Phocuswright Europe 2025 Launch Innovator interview: Maya

At Phocuswright Europe earlier this month, Benjamin Manzi, co-founder and chief commercial officer of Maya, presented the opportunities for businesses to put his company’s AI assistant to work.

Maya, which recently received €1 million in funding, built its “human-like” AI agent to support travel companies’ teams. It's capable of answering inquiries 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Manzi explained in front of a panel of judges.

The product can chat in more than 100 language and can handle tasks like sales, support requests and more across the internet, email and WhatsApp. 

“Meanwhile, we give you insights on those dashboards …  in order to give you the proper insight on what happened on your website, with the conversation log, everything that happened,” he said. “So we talk to your customer, 24/7, and empower your agents [to complete] 10 times the work.”

Manzi said that two clients, Neckermann and Travelbase, saw a 20% bump in conversions, while Zoover saw a 50% increase in engagement in the first three months using Maya. 

The lineup of Launch judges included:

• Guido Becher, global head of travel and loyalty, Rappi
• Manuel Hilty, CEO and co-founder, Nezasa
• Piero Sierra, chief product officer, Skyscanner
• Cara Whitehill, vice president, Thayer Investment Partners

As of February, 662 innovators had taken the stage at Phocuswright, collectively raising $12.4 billion. In addition, more than 500 companies had received funding, and over 130 had been acquired, according to Phocuswright.

The full list of innovators and alumni can be seen here.

See below for Manzi's full Launch presentation:

 

Later, Manzi joined Mitra Sorrells, senior vice president of content for PhocusWire and Phocuswright, in the PhocusWire studio to discuss the company in more detail.