[SaaS & AI Series] How AI Is Transforming Communication With Sharath Keshava Narayana

Sharath Keshava Narayana is the CEO and Co-founder of Sanas, a company pioneering real-time speech AI that helps create clearer and more natural conversations. A serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in AI and enterprise software, he previously co-founded Observe.AI and is also a founder and GP at Carya Venture Partners. Sharath, an engineering graduate and Y Combinator alum, has a strong track record of scaling AI-driven products in global markets while fostering inclusive, high-impact technology.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [1:32] Sharath Keshava Narayana shares the tech tools driving productivity and innovation today
• [5:37] The rapid growth of Sanas’ language translation app across 76 countries
• [9:20] Why real-time speech clarity is transforming global communication
• [13:31] How customer feedback shaped Sanas’ early product wins
• [18:08] The impact of “clarity products” on sales and customer support teams
• [23:30] How Sanas could scale to billions through telecom partnerships
• [37:22] Sharath’s biggest lessons from mentors and the influence of Y Combinator

In this episode…

Communication barriers can happen anywhere — from language differences to background noise and unclear speech. As AI voice technology evolves, businesses have more ways to improve conversations at scale. But which innovations truly make communication clearer and more effective worldwide?

For Sharath Keshava Narayana, a serial entrepreneur and AI innovator, the biggest breakthroughs in speech technology come from focusing on clarity and real-world usability. He highlights how AI-powered speech enhancement and accent harmonization can help sales, support, and healthcare teams communicate more effectively across different environments and languages. By listening closely to enterprise customers and iterating based on feedback, his team refined their technology into scalable solutions that improve communication in real time. He also shares how Sanas’ consumer language app quickly gained traction across dozens of countries and why partnerships with telecom providers could dramatically expand access to speech AI worldwide.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Sharath Keshava Narayana to discuss AI-powered speech clarity and global communication. They talk about real-time accent harmonization, building products through customer feedback, and scaling voice technology for enterprise and consumer use. Sharath also shares lessons on mentorship, hiring mission-driven teams, and creating technology that breaks communication barriers.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Sharath Keshava Narayana on LinkedIn
• Sanas
• Observe.AI
• Carya Venture Partners
• Claude
• Lovable
• Wispr Flow
• Gemini
• Slack
• Speechify
• ChatGPT
• Y Combinator
• Orange Woodworks
• 20VC with Harry Stebbings
• No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention by Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer
• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike by Phil Knight

Special mention(s):

• Andy Lee on LinkedIn
• Daniel Julien on LinkedIn
• Justin Kan on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “Automation Solutions with Wade Foster Founder of Zapier” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[AI & SaaS Series] Building the Future of Voice AI With Kwin Kramer” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[SaaS & AI Series] Smarter Way To Turn Meetings Into Outcomes With Artem Koren” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “AppLovin CEO: Why Founders Shouldn’t Angel Invest & Why the Best Don’t Need Mentorship” on 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Quotable moments:

• “Voice is becoming the new keyboard. Apps are shifting to voice-first because it’s the most natural way people communicate.”
• “If clearer speech improves your productivity and experience, then our product is built for you.”
• “Our goal is clarity: any accent in, any accent out. We focus on understanding, not matching accents.”
• “We aim to reach 8 billion people, and telecom partnerships can help us get there.”
• “The questions you never get answered are often the ones you never ask. Just ask for help.”

Action steps:

1. Embrace voice-first productivity tools to streamline daily work: Use modern voice-to-text and speech-to-speech tools like Wispr, Gemini, and Sonic to reduce manual typing and consolidate information from meetings, emails, and notes for faster, more organized workflows.
2. Adopt AI-driven speech clarity and language solutions for better communication: Use accent harmonization and speech enhancement tools to improve understanding across global teams and customer interactions, especially in noisy or low-quality audio environments.
3. Stay curious and continuously experiment with new tools: Regularly explore emerging AI apps, extensions, and platforms to find better ways of working and stay adaptable in a fast-moving tech landscape.
4. Actively gather feedback before and after adopting new tools: Listen to users and team members to identify real pain points and ensure that technology choices solve actual problems and improve engagement.
5. Engage in learning communities and professional networks to grow faster: Join startup ecosystems, online courses, and industry groups to gain mentorship, share knowledge, and unlock new opportunities through strong relationships.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Doctor Jeremy Wise.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here. I am the Founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Sharath Narayana. I got that right I think, and he is Founder CEO of Sanas.ai. We’ll pull it up in a second. And you know, on their webpage it says If it’s Speech, it’s Sanas, we’ll talk about that. But I always like to mention other episodes of the podcast people should check out, since it’s part of the, you know, kind of SaaS and AI series. I’ve one of the Co-founders of Zapier, Wade Foster. That was an interesting interview. I had Kwin Kramer, who we were talking about before we hit record CEO of Daily and does a lot of stuff with open source related stuff, especially in voice and assembly.ai. And Artem talked about what they’re doing with their, their note taking and how it integrates with different AI systems to automatically do tasks for people. So that and many more, I don’t know, I like to have some of my favorite tech on here. What are some of your favorite tech that you’re using or that you admire out there?

Sharath Narayana: 01:32

I think today it’s like in tech, you’re a kid in a candy store. There’s so many inspiring tech around, but I think some of them are pretty cool. I think outside, obviously I love sunnies and a lot of tools we provide, but I think we are all big fans of Claude. I think it’s changed the way we’ve built companies using Claude, obviously lovable as a as the perfect MVP product. I love to geek around, tinker around, building new stuff and lovable is my second best friend because I can spin up something very, very quickly, do an MVP, take it out there. It’s been interesting to see Wispr Flow. I think we we pride ourselves on being some of the of building. I love Wispr Flow.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 02:17

Yeah.

Sharath Narayana: 02:17

Yeah. See again, we have a one of probably one of the most accurate speech to speech algorithms. But when it comes to speech to text, I think they’ve done something really well. Very user friendly. And, and I love the audacity in general. I think you need more people like him. So again, yeah, again, as I told you, kid in a candy store, I think every day I come across some really, really cool new tech. And I recently saw somebody bring back the old telephone that we’ve all forgotten. I saw the CEO of Verizon post about it. This is for kids to almost use it as a walkie talkie, but there’s like just some, a lot of interesting things around, right? Which just becomes inspiring.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:02

Are there any other apps you’re using for productivity on that flow? Because like I was talking, I tell everyone, okay, for my email, we use GSuite, right? So I’m using Gemini and Wispr Flow and, and kind of like what you say on your website. If it’s speech, it sounds like I think I try not to type at all anymore if I can help it. And so what else? Using a Wispr Flow, obviously. Claude, are there any other things you’re using from a productivity standpoint? Either it could be a Chrome extension or an app on your phone that you find useful.

Sharath Narayana: 03:34

No, I think in general, right. We all use Gemini. I think that’s made Google search a lot more smarter by by plugging in Gemini, I think we still use Slack. I think Slack has made a very good comeback on the productivity application. Our whole company, I would say, runs on Slack today because we’re a hybrid global workforce. And I think Claude, I think Claude today, I think the beauty is now with all these systems being integratable, right? I think it’s bringing all the data to one form factor, right? Like, I don’t have to worry about what I saved on my desktop, what I’m typing on my mobile notes, right? Everything can come together. And most of my meetings, I have my voice memos on. I just put it in a cloud and then it directly syncs back to my email.

I have all the summaries. It’s beautiful. I think what what this generative AI generation in the last 24 months has exposed is voice has become like the new keyboard, like you said, and every application is having voice first as an interface, right? And that’s the most natural way of human beings expressing themselves. And now you build the whole connected plumbing around it. I think people will be hyper productive. I think my productivity this year is probably five X of what it is last year, because I’ve now learned to integrate all these tools and every thought I have, every objection I have, everything is there structured. It’s been it’s been magic. I that’s why I said it’s kid in a candy store today. I think that’s it’s, it’s amazing.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:16

And one of the things I use, you know, speaking of speech, like I use, you know, Speechify as a Chrome extension. So if something pops up, I’m like, I can’t read this. I’ll just click the play button and it will like read it. And I could put it at two times speed and just like done, you know what I mean? So I’ve gotten, I’ve gotten lazy in that realm.

Sharath Narayana: 05:37

But for somebody like you and all your, your listeners, I think at some point very soon, we’ll also come up with a Sanas Chrome extension, especially with our language product, right? The idea is, hey, people understand in their mother tongue much better than English as a standard language, right? If we can have a Chrome extension and and people can watch YouTube or watch podcasts, watch movies all in their language in real time. I think it will be a very powerful tool. We launched a we have always been a B2B company, but for the first time we launched our B2C Language translation app on iStore and Android because we thought this was travel season. People like to travel and they might want to use our app. The usage has exploded on that app. Like we have users from over 76 countries, and the app is not even a month old. Right?

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:28

Because you, typically a B2B application and this is B2C, so people are overlaying.

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