Danny Tomsett

Husband. Dad. Founder & CEO of @UneeQAI. Investor. Building AI-driven digital humans and immersive roleplay for the future of training.

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Had a great chat with Alan Hosking on the @HRFuturemag Live podcast about AI, digital humans, and building scalable organizations.

We got into a bunch of things, one of which was that culture is the most important factor in your success and ability to adapt the full power of what AI can offer.

Here's the episode so you can have a listen: https://t.co/kW3EpEc70d

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Ode to My Morning Love

You arrive in the dark, a deep amber glow,
From black into caramel, you put on a show,
You warm up my hands, and you wake up my soul,
Without you beside me, I am never quite whole.

You make my heart quicken, my eyes finally see,
No sunrise has meaning until you meet me,
When travel has taken me far from your grace,
I ache for your warmth, for the steam on my face.

Oh, coffee, my darling, my one true delight
You lift me to glory from morning to night.
And yet, my sweet love, when I ask for one more,
You remind me quite gently what stomachs are for.

My first coffee this month after taking a break...hallelujah!

[UneeQ @UneeQAI]

Some good company to be in. 💙💚💜

At @DellTech World, UneeQ was named among the software innovators in the Dell AI Factory with @NVIDIA ecosystem — the platform powering autonomous agents and enterprise AI at scale.

Our piece of the puzzle? Lifelike, emotionally intelligent digital humans that help enterprises train their people and engage their customers.

Check back tomorrow to see what this looks like for banks and their customers. 👀

#enterpriseAI #AI #digitalhumans #NVIDIA #Dell

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

AI is making information easier to access than ever, which is great! But the hard part of work is rarely knowing the script; it’s handling the human moment when the script stops working, which takes practice.

Read the full article in @FastCompany: https://t.co/kMD7smUM8i

[UneeQ @UneeQAI]

“We’re betting that digital humans could replace traditional website navigation and become the main 'front door' for interacting with companies and services."

Awesome to be covered by @Forbes 💜

https://t.co/SGlBG38MQ4

#AI #Forbes #digitalhumans #innovation

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Amazing week in Vegas with the @UneeQAI team last week across Gartner CSO and Dell Tech World.

At Gartner, we leaned hard into our unofficial motto: don’t be boring. That meant Speedos, ducks, and a digital human in a bathtub on the expo floor.

Odd? Yes. Memorable? Also yes.

The point was simple: a lot of sales training gives reps a bathtub and calls it practice. But if you want someone to become a stronger swimmer, they need a swimming pool.

That was the core of my session: we know practice matters. The question is whether yours actually works.

Then over at Dell Tech World, I had a real founder moment seeing the products and demos Dell is building with our platform technology. We’re incredibly grateful for the partnership and excited about what’s ahead across education, healthcare, and government.

Great week, great team, great partners.

Vegas, you were not boring.

@Gartner_inc @Dell

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

We’re in Las Vegas this week for Dell Technologies World and @Gartner_inc CSO, which means coffee is my friend.

We’re also unveiling AI Buddy, our new coaching capability inside @UneeQAI's Immersive Training Platform.

The idea is simple: the best coaching moment is usually right after practice, while everything is still fresh.

Not weeks later. Not buried in a scorecard.

AI Buddy sits down with you face-to-face after a roleplay and talks through what happened: what you said, how you came across, where you got stuck, and what to try next.

You can ask why something mattered, replay a moment, push back, or test a better answer while the learning is still alive in your head.

If you’re at Gartner CSO, come meet Eno at Booth 208.

I’m also speaking on Wednesday at 2:45 PM on “The Art of Connection: Scaling Face-to-Face Sales Mastery with Behavioral Data.”

More on AI Buddy here: https://t.co/FajGnpjm58

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

I love being back in New Zealand! 🇳🇿

This time, I had the privilege of speaking at Ignite’26 and spending time with a lot of old friends, familiar faces, and people building really interesting things.

Despite the challenging economic conditions in New Zealand right now, I came away encouraged by the amount of optimism, innovation, and focus in the room to build great companies that will change the trajectory for NZ’s future.

The old “get rich on the housing market” playbook probably isn’t going to carry us where we need to go next, and that might not be a bad thing.

Big thanks to Olivia Blaylock and David Downs for the invitation and for the opportunity to be part of what you’re building with Ignite’26.

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Enjoyed my interview with @nzheraldbiz last week when in New Zealand.

At @UneeQAI, we’ve never been trying to replace human connection. The real challenge is scale: teachers, nurses, doctors, trainers, experts, mentors - the people we need most are becoming harder to access.

Digital humans are not the same as human-to-human connection. They’re the second-best thing, made infinitely more available.

Arguably, "how" we communicate matters as much as "what" we communicate. Large language models are great, but when combined with AI that focuses on expression, emotion, body language, and personality, you then have a winning formula - also known as Digital Humans.

Also covered: Austin, anime, Qatar Airways, why every brand might secretly need a mascot, and why New Zealand has punched well above its weight in defining this category.

Full interview: https://t.co/5J8lk5wvL7

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

I’ll be in Vegas on May 20 speaking at the @Gartner_inc CSO & Sales Leader Conference on the topic The Art of Connection: Scaling Face-to-Face Sales Mastery with Behavioral Data, which is a fancy way of saying: how do we help sales teams get better at the human stuff before they’re standing in front of a real customer?

In this new world of AI, we know we should practice, but we need to understand the kind of practice that actually works.

A lot of AI role-play today is a bit like training for the Olympics in a bathtub. Technically, it has some of the ingredients, but it’s not exactly preparing you for the real thing.

I’ll be talking about how enterprises are using immersive, face-to-face practice to close the application gap, scale coaching, and use behavioral data to improve the interpersonal skills that move deals forward.

We have 3 tickets available for you to attend the event. If you’re in sales leadership or learning and development and want to be there, send me a message, and we’ll get you a ticket.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at Gartner.

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Had a great chat with Susie on Nine to Noon while back home in New Zealand for Ignite ’26.

We covered the slightly surreal journey from building Nadia with Cate Blanchett’s voice to help people navigate disability services in Australia to seeing digital humans now used around the world for training, education, role-play, and support.

Also covered the big stuff: why AI is moving so fast, why “human” still matters, and why building AI well is a bit like building a house. You really don’t want the leaky-home version.

Thanks to Susie and the Nine to Noon team for having me on.

https://t.co/eeGJlINau3

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Last week I spent a few days in Napa, relaxing with friends! I love that place!

Somewhere between the food, the wine, and good times, I found myself thinking about what separates the good, the bad, and the brilliant!

Yes, there’s science. Soil, weather, grapes, timing, all of it. But the best wine has an X-factor that can only be explained as the artist's touch (especially blends!).

It’s hard to explain exactly why something feels right when it does. You just know.

That’s the bit I love.

And maybe that’s why it reminded me so much of what we do at @UneeQAI. Building digital humans has a lot of science in it, especially now with AI moving so quickly. But if you’re trying to create a real human connection, science alone won’t get you there.

There’s an art to making something feel natural and simulating human connection. An art to timing, expression, personality, warmth, restraint, and all the little things people notice without being able to name.

Maybe we need an office in Napa for research 😉

A very important study. More data may be required.

Cheers 🍷

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

A few years ago, if you told me a team of fewer than 50 people could operate at the scale of a much bigger company, I probably would’ve assumed someone had found a way to add more hours to the day.

Turns out AI is a bit more practical than bending time. Annoyingly, still no cure for meetings that could’ve been emails, but we’ll keep working on that.

We’ve just shared a bit more about what AI adoption has looked like inside @UneeQAI, including some numbers that even made us double-check the spreadsheet. But the more interesting bit, to me, is what sits behind the numbers: culture. It’s whether a team is willing to try new ways of working, stay accountable for the output, and move quickly without losing the plot.

That’s where I think things get exciting. Smaller teams can now punch well above their weight if they’re curious, disciplined, and brave enough to change how work gets done.

More on that here: https://t.co/MsgFnIHhzT

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

People attend workplace training sessions, watch the videos, complete the quiz, and then get sent back into real conversations, expecting to perform at a high level. Whether that’s sales, customer service, leadership, or coaching, we still rely on a model that was never especially well built for practice. Then we act surprised when not much sticks.

That’s why this idea of the “90% problem” lands. Most training is forgotten within 30 days because learning without reinforcement has always been fragile. If you want people to improve at something important, they need practice.

Practice is the thing that builds confidence and makes someone better in the moment when it counts. That’s why I think immersive learning is such an important shift. It moves training away from passive consumption and toward something much more useful: realistic, repeatable practice in a safe environment. People can work through high-stakes conversations, make mistakes, get feedback, and come back again. That is a much better way to build skills.

Traditional training still asks people to learn by watching, rather than doing. We would never teach someone to drive, play sports or learn an instrument that way, but in business, we do it all the time. Training should be a resource - something people can return to when they need it. That is how learning becomes useful, and how capability compounds over time.

This ebook does a good job laying out that case. Here it is if you’d like to read it: https://t.co/sYCzPiIYnH

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

What are digital humans? In 2026, it’s time for a reintroduction: https://t.co/b770l1GMeR

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

We just ran an ROI analysis on how productive we are becoming by running autonomous agents across several departments. We are saving millions compared to the headcount required for a similar output only 18 months ago. This is insane and very exciting for startups and challengers, as capital and headcount size were once the critical ingredients to scale; this is no longer the case. The game has changed!

For a long time, if you wanted more output, more speed, more coverage, you generally needed more people. This required more capital, and so the playing field was set. At @UneeQAI, we are breaking all the rules, and we now believe that within 12 months, all going to plan, our organization could run like 500 people, with only 50. This isn't just about code, it's an entire culture shift across the whole business - engineering, marketing, sales, operations, customer success, creative, legal + governance, compliance, people leadership, and board + stakeholder management.

The key to winning on this new playing field resides in your culture and the speed at which you can adopt a completely new way of working. Small companies also don't get distracted by headcount reduction and mass layoffs - we are just multiplying the resources we have with AI. These two factors will make it much harder for large incumbents to keep up, regardless of their capital and size.

The best companies will not necessarily be the ones with the most people; they will be the ones with the clearest thinking, the best systems, and the strongest cultures around how they use these tools.

Fun times, let's GO!

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

Excited to be back in New Zealand on Wednesday, May 6, speaking at Ignite’26 Growth Summit in Auckland.

Looking forward to catching up with old friends, familiar faces, and meeting a few new ones, too.

There’s always something special about getting a room full of founders, operators, and business leaders together to talk honestly about growth, what’s working, what’s changing, and where things go next.

Bring on the wine, pies, coffee, and fush 'n' chups!

#Ignite26 #GrowthSummit #NewZealandBusiness

[UneeQ @UneeQAI]

Our biggest update to Immersive Training Platform just landed. 🛬

🤩 Introducing 3D Analytics! 🤩

3D Analytics evaluates body language, tone of voice, eye contact, facial expressions, posture, and more, to give a complete view of how learners show up in their practice scenarios.

Because no one should be able to slouch and mumble their way through AI roleplay. 😅

Check out the full update below and see how deep immersive learning analytics can go!

https://t.co/IuZEMY1M6p

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

https://t.co/NaURPqkQS2

[Danny Tomsett @TomsettDanny]

What if AI could show up in a way that felt more human, more useful, and a lot less frustrating?

This is the core of how I think about digital humans - with a better interface between organizations and the humans they’re trying to serve.

This @Forbes piece does a good job covering the range of where this shows up. On one side, there’s immersive training, where people can practice real conversations, work through difficult situations, and build confidence in a safe environment. On the other hand, there’s customer experience, where a digital human can help someone navigate complexity, get answers faster, and feel supported instead of bounced around.

I've never pretended AI is human. Instead, it's using a more natural, human interface that helps people engage, understand, and move forward. Transparency, trust, and design matter - always. The experience has to feel clear, helpful, and authentic.

That belief goes all the way back to why we started UneeQ in the first place: to help extend human capability where traditional systems were falling short, especially in moments when people needed guidance and couldn’t easily get it.

I think we’re still early, and I also think this becomes more obvious from here. For many businesses, the front door will be a conversation, not a website menu, a form, or a static FAQ, and done well, that can be better for everyone.