Meet Our Lead Software Engineer: What It Takes to Build AI Agents
Meet Our Lead Software Engineer: What It Takes to Build AI Agents
At Neural Voice, our AI agents are more than just technology. They’re collaborative tools designed to help businesses thrive. But behind the scenes, it takes a team of dedicated engineers to bring these agents to life.
In this instalment of our Meet Our series, we’re introducing Harry, our Lead Software Engineer. He’s sharing what it takes to build AI agents that are not just smart, but genuinely useful.
What’s your role at Neural Voice, and what’s your background in AI?
I’m the Lead Software Engineer at Neural Voice, working closely with Jeremy to turn the business’s vision into reality. We’ve got a great team of engineers who are brilliant at what they do, and I help keep us on track.
I started with a bachelor’s degree in Applied Computing, followed by a master’s in Business Analytics. During both, I was introduced to AI, and it quickly became a serious interest of mine. That passion led me to my first position at Neural Voice—and the rest is history!
How do you define AI agents, and what makes them different from traditional chatbots?
AI agents go beyond traditional chatbots by operating autonomously, making decisions, and learning from interactions.
Unlike rule-based chatbots that follow a fixed script, AI agents use advanced machine learning to understand context, nuance, and even emotion. This makes their interactions far more dynamic and personalised, unlocking more powerful applications across industries.
What’s one of the biggest technical challenges in building AI agents?
One of the biggest—and most interesting—challenges has been regional accents.
Accents can vary hugely, even within the same country, and traditional voice recognition models often struggle with this. Ensuring our AI can understand a broad range of voices and dialects has been a fascinating challenge, but thanks to NLP advancements, we’re making huge progress.
So yes, if you have a Scottish accent, don’t worry—our AI will still understand you!
How do you ensure that AI agents are genuinely useful for businesses?
At the end of the day, AI is all about problem-solving. The key is to identify the right problem before building a solution.
Our AI agents work best when they have a clear purpose. By ensuring that we’re tackling the most valuable challenges for businesses, we can deliver real, measurable impact.
What excites you most about AI right now?
The competition.
It feels like the space race all over again, with different players constantly pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We’re seeing unbelievable levels of innovation, and every week, there’s a new breakthrough.
It’s a great time to be working in AI!
What’s one misconception businesses have about AI?
Many businesses think AI is too advanced for them or assume it won’t work in their industry.
But the reality? Anyone can deploy an AI agent in minutes, no matter how technical they are. And the results speak for themselves.
It reminds me of when the first planes were invented—people doubted they’d ever be widely used. But today, we can’t imagine life without them. We’re at the beginning of a new AI era, and businesses that embrace it now will be the ones leading the future.
If someone wants to start using AI in their business, what’s the first thing they should consider?
Start with a repetitive or time-consuming task and focus on automating that.
AI is most valuable when it frees up time for high-value work. So, look at areas where employees are stuck doing manual, repetitive tasks, and start there.
Need inspiration? We’ve got loads of real-world use cases on our website—go check them out!
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