Andrés Pérez Soderi has a joke he likes to tell when asked to describe how his company came together. "A Russian, a Chinese and a Venezuelan walked into a bar, and they end up making software so they can understand each other," Soderi says. Venezuelan-born Soderi is one of the three founders of US-based artificial intelligence startup, Sanas. Together with Chinese-born co-founders, Shawn Zhang, and Russian-born, Maxim Serebryakov, and their team, he has been working to unpick the nuances of accents to make communication easier for people from different backgrounds. That could have huge implications for any marketer who wants to improve customer experience through voice channels by helping both customers and staff be better understood.