In this episode of Verticals, Luke Sophinos and Nic Poulos sit down with Michael Saltzman, co-founder and co-CEO of EvolutionIQ, to unpack one of the biggest misconceptions in enterprise AI: Is adoption slow because the technology isn’t ready,or because the enterprise vertical AI playbook hasn’t been written yet?

EvolutionIQ is one of the first vertical AI companies to truly break through in insurance, augmenting claims decision-making inside large carriers where even small accuracy gains compound into huge financial impact at scale, culminating in a $750M exit and one of the earliest breakout outcomes in vertical AI.

We dive deep into what actually works when you’re selling and deploying AI into 10,000-person organisations: why augmentation beats automation in high-stakes workflows, how EvolutionIQ avoided getting trapped by legacy core systems, and what it takes to prove ROI fast enough to expand across an enterprise.

This episode is a deep, operator-level discussion on enterprise vertical AI: how to win adoption from frontline teams, why founder-led sales matters for longer than most people think, and why first-year revenue is often a terrible barometer for building a durable business.

Whether you’re a founder, operator, or investor building or backing vertical AI in regulated, complex industries, this episode will fundamentally change how you think about enterprise adoption, product strategy, and go-to-market.

New episodes drop every Wednesday.