“Everybody wants AI, nobody wants BS” with Fertitta Entertainment
About the show
Hosted by Nikola Mrkšić, Co-founder and CEO of PolyAI, the Deep Learning with PolyAI podcast is the window into AI for CX leaders. We cut through hype in customer experience, support, and contact center AI — helping decision-makers understand what really matters.
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Summary
Brian Jeppesen, who serves as Director, Contact Center Operations at Fertitta Entertainment, joined your host Nikola Mrkšić to discuss his vision for the AI-powered contact center.
Listen to hear Nikola and Brian cover:
- How to overcome the challenges of staffing call centers during high-demand periods, including with virtual agents
- Their reaction to the Keep Call Centers in America Act of 2025, and what it means for brands and BPOs
- Myths around the implementation of AI in contact centers
- The risks BPOs (Business Process Outsourcers) face if they do not proactively offer AI solutions to their clients
- The transition to generative AI-powered virtual assistants, including what’s working today and what’s still yet to come.
PolyAI is proud to bring insights from our customers to the pod! Learn more about our work together here: https://poly.ai/case-studies/golden-nugget/
Key Takeaways
- AI as revenue protector: Fertitta faced massive call abandonment during COVID, risking up to 50% of revenue. By partnering with PolyAI, they quickly deployed voice AI that captured lost revenue and cut abandonment to 10%.
- Local voice, brand identity: Fertitta and PolyAI co-designed voices that matched the brand — even down to a Texan accent — proving that automation can feel authentic and customer-friendly.
- Scaling with trust: What started with simple FAQs and reservations grew into a system handling 30% of volume, cutting attrition in half and improving agent satisfaction — showing how AI and people can work hand-in-hand.
- Future of hospitality AI: Fertitta and PolyAI are now pioneering agentic AI in hospitality, making it possible for virtual agents to do everything a human agent can, while keeping the experience fast, efficient, and on-brand.
Transcript
Nikola Mrkšić
01:24 – 01:37
hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of PolyAI’s podcast. Today, I have the great pleasure of welcoming Brian Jeppesen, who was our first client in The US many, many years ago.
So, Brian, welcome to the podcast.
Brian Jeppesen
01:37 – 01:41
Thank you. Thank you.
Great to be here. Great to see you.
again, Nikola.
Nikola Mrkšić
01:41 – 02:36
Absolutely. Always.
And I look forward to seeing you in person in a few days, here in London. But, I have a few sentences, kind of, like, about you and kind of, like, your history.
I think, you know, you’ve been working at Entertainment, which listeners may know for Golden Nugget casinos and all of the restaurants under the Landry’s dining umbrella. But you’re also one of the directors on the board of the contact center of the AI association.
And you’ve previously been an executive, at Alorica, one of the largest BPOs on the planet. So I think, I really look forward to picking your brain on a lot of these topics, but, I’d love maybe just to kind of kick off with our story and how we started working together.