Tobias Hanl is an engineer who is making a difference. A century ago, he might have spent his days designing new planes or automobiles. Different times call for different projects. The kind of engineering that Tobias does is virtual. That doesn't mean that the work he does has no impact on the physical world.
Far from it. For the past year, he has served as the founding AI engineer and then senior AI engineer at Rilla, a New York-based technology company specializing in AI-driven solutions to enhance sales performance, particularly for field sales teams. In this way, Tobias has been making his presence felt in the New York tech world, and the American economy at large, while helping to engineer innovative tools.
"My experience in developing and implementing AI-driven solutions allows me to create innovative products that address real business challenges, optimize workflows, and drive profitability," he says of his calling. "I excel at transforming ideas into reliable, scalable applications tailored to business and user needs," he adds. "And by specializing in data analysis and machine learning systems, I help companies unlock hidden opportunities and gain a competitive edge through advanced technologies."
Bavarian Roots
Born and raised in Bavaria, the southeast German state known for its famous cultural traditions and cuisine, Tobias finished his bachelor's degree two years ago at the Technical University of Munich where he majored in computer science. His bachelor's thesis focused on classifying code quality issues using a novel approach based on graph neural networks. He was also involved in a distributed computing project, where he simulated the evolution of neural-network based entities on a Raspberry Pi Cluster. And to top it off, Tobias took part in the university's autonomous driving team, where he developed interfaces for passenger and remote operators to monitor an autonomous car.
Tobias finished off his master's studies a year and a half later at Columbia University in New York, where he created an Large Language Model (LLM)-based service for mock tech interviews. He also won several competitions at Columbia. Tobias was not the first German engineer to thrive in New York's progressive atmosphere though. Johann August Röbling, better known as John A. Roebling, designed the landmark Brooklyn Bridge. Röbling was an immigrant from Thuringia, north of Bavaria. Tobias is a little like Röbling.
Lead Software Engineer
Even before he made the move to New York, Tobias took on the role of lead software engineer at Tenac.io, a Germany technology company. There, he helped develop a full-stack web app for clinicians that provides personalized risk assessments and treatment recommendations for patients with cardiovascular diseases. The project aligned with his goals of using technology to make a difference in people's lives.
The app, called OptiCor, relies on a risk prediction algorithm to assess individual patient data to forecast risks such as mortality, stroke, and bleeding. It then provides guideline-based treatment recommendations, aiding clinicians in optimizing patient care. The US Food and Drug Administration gave OptiCor the green light in January 2023. Studies have shown it can reduce adverse outcomes in atrial fibrillation patients.
"I led the engineering efforts for OptiCor," Tobias remarks. "I transformed it from an early prototype into a comprehensive, production-grade application that was tailored for the clinical management of atrial fibrillation patients." He also built out its frontend and backend systems, ensuring a seamless and secure user experience. The bulk of the work involved implementing its core AI algorithm though. "This required a meticulous approach to ensure the AI followed exact specifications, was rigorously validated, and produced reliable predictions clinicians could trust," says Tobias. He also worked closely with clinical advisors and data scientists, fine-tuning the algorithm to make certain it "delivered precise, actionable insights." Some other pieces of the OptiCor project called for Tobias to integrate the app with electronic health record systems.
He also collaborated closely with an agency to gain coveted FDA approval for OptiCor. "I helped to navigate regulatory pathways to ensure the product met all necessary safety and compliance standards," Tobias comments. He also led an engineering team to accomplish this.
AI-Driven Solutions
As of February 2024, Tobias became involved with a new Manhattan-based venture called Rilla. The company's flagship product offers virtual ride-along capabilities, which enables sales managers to gain insights into every sales conversation without the need for being there. By recording and analyzing face-to-face interactions, Rilla's platform provides detailed transcriptions, summaries, and analytics, facilitating coaching and improvements in sales metrics. Again, Tobias is using technology to make a difference.
The Rilla platform can be used in a variety of industries, with adopters in the services, retail, and medical sectors. Clients have seen spikes in average ticket sizes and conversation rates. The impact has been felt.
"At Rilla, I took the lead in completely reengineering our core AI system, known as AI Trackers, which analyzes sales recordings to assess how well representatives adhere to prescribed sales scripts," remarks Tobias. He says that the system was initially keyword-based, but struggled with accuracy and often failed to capture the nuances of live sales conversations. A more recent upgrade to an LLM-based model helped a little, but still left room for improvement, as accuracy was still about 40 percent. It also costs $250,000 per month to use.
This led clients to stick with the older keyword-based system because it cost less.
Tobias' solution was to maintain an LLM-based framework, but reconfigure its architecture and logic to increase its flexibility and to reduce operational costs. "This change more than doubled our accuracy rate to over 80 percent, making it possible for us to confidently migrate all remaining clients from the legacy keyword system," he says. The refined system now costs just $25,000 per month, a reduction that has improved Rilla's gross margins by over 10 percentage points. "This new implementation has also nearly eliminated user complaints, as it provides a highly reliable and adaptable solution that better meets the needs of our diverse customer base," commented Tobias. And those improvements filter down to the clients of these customers, meaning that the impact is felt far and wide.
The Rilla Chatbot Knows All
At Rilla, Tobias also spearheaded the development of Rilla's AI chatbot for virtual ride-alongs. This feature has become essential for users, as it is designed to answer any question about a recorded conversation. Users get immediate insights into how effectively sales reps handled objections, and the chatbot also suggests potential improvements for closing the sale. "These real-time responses have transformed the ride-along experience, providing actionable feedback that traditionally required extensive manual review," says Tobias.
The addition of the chatbot has had an immediate impact on the way Rilla is used. Clients are asking it more questions. And because of public demand, the chatbot will soon be available on Rilla's mobile app. It has since it launched only been available on the web version,
"Its success has become a key differentiator in competitive deals, attracting new clients and strengthening our market presence," says Tobias.
The Rilla chatbot is just one of the ways in which Tobias has contributed to the company's toolkit. Tobias also developed a new AI-driven system to generate leads from customer recordings, particularly for the home services and remodeling industries. The system is currently in beta testing and is in use by 30 pilot customers, who are seeing tangible results.
"Some generate up to 10 additional leads daily," says Tobias. "These extra leads translate directly to increased revenue for our clients, with minimal extra effort on their part."
The feature is on track for a full rollout in the first quarter of 2025.
Rilla Labs
Commensurate with his work on developing new tools for Rilla's app, Tobias also recently created Rilla Labs. This is an initiative to leverage data from over a million recorded sales conversations to provide strategic insights for the company's clients. By compiling and analyzing these conversations, Rilla Labs has produced reports that highlight trends, best practices, and actionable metrics tailored to support its clients' sales strategies. This will also benefit the economy and will also foster future economic growth.
"Rilla Labs turns data from thousands of sales interactions into actionable insights and trends," says Tobias. "By offering these data-driven reports, clients gain a deeper understanding of sales behaviors, enabling them to make strategic decisions that improve efficiency, boost conversions, and increase revenue."
One standout report, created for Rilla's partner Nexstar, used data to validate the effectiveness of their sales process with hard numbers rather than case studies.
"This report greatly strengthened our relationship with Nexstar, positioning Rilla as their top partner and earning us the opportunity to present on the main stage at their annual conference," says Tobias.
And Tobias continues to invest time in Rilla Labs. "This initiative will allow us to bolster our reputation as an industry leader," he says, noting that data from its reports is used in podcasts, speeches, and client presentations that highlight Rilla's overall expertise and value.
Tobias underscored that having virtual ride-along capabilities, chatbots, and Rilla Labs are all important from a business perspective. "They all help scale sales coaching, improve customer interactions, and deliver actionable insights, ultimately driving better results for clients," he says.
