--- title: "PolyAI | Case studies | SurrealDB" description: "Discover how PolyAI powers high-performance customer service AI with SurrealDB, enabling low-latency RAG integration for voice-driven knowledge retrieval." url: https://surrealdb.com/customer/polyai --- ![High-performance customer service AI powered by RAG logo](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/c5fa07c66cd05131.BnC7wHcc.svg) # High-performance customer service AI powered by RAG PolyAI integrated SurrealDB as an external RAG provider for Agent Studio, delivering 30ms vector search latency while giving enterprises full control over their knowledge base. Industry Artificial intelligence Outcome Low-latency, customer-controlled knowledge base powering voice AI RAG integration 1. ![Babcock](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/babcock.lo4rnVg1.svg) 2. ![ING](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/ing.X3I6S3_V.svg) 3. ![British Airways](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/british-airways.KEsZiwV-.svg) 4. ![Nvidia](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/nvidia.DaIEuMil.svg) 5. ![Apple](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/apple.D5pq4flY.svg) 6. ![SpaceX](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/spacex.CQJEk-IL.svg) 7. ![Samsung](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/samsung.CH-vQgnb.svg) 8. ![adidas](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/adidas.DdTC5qhk.svg) 9. ![Tencent](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/tencent.paQmLxyy.svg) 10. ![Alibaba](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/alibaba.B16idgfM.svg) 11. ![PolyAI](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/poly-ai.c3w_fAg6.svg) 12. ![Later](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/later.Ds736jFO.svg) 13. ![Verizon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/verizon.BI7CajdX.svg) 14. ![Liberty Mutual](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/liberty-mutual.B7qOU1pd.svg) 15. ![Walmart](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/walmart.BjDg_Sr8.svg) 16. ![Carrier](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/carrier.D21gC6NX.svg) 17. ![Saks Fifth Avenue](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/saks-fifth-avenue.COIDpLSb.svg) 18. ![San Francisco Compute Company](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/sfcc.B7jlImq4.svg) 19. ![Shield AI](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/shield-ai.pINZ0KJr.svg) 20. ![Wix](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/wix.DvHhmoBi.svg) 01 |KEY CHALLENGES ## What they needed to solve The technical and operational hurdles the team faced before adopting SurrealDB. ### Avoiding vendor lock-in Enterprises wanted to use their own knowledge bases inside Agent Studio rather than migrating sensitive content into a vendor-specific ecosystem. ### Data ownership requirements Organisations needed full ownership over where knowledge was stored and queried, particularly for sensitive or regulated information. ### Real-time latency constraints Even small increases in latency can interrupt spoken dialogue. Response times needed to stay well below the 1-1.5 second perceptible threshold. ### Proving external RAG viability PolyAI needed to demonstrate that an external knowledge base could power retrieval and reasoning without compromising conversational quality. 02 |SOLUTIONS ## How SurrealDB helped The architecture decisions and SurrealDB capabilities that addressed each challenge. ### External RAG via Agent Studio Connected SurrealDB as an external RAG provider through Agent Studio's function-calling runtime for vector similarity search. ### Zero-change integration No architecture changes, no specialised plugin development, and no data migration required. SurrealDB slotted directly into the pipeline. ### Customer-controlled deployment SurrealDB runs entirely within an organisation's own infrastructure, preserving full data ownership and control. ### Multi-model data foundation Supports documents, relational, graph, and vector data in one system, ready for future expansion to new data modalities. 03 |RESULTS ## The impact Measurable outcomes delivered after moving to SurrealDB. ~30ms ### Near-zero latency Vector lookup latency matched PolyAI's internal stack performance of ~31ms. OWNED ### Full data ownership All knowledge stays under enterprise control with no need to migrate into PolyAI's environment. SEAMLESS ### Zero-change architecture No architecture changes, plugin development, or data migration needed for integration. MULTI-MODEL ### Future-ready foundation Ready to expand to graph and new data modalities as PolyAI evolves Agent Studio. MORE CASE STUDIES ## See what other teams have shipped From knowledge graphs to AI assistants - how enterprise teams are building on SurrealDB. ![Samsung](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/4c58b81e7b3c9466.C_Hv0eml.svg) DATABASE ### [Unlocking insights with knowledge graphs](https://surrealdb.com/customer/samsung) Samsung Ads uses SurrealDB to build dynamic, real-time knowledge graphs for smarter campaign execution - collapsing three legacy data stores into one. Read case study ![Verizon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/18b99996c689000f.B5PQ-nI9.svg) DATABASE ### [AI assistant empowering 10,000 technicians](https://surrealdb.com/customer/verizon) Verizon uses SurrealDB to power a generative AI assistant for 10,000 field technicians, delivering instant access to documentation, outage updates, and workflows. Read case study ![Tencent](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/401d8346058682c8.DqM87mst.svg) DATABASE ### [Unified infrastructure monitoring](https://surrealdb.com/customer/tencent) Tencent consolidated nine backend tools into one real-time monitoring platform powered by SurrealDB's multi-model context graph. Read case study ![Saks Fifth Avenue](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/saks-fifth-avenue-white.pDJ9HGmf.svg) DATABASE ### [AI-powered personalisation at massive scale](https://surrealdb.com/customer/saks) Saks Fifth Avenue uses SurrealDB's vector search and graph capabilities to deliver real-time, AI-powered personalisation across 5 million luxury customers and 45 million monthly product-recommendation queries. Read case study GET STARTED ## Start building with SurrealDB The unified data layer for AI. Unify data. Unlock intelligence. Scale anywhere. ![Samsung](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/4c58b81e7b3c9466.C_Hv0eml.svg)![NVIDIA](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/nvidia.DaIEuMil.svg)![Apple](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/f7dc2519e0d212bc.Cn8MYAK7.svg)![Verizon](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/18b99996c689000f.B5PQ-nI9.svg)![Tencent](https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/401d8346058682c8.DqM87mst.svg) SOC 2 Type 2 GDPR Cyber Essentials Plus ISO 27001 [Start for free](https://studio.surrealdb.com/current/instances/deploy) [Contact us](https://surrealdb.com/contact) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Organization","name":"SurrealDB","url":"https://surrealdb.com","logo":"https://surrealdb.com/assets/static/logo.BG7_TG2b.svg","description":"SurrealDB is the unified data layer for AI. 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