
Yes, we are an omnichannel. So, um, sometimes, um, channels, more main channels for them, um, restaurants are the phone. Therefore, you can call them and you can order. When you call a restaurant they don't pick up the phone or if so, someone is very distracted and busy and noisy. So it will all be gone. You can always have someone patience and get the phone, tell them at any speed you want, and you can order. Sometimes their channel is drive-thru. Well, we run through the drive with AI. So, um, our solution can increase revenue and reduce costs. That's why restaurants need us more than ever. Well, we're helping them both on the top line and the bottom line, which cuts costs. Well, that's obvious, but we upsell, ai always upsell and throughput increases. You can take your orders faster and you can order them in parallel. Well, that increases revenue.
03:45 Speaker a
Can people keep up with the increase in orders?
03:49 Keyvon Mohajer
You know, we actually had a case where they had to turn it off because they couldn't keep up.
03:55 Speaker a
oh.
03:56 Keyvon Mohajer
That's really interesting. If you're not expanding, I think that's another problem unless you're expanding to a burger flipping machine. Um, um, you guys have launched a new agent platform called Amelia 7. So, how is this unfolding, and is it deploying something different?
04:17 Keyvon Mohajer
So it's the agent version called Agent Plus, uh, the agent version of the enterprise AI. Another example of an agent I can describe. Um, traditionally in customer service, um, when you call and get AI, AI handled very simple cases, answering questions and finding out what you wanted. And for something more complicated, you were escalated to humans. Now AI can do more complicated things. For example, for troubleshooting, um, um, um, if the agent is perfect or a healthcare appointment, you want to book an appointment for yourself and your child.
05:20 Speaker a
right.
05:21 Keyvon Mohajer
Yes, it used to be escalating to humans, but now agents can handle it.
05:29 Speaker a
interesting. yes. I definitely had that experience too. Are you using your own LLM for all of this or are you driven by something else?
05:38 Keyvon Mohajer
Well, that's one of the great things about Soundhound. It has its own basic model, but it also uses third-party models. And we are very fast to adopt when innovation happens outside the four walls. Well, I saw that as an opportunity because I didn't think Google, Amazon, or Apple would sign up for Open AI anytime soon, like when Openai opened its API two years ago. And it made our product better. Well, Soundhound also has its own model called Polaris. So, for example, we beat our closest competitors by 35% in accuracy and 4 times in latency.
06:36 Speaker a
interesting. Understood. Finally, I would like to ask you about profitability, right? Clearly, you're in growth mode. Well, I believe analysts are looking for a positive EBITDA for next year, but what will the journey look like? When do you focus on that profitability question from growth?
07:02 Keyvon Mohajer
Yes, it's a constant, constant conversation, as opportunities are endless before us. And I think we are at the inflection point for AI company recruitment. Previously, it was a POC budget or innovation budget, but now it is delegated from the IT budget. And they need a partner like Soundhound. So, investing in growth is very important to us, but it's close to profitability so we can decide when we want to get there. At this time, it is leading to ending the year based on a adjusted EBITDA.
07:57 Speaker a
right. Umm, um, you guys are gaining a lot to grow in part. Are you slowing it down or are you still doing all you can to make more acquisitions?
08:15 Keyvon Mohajer
We bought three companies last year and they became amazing. Well, I think we have demonstrated a repeatable formula for success. So I first bought my own amazing company. They had great solutions, great teams and great customer base. And we gave them what they needed to thrive. They replaced their legacy technology dependencies with Soundhound's unique model that reduces costs while improving the quality of the user experience. We investigated the synergy of many costs. We migrated the cloud, made revenue synergy, upsell, and cross sales. This means our finances speak for itself. And all of that happened in 12-18 months. So I think we can get better at it and we can do it again, but it depends on finding a great and right target for ourselves.
09:14 Speaker a
right. Where would you like to add it?
09:17 Keyvon Mohajer
Well, our future doesn't depend on it. So there is the scale you need now. Um, it's all about getting into a new vertical with um, um, our market share. So, um, the last thing we got is now seven of the top 10 financial institutions. We are healthcare, we are insured, we are in the military.
