PolyAI Overview & Best Alternatives in 2026

PolyAI is a company that has emerged by focusing intensely on the quality and realism of the voice interaction. Based in London and founded in 2017, the company develops conversational AI voice assistants for enterprise customer service, aiming to create agents that sound nearly indistinguishable from humans.

PolyAI has successfully attracted significant venture funding and demonstrating success in automating routine customer phone calls using advanced speech recognition and natural language understanding (NLU).

Company Snapshot

Key Takeaways on PolyAI

PolyAI has gained traction through its core focus, but this specialization creates inherent limitations when scaling for the needs of a modern, complex enterprise:

• Primarily Voice-Centric: While PolyAI excels in voice, it does not provide a unified, consistent experience across all channels (chat, email, in-app). Limiting the need from enterprises to have a a single AI brain for omnichannel consistency.
• LLM Reliance and Control Risk: PolyAI emphasis on “lifelike” dialogue often relies heavily on Large Language Models (LLMs). While great for conversational flow, this approach is prone to hallucinations and lacks the deterministic control and explainability required for sensitive, high-value transactions in regulated industries.
• Missing Hybrid AI Structure: The platform focuses on the sound and feel of the voice agent, but does not inherently offer the Hybrid AI architecture needed by global enterprises. This architecture combines the control of pre-defined flows with the flexibility of generative models to ensure high accuracy and compliance.

PolyAI Best Alternative for Enterprises: Teneo.ai

For global organizations, the challenge isn’t just making a voice sound human—it’s achieving 99% accuracy, maintaining governance, operating across all channels, and scaling reliably across 86+ languages.

This is where more established, enterprise-grade platforms like Teneo come into the picture. Teneo is an Agentic AI playform designed specifically for large contact centers, transforming accuracy and control by deploying its proprietary Hybrid AI model.

Hybrid AI and Deterministic Control

Teneo can be used with a Hybrid AI approach that blends the best of both worlds:

• Teneo Linguistic Modeling Language (TLML): Proprietary deterministic layer that gives precise control, explainability, and up to 99% accuracy. Ideal for high-risk tasks like ID&V, billing, and secure payments where hallucinations are unacceptable.
• LLMs (Generative AI): Used for natural responses and unknown queries while still operating under Teneo’s deterministic safety layer to maintain transactional accuracy.

Omnichannel Scale and Consistency

• Designed as a single intelligence layer on top of your existing CCaaS platform rather than a one way-only solution.
• Powers more than +17,000 AI Agents worldwide, supporting millions of monthly interactions.
• Supports development and deployment in over 86 languages,
• The same intelligence orchestrates Voice, Chat, Email, SMS, and in-app channels for consistent, on-brand experiences.

When to Consider Teneo instead of PolyAI

Consider PolyAI if:

• You accept that LLM-driven agents may produce incorrect statements and are not concerned about strict control over response accuracy.
• Your automation strategy is focused almost entirely on the voice channel rather than a broader, omnichannel CX program.
• Your use cases do not involve sensitive, high-risk workflows (such as identity verification, payments or regulated processes) where accuracy and auditability must be guaranteed.

Consider Teneo if:

• You are a global enterprise that needs to scale AI across countries, brands, and regions (86+ languages).
• You require strong governance, high accuracy, and explainability to ensure compliance with regulations (HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, EU AI Act).
• You need a single platform to orchestrate a reliable, consistent customer experience across all channels (Voice, Chat, Email, etc.) on top of your existing CCaaS stack.
• You require vendor flexibility and want to use an orchestration platform that allows you to swap out underlying NLU/LLM engines without rebuilding your entire conversational experience.

Contact us to learn more!