Cobus Greyling: why intents, graphs and conversation design have come full circle

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Kane Simms
  • Founder and CEO at VUX

Full autonomy and RAG were supposed to retire graphs, intents and conversation design. Enterprise AI is relearning why they still matter.

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About this episode

I’m joined by Cobus Greyling, AI evangelist at Core AI, for a wide-ranging conversation on where enterprise AI actually stands today.

We explore why many of the ideas now being presented as breakthroughs, from graph engineering and orchestration to intent detection and state management, have deep roots in conversational AI.

We also get into one of the biggest barriers to enterprise AI adoption: data. Customer experience emerges as the likely entry point for much wider organisational transformation. On forward-deployed engineers, Cobus questions whether they’re genuinely change agents for the business or a way for AI vendors to stay embedded and push further into a client’s operations. Security comes up too, and why it will only become more important as AI agents gain access to more systems and information.

We close with a buzzword bingo round covering fleet engineering, agent swarms, orchestration and universal agents, and Cobus explains why he thinks Open Claw was the biggest red herring of the year.

Show notes

Discover more about ⁠Kore.ai
Follow Cobus on Substack ⁠
Article – The Untrainable by Sarah Guo ⁠
Video – Andrej Karpathy: Software Is Changing (Again) ⁠⁠

Guest

Cobus Greyling

AI Evangelist at Kore.ai

Cobus is passionate about exploring the intersection of AI and language. From Language Models, AI Agents to Agentic Applications, Development Frameworks & Data-Centric Productivity Tools, Cobus shares insights and ideas on how these technologies are shaping the future.

Timestamps

00:00|Intro
00:48|The challenge of AI writing and human authenticity
2:27|Kore.ai’s success and the rise of deployed engineers
4:28|Rediscovering graph engineering in the AI era
8:01|New audiences rediscover foundational AI concepts
11:15|The resurgence of intents and controlled AI autonomy
13:26|Balancing AI autonomy, RAG and customer experience
19:39|Tracing the evolution of contact centre technology
22:55|Generative AI accelerates shift to AI-first CX
25:45|Customer experience leads enterprise AI adoption
30:59|Overcoming back-end mess in large organisations
35:12|Satya Nadella’s vision: AI consumes business logic
44:38|The unfinished business of organising enterprise data
46:39|AI’s future: ecosystem shifts, context and FDEs
51:08|Forward deployed engineers drive AI business outcomes
54:24|AI buzzword bino
55:24|Defining fleet engineering and agent swarms
57:07|Distinguishing agent orchestration from fleet engineering
58:11|Understanding context and model-independent harness engineering
1:00:36|Automating repeatable tasks with loop engineering
1:02:18|Continuous improvement with AI evals and hill climbing
1:05:13|Data, security and customer-centric AI innovation
1:07:16|Debunking overhyped AI concepts like Maltbook
1:09:01|Clarifying the concepts of AI claws and agents
1:10:14|The future of AI: code-based universal agents
1:13:31|Where to find more from Cobus

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Kane Simms

A strategic AI advisor who, for the past decade, has helped business leaders and product owners transform customer experience using conversational and generative AI.

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