This week on the EU-Startups podcast, we sit down with Philipp Heltewig, Chief AI Officer at NiCE and Common Supervisor of NiCE Cognigy, an enterprise AI platform that helps firms automate buyer and worker service operations via conversational and agentic AI methods that may perceive requests, entry inner methods, and resolve duties throughout a number of digital and voice channels.
Based in 2016, Cognigy got down to remodel how enterprises work together with clients and staff. As a substitute of counting on easy rule-based chatbots, the corporate developed AI-driven automation able to dealing with complicated interactions at scale, integrating with enterprise software program and enabling organisations to streamline help operations whereas sustaining high-quality service.
On this episode, Philipp displays on the journey from constructing Cognigy as a startup to main a worldwide conversational AI platform that was finally acquired by NiCE Ltd. for $1 billion in 2025. We focus on key milestones alongside the best way, together with the corporate’s ~€36 million Sequence B spherical in 2021 and its €93 million Sequence C in 2024, in addition to the speedy evolution of enterprise AI adoption. The dialog additionally explores the rise of agentic AI methods, which may perceive intent, take actions inside enterprise workflows, and rather more!
Key Factors:
- Cognigy was based in 2016 and bought by NiCE Ltd. for $1 billion in September 2025.
- Philipp explains the shift from fundamental chatbots to agentic AI, able to performing autonomously inside enterprise methods.
- Enterprises more and more use AI to reinforce human brokers, dealing with routine interactions whereas people give attention to complicated instances.
- The interview explores how the founder position evolves after a serious acquisition, and the way AI technique is formed inside a bigger world firm.
