Voice and Conversation with AI, with Laurent Cohen

·49 min·4 clips

Laurent Cohen built a voice AI that ensures local businesses never miss a customer call—how does it handle real conversations?

Neil Wilkins hosts Laurent Cohen, founder and CTO of GetOblic, a voice AI platform designed to prevent missed customer calls. Laurent shares his 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience across Europe and the US. The conversation begins with the rapid acceleration of AI, with Laurent noting the disappearance of traditional seven-year technology cycles. He advises business owners to avoid chasing every new AI tool and instead focus on building deep relationships with selected LLMs. Neil describes creating 'skill folders' to make AI relationships portable, which Laurent parallels with his 'operational books'. They explore how voice interaction transforms human-AI engagement, making it more synchronous and emotional. Laurent compares AI to money—a currency requiring judgment—and argues it can make users better workers and people if used wisely. He stresses that AI must be disclosed to customers to maintain trust, especially with voice cloning. The discussion shifts to AI in small businesses, where Laurent explains it levels the playing field by moving companies from emergency to growth mode. He cautions that managing AI agents resembles traditional hiring challenges. Neil questions whether AI can foster creativity, but Laurent warns that LLMs often provide average, sycophantic outputs rather than true innovation. They agree AI exacerbates existing human traits, both positive and negative. Laurent expresses optimism about AI's future, predicting a shift to voice-only interfaces and enhanced human synchronization with technology. The episode concludes with Laurent inviting listeners to try GetOblic's free voice AI for business listings.

As heard by us

A grounded, curious look at voice AI as both a customer-call tool and a more human real-time exchange.

Voice AI comes through as both a practical business tool and a fresh kind of conversation. The episode moves from missed customer calls to systems that can answer phones, book appointments, and capture leads, then widens into the appeal of real-time exchange.

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Why you'd press play

You want to see how voice AI could catch customer calls, book appointments, and capture leads automatically.

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