With Tray.ai’s acquisition of Vanti, discover how we are transforming AI agents with knowledge modeling and adaptability. Learn how AI agents can go beyond automation to reason, learn, and act – paving the way for the autonomous enterprise.
From hardware to data: Where it all started
I’ve always been a builder at heart. Early in my career as a hardware R&D manager, I’d spend much of my time chasing data–scraping together bits and pieces from clunky systems to figure out what was going wrong with a product or how we could make it better. It was exhausting, but it taught me something important: data is everything, and yet it’s useless if you can’t get it to talk.
That frustration stuck with me. When I shifted into the data realm and later founded Vanti, I knew I wanted to fix that problem—not only for me but for entire industries. At Vanti, we started on the manufacturing shop floor, tackling questions like: Why are defects happening? Where’s the next one coming? How do we stop it? It was very hands-on work, and I loved it. But the more we dug, the clearer it became that the shop floor was just one piece of the puzzle. To really transform decision-making, we needed data from everywhere—design, supply chain, procurement, service management. The whole enterprise.
That’s when I realized the challenge wasn’t just the tools we had. It was the data itself. Manufacturing systems are a maze of silos: SCADA, MES, ERP, PLM, and a dozen custom apps. Each one’s powerful in its own right, but they don’t talk to each other. We spent most of our time extracting and stitching data together before we could even start solving problems. It hit me then: fixing the shop floor wasn’t enough. My vision grew bigger. I wanted to rethink how every decision across an organization could be faster, smarter, and driven by data.
Why Tray.ai: A click that felt right
Enter Tray.ai. When I first met Rich and the leadership team, it was one of those moments where everything just clicked. The tech was amazing, but beyond that, it was about people and mindset. They’re hungry, they move fast, and they’re genuinely good people to work with. Where other integration players seemed stuck, weighed down by old tech or slow innovation, Tray.ai was different. They were building something modern. Something that matched the pace and ambition I’d always wanted for Vanti.
What sealed it for me was our shared vision: the autonomous enterprise. At Vanti, we’d been pushing toward a world where AI does more than automate tasks. It understands, learns, and adapts. Tray was already on that path with Merlin Agent Builder. Combining Vanti’s knowledge modeling with Tray’s AI-ready iPaaS felt like the perfect way to take my original dream of making every decision smarter and scale it across entire organizations.
Vanti brings a human touch to AI
Here’s the thing about AI agents: they’re only as good as the knowledge they’re built on. Most solutions out there are static. Great at one task but clueless when things shift around them. At Vanti, we worked hard to give AI context, helping it understand the messy, human side of business. We’d sit with customers, dig into their specific problems, and tailor everything—prompts, workflows, and more—so the AI didn’t just work, it fit.
Merlin Agent Builder was already a powerhouse but it was like a puzzle waiting for the right pieces. Vanti brought those pieces: a knack for structuring knowledge and a human touch for making AI practical—so organizations can build agents that adapt by learning from real-time data, adjusting to new challenges, and actually solving the unique problems organizations face.
What’s next? Democratizing AI for everyone
What gets me most excited is how this changes the game for enterprises. With Tray.ai and Vanti together, AI agents are for everyone, not just the technically adept. IT teams and domain experts alike can use Merlin Agent Builder to build something tailored to their exact business needs.
That’s the future I see. AI agents that anyone can shape, solving specific problems across the organization. Tray.ai has always believed that technology shouldn’t be a barrier. With Vanti’s help, we’re breaking those barriers down even further.
With this acquisition, we’re accelerating Merlin Agent Builder to cover more use cases, work with more partners, and deliver more value across the enterprise.
Learn more about how Tray.ai is advancing AI agent knowledge modeling.
