'This Is Our Time to Do More': SoundHound CEO On AI's Enterprise Breakout

Ahead of SoundHound AI‘s (NASDAQ:SOUN) incoming Q2 earnings release, Benzinga caught up with its founder and CEO, Keyvan Mohajer, to discuss the firm's plans and industry developments.

BZ: SoundHound is growing and expanding into new verticals, as demonstrated by your recent partnerships, such as the Acrelec drive-thru deal and AVANT for enterprise agent adoption.

How are these collaborations influencing your product roadmap and go-to-market strategy, and what will success look like for these initiatives over the next year?

Mohajer: We believe this is our time to do more. While "focus" is what got us here – achieving what we believe is the best conversational AI platform – we are now at an inflection point of adoption by enterprises in different industries. We want to be there when they are ready to sign us up. 

Our underlying technology to power conversational AI experiences is incredible, with 20 years of innovation and massive data accumulation behind it. So to accelerate being in more verticals and industries, we have done a number of smart acquisitions and strategic partnerships, with great companies who have already excelled in those industries.

We’re very excited about our recent partnership announcements which represent meaningful steps in expanding across two of our key verticals: restaurants and enterprise AI. Partners want to work with us because they understand, just as we do, that voice and conversational AI are quickly becoming critical user interfaces for businesses to interact with their customers.

BZ: With the launch of in-vehicle voice commerce at CES 2025, SoundHound is moving beyond traditional voice assistants. What are the most significant technical and business hurdles you face in scaling with automakers and restaurant partners, and how do you plan to address them?

Mohajer: CES 2025 marked a major milestone for SoundHound as the debut of our in-vehicle voice assistant enabling real-time, agentic voice commerce. While food ordering was our initial use case, we're rapidly expanding to other transactional applications.

Voice commerce has always been our vision as a company, but reaching this point has required not only advanced conversational AI capable of handling complex, real-time interactions, but also a critical mass of partners across restaurants and automotive. We now support nearly 15,000 restaurant locations, and we are advancing multiple voice commerce pilots with large automotive brands in Europe and the USA.

For OEMs, voice commerce is projected to represent a $35 billion annual revenue opportunity. It can also unlock up to $63 billion in potential revenue for restaurants. As adoption grows, we expect a flywheel effect, with more automakers adopting our voice assistant and more businesses adopting our AI customer service. 

BZ: You have posted an impressive 151% year-over-year revenue growth in Q1, but there have been debates about organic versus acquisition-driven gains. What is the priority going forward, and how do you envision sustainable, organic expansion?

Mohajer: Our priority has always been to voice-enable the world with conversational intelligence, and that vision is now being realized. While our business has consistently grown 50%, even before any acquisitions, the massive disruption happening with AI – and specifically voice AI –  has created a unique opportunity for us to accelerate our growth.

We've spent over 20 years building our technology, and this has positioned us at the forefront of this shift. Part of our strategy is to acquire companies that can be enhanced by our technology, rather than simply buying a new customer base. We've been successful in this approach, quickly integrating our solutions to accelerate the growth of the acquired businesses.

We believe our core technology will underpin this massive transformation and where and if it makes sense to partner or acquire companies to accelerate the journey towards our vision, if the economics make sense, we will not hesitate to take action.

BZ: Agentic AI is shaping up to be one of the most crucial industry concepts. It is also a central theme of your Amelia 7.0 platform. How do you see Agentic AI transforming enterprise workflows in the next 2-3 years, and what are the most compelling early use cases you're seeing from clients?

Mohajer: We believe the world is moving from an ecosystem of APIs to an ecosystem of intelligent AI agents, and Agentic AI is at the core of this transformation. It introduces a powerful new layer to enterprise automation, enabling AI to not just respond, but to reason, take action, and deliver outcomes with minimal human input.  For years, automation has over-promised and under-delivered, but Agentic AI is a game-changer for businesses with the ability to truly understand context, make decisions, and resolve complex tasks end-to-end.

Agentic AI will redefine enterprise workflows, especially in areas like customer support, IT helpdesks, and internal operations. What we’re seeing from early adopters is compelling, with faster resolution times, reduced costs, and a better experience for both employees and customers.

BZ: What do you see as the biggest misconceptions about AI agents today, and what needs to happen for agentic AI to move from early adoption to mainstream enterprise deployment?

Mohajer: One of the biggest misconceptions about AI agents today is that they're just "fancy chatbots." That is like calling a smartphone a glorified rotary phone, as it misses the fundamental leap in capability. While chatbots are confined to scripted answers and limited use cases, AI agents are dynamic, action-oriented, and designed to operate across systems, channels, and modalities. They can personalize interactions, complete complex tasks, and even collaborate with other agents to orchestrate multi-step workflows.

Another common myth is that people always prefer speaking to a human. In reality, people just want to get things done efficiently. If a powerful, intelligent AI agent can solve their problem quickly, especially without wait times, they leave satisfied. And today's AI agents are finally capable of handling the kinds of requests that used to require a human. 

For agentic AI to move from early adoption to mainstream enterprise deployment, companies need clarity and credibility. Many legacy chatbot vendors have simply rebranded, creating confusion in the market. To build trust, providers need to demonstrate not just technical expertise, but real-world outcomes. Customers want faster resolutions, lower costs, and stronger revenue growth. As our research shows, consumer openness is growing, and the businesses leaning into agentic AI now are the ones pulling ahead.

BZ: The competitive landscape in voice and conversational AI is heating up. Your patent advantage is a strong moat, but are there any plans to maintain this differentiation as the market matures and pricing pressure increases?

Mohajer: Our competitive advantages are rooted in technological differentiation. It's part of our DNA, and we continue to innovate to maintain and extend that advantage.

Our Polaris foundation model outperforms major players like OpenAI and Google in accuracy, speed and cost. Another key differentiator is our agnostic approach and underlying architecture, which connects our own models with third-party LLMs to best optimize for the customer's use case. We also lead in agentic solutions, bringing together the best of what LLMs provide alongside precision and enterprise-grade deterministic flows.

In addition, our customers need a partner, not a vendor, and this is another area we shine compared to the big tech players. We are able to work with our customers side by side, help them innovate, differentiate, customize, and that's another reason they choose us. They know success requires a long-term partnership, and SoundHound is an ideal partner, with incredible technology, a strong track record, and a vision of the future they want to be a part of.

We know that the attractiveness of this market will mean more competition. We welcome that, and we know to continue to lead, we will need to constantly innovate for our customers.

SoundHound AI will release Q2 earnings on Thursday, August 7, after the market closes.

SOUN Price Action: SoundHound AI shares were up 0.09% at $11.18 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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