289 Danny Tomsett - Digital Humans: Redefining Customer Engagement in the AI Era

What does it take to build a new tech category before the market is ready?

In this episode of SaaS Fuel, host Jeff Mains dives deep with Danny Tomsett, founder and CEO of UneeQ, the global leader in emotionally intelligent AI-powered digital humans. From early breakthroughs to hard pivots, Danny shares how his team navigated the rollercoaster of creating frontier tech, scaling sustainably, and keeping vision and culture alive through it all.

You'll hear the behind-the-scenes story of Nadia, a digital human project with IBM and the Australian Government, the challenge of market timing, and the power of narrowing focus for growth. If you’re building ahead of the curve, this is your playbook.

Key Takeaways

00:00 – The evolution of UneeQ’s business model

02:01 – Building a new tech category with AI-powered digital humans

06:27 – From digital games to emotionally intelligent avatars

10:39 – How digital humans transform customer experience

12:54 – Realism vs. relatability in AI avatars

16:07 – Building trust with humanized tech

16:31 – The hardest part of creating a new category

21:49 – Biggest lessons learned on the journey

23:46 – Keeping teams aligned through rapid innovation

27:04 – SaaS founders: Scale faster with Champion Leadership

28:14 – AI's real impact on jobs and customer service

31:31 – Emotional intelligence and sales simulations

34:28 – Outcome-based training with digital humans

35:22 – Growing pains and moments that almost broke the company

40:44 – Bootstrapping vs. raising capital in frontier tech

45:32 – Advice for building ahead of the market

48:00 – Product-market timing and finding the real problem

53:40 – What’s next in AI-human interaction?

Tweetable Quotes

“We weren’t just ahead of the curve—we were ahead of the market. That hurts.” — Danny Tomsett

“Emotionally intelligent digital humans aren’t the future. They’re already here—and they work.” — Danny Tomsett

“If the market doesn’t get it yet, your job isn’t just to build—it’s to educate.” — Jeff Mains

“Culture is your most scalable codebase.” — Danny Tomsett

“The problem you’re solving might not be the one they care about yet.” — Danny Tomsett

“Digital humans flip training from time-based to outcome-based. That’s real impact.” — Jeff Mains

SaaS Leadership Lessons

1. Build for what’s real, not just what’s cool. Danny shares how hype distracted from traction and how focus created results.
2. You can't time the market perfectly—but you can pivot. The original platform model gave way to niche training simulations with real adoption.
3. Culture and systems scale better than code. When the team nearly burned out, Danny rebuilt the business on clarity and operational alignment.
4. Emotion matters in tech. Especially in sales training and customer experience—digital humans that feel human drive engagement.
5. Don't fall in love with the wrong problem. Sam Altman’s advice: go deeper to find the root need your product must solve.
6. Being early is painful—but survivable. Category creation requires stamina, education, and constant storytelling to shape the market.

Guest Resources

Email - [e-mail]

Website - http://www.uneeq.com/

Episode Sponsor

Small Fish, Big Pond –