Tollring and Amity Win International AI Awards for Vertical AI Systems

Two companies just picked up major AI awards for doing something most tech vendors won't admit is hard: building AI that actually works in a specific industry.

Tollring, a UK-based software company, received a Highly Commended recognition at the Computing Magazine AI and Software Development Awards 2026, in the Most Innovative UK Software Company (SME) category. Its parent company, Amity, won the Gold Award at Taiwan's Best AI Awards in the AI Application (International Company) category, beating more than 100 global tech companies.

The awards are separate competitions held in different countries. The fact that both landed in the same week is less coincidence and more a reflection of where enterprise AI investment is heading.

What the Two Companies Actually Build

Tollring's recognized products are CIQpilot and Auto QA. Both analyze recorded customer conversations at scale. The goal is to help organizations review large numbers of customer interactions, with a focus on insight, compliance, and customer service oversight. That's a very different task than asking a general-purpose AI chatbot a question.

The company serves customers in the UK, US, India, and Australia. Its products sit inside a broader portfolio that also covers business intelligence, communications analytics, call recording, fraud protection, and scam detection.

Amity's award centered on a product called Eko Agentic: Data Analyst. This was developed by Amity's AI Research and Application Centre (ARAC), based in Singapore. ARAC is the group's main AI hub, building vertical AI models (meaning AI designed for a specific industry or task) for five different businesses within the Amity group: Amity Solutions, Amity Accentix, Tollring, EGG Digital, and Amity-Nordstar.

Amity itself was founded in Thailand and primarily serves retail and telecoms customers. The group has been expanding across Europe and Southeast Asia through acquisitions and investments.

Why the Awards Signal Something Bigger

Amity's Taiwan win carries weight beyond a trophy. The Best AI Awards are backed by Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs and organized through the Department of Industrial Technology alongside the Taipei Computer Association. Government-endorsed recognition in a competitive international category is harder to dismiss as a PR exercise.

Touchapon Kraisingkorn, who chairs ARAC and co-founded Amity, was direct about what the win represents.

"Taking home the Gold Award against hundreds of global tech companies is a tremendous validation of the work we do at ARAC, together with Tollring," said Kraisingkorn. "The industry is quickly realizing that giving businesses a generic chatbot isn't enough to drive real impact. You need vertical AI systems that truly understand the specific, daily pain points of a retail store manager or a regional director."

That framing is worth unpacking. Amity is not just making a product claim. It is arguing that the entire architecture of how AI gets deployed in business is shifting. Purpose-built tools designed around the daily decisions of real users (a store manager looking at sales data, a contact center team monitoring call quality) deliver more value than general-purpose assistants because they work within a specific operational context rather than requiring users to adapt to a general tool.

Tony Martino, CEO of Tollring, connected both wins to a shared direction of travel.

"Our development team is focused on delivering exciting AI innovations that are propelling our products into a class of their own and transforming how users learn from their customer conversations," said Martino.

What Ties the Two Wins Together

The recognition is not coincidence. In 2024, Amity announced a strategic equity alliance with Tollring, intended to accelerate generative AI development and broaden Tollring's international reach. That partnership is now producing results that award panels in two countries independently decided were worth recognizing.

Tollring brings communications software and conversation analysis expertise. ARAC develops AI models and applications for retail and telecoms. Together, the group is building AI across different business units rather than concentrating it in a single centralized product.

This matters because it shows a viable model for enterprise AI rollout: structured subsidiaries with shared AI infrastructure, each applying vertical tools to their specific market rather than repackaging the same general-purpose model with a different interface.

The broader software industry is watching this space carefully. Vertical AI investment reached US$3.5 billion in 2025, up from US$1.2 billion in 2024, as companies look for AI applications that go beyond consumer-facing chatbot experiences. Tollring and Amity just received public, third-party confirmation that their approach is working.