Kai: How PTC and Pyra Built an AI Agent for a Global CommunityA 24/7 front door for PTC's members — and a flagship debut ahead at PTC'27
Kai is the Pacific Telecommunications Council's AI agent, live at ptc.org/kai since September 2026. PTC's community spans the Pacific Rim, so its questions arrive in every time zone; PTC's leadership wanted every member, attendee, and first-time visitor to get a definitive answer whenever they ask. PTC and Pyra — Percepture's AI agent division — built Kai together in about seven months: a February 2026 discovery, a soft launch at PTC'DC 2026 in Reston, and a flagship debut set for PTC'27 in Honolulu.
By Alex MannineWith the PTC teamPartnership profile
- Community
- Operators, hyperscalers, investors, and policymakers across the Pacific Rim
- Pyra's role
- AI agent design, training, and launch — alongside PTC's long-standing AI search strategy and paid media work
- Live
- ptc.org/kai (since September 2026)
- Scope handled by Kai
- Membership; PTC'DC, PTC'27, PTC Beyond Academy, Top Talent Leadership Development Program, and the PTC Webinar Series; registration guidance; venue and logistics; awards and programs
- Team
- Brian Moon and Carolyn Pohl (PTC) · Alex Mannine (Pyra)
Who PTC is — and why its members deserved a "definitive answer"
The Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) is a 45+ year-old nonprofit membership organization connecting operators, hyperscalers, investors, and policymakers across the Pacific Rim's digital infrastructure industry. It is best known for its flagship Annual Conference in Honolulu each January and the mid-year PTC'DC event in Reston, Virginia.
A community that wide never sleeps. Questions about membership, registration, venues, and programs arrive from every time zone, and PTC's small team was answering many of them by hand. Percepture and Pyra had been PTC's paid media and SEO partner for years; in early 2026, PTC's leadership set a bigger goal for the relationship: give members, attendees, and prospects a live, conversational front door — the organization's "definitive answer," available whenever someone asks.
That front door became Kai.
Years of answers, spread across dozens of pages
PTC's website carried years of accumulated information — membership pages, multiple annual conferences, sponsor pages, awards programs, hotel and travel logistics — spread across dozens of URLs. Visitors regularly landed on the wrong page, asked the same logistical questions PTC's team was fielding manually, and had no fast way to self-serve answers about registration, venues, or programs.
PTC's leadership — CEO Brian Moon and senior marketing leader Carolyn Pohl — set four requirements for any agent that would carry PTC's name:
Hold a real conversation
A natural, ChatGPT-style dialogue rather than a scripted FAQ bot.
Answer from PTC's own content
Accurate answers grounded in PTC's site, updating automatically as pages change.
Know its limits
Never touch registration, payments, or personally identifiable information.
Scale from pilot to flagship
Start with a smaller, low-risk pilot at PTC'DC in Reston, then make the flagship debut at the January Annual Conference in Honolulu.
Guardrails first, then capability — decided together
PTC's Brian Moon and Carolyn Pohl and Pyra's Alex Mannine worked as one team: PTC set the boundaries and the pace, Pyra built inside them, and the phased rollout de-risked the flagship launch for everyone.
- Feb 2026Step 1
Discovery, done together
Working sessions with PTC's team mapped how PTC's information is actually organized and defined realistic use cases: a conversational knowledge source, an attendee wayfinding tool, and eventually a member-matching layer. PTC and Pyra agreed on a phased launch — a limited pilot for the smaller mid-year event first, then a fuller build for the January conference.
- Feb – May 2026Step 2
PTC drew the lines first
Before a single answer was trained, PTC's leadership set what the pilot would not do: no registration, no payments, no PII collection. Pyra built the disclaimers and the detection that flags any attempt to share personal data. Directional guidance stayed simple (text and links) for the single-building PTC'DC venue; live location and interactive mapping were reserved for the larger Hawaii deployment.
- BuildStep 3
Training on PTC's own content
Kai was trained on PTC's public site, specific event pages, and internal documentation, with the system automatically pulling updates as pages change — so what Kai says matches what PTC publishes, without manual retraining.
- May – Sept 2026Step 4
Staging, QA, and soft launch
Kai went live on a staging environment ahead of PTC'DC registration opening, with design passes from PTC's site designer to remove distracting UI elements. Both teams explored and tested physical activation ideas: QR codes on event signage and badges, a kiosk near the information desk, and a text-message interface modeled on hotel concierge service.
- Sept 2026Step 5
Live at PTC'DC 2026
Kai launched publicly at ptc.org/kai ahead of PTC'DC 2026 (September 17, Reston, VA) — PTC's soft launch, positioned as a forward-thinking attendee resource before the flagship debut at PTC'27 in Honolulu.
“PTC didn't ask us for a chatbot. They asked for something harder: an agent that could speak for an institution with more than four decades of trust behind it, in front of its own members, and be right every time. Brian and Carolyn drew the boundaries before we trained a single answer, and that is why Kai works — guardrails first, then knowledge, then capability. The result is an agent PTC trusts enough to put its name on, and a partnership we are building on all the way to Honolulu.”
What Kai does for PTC's community (as of September 2026)
Since going live, Kai has been fielding real visitor conversations across the full range of PTC's public site — logistics, membership, and programs alike.
Event logistics
Venue confirmation (Hyatt Regency Reston), registration links and steps for PTC'DC and PTC'27, Executive Networking Breakfast RSVP questions, and agenda navigation across multi-day schedules.
Membership & programs
How to apply for membership, PTC Circle recognition, PTC NextWave applications, Lightning Talk and speaking opportunities, and PTC Women programming.
Registration edge cases
Third-party registration questions, guest substitutions, and account-locked issues — routed to PTC's registration team rather than guessed at.
Staying in scope
When a visitor mistook PTC for a same-acronym teacher-certification body and asked about credentialing, Kai recognized the mismatch and redirected them — a real-world proof point for the scope discipline PTC designed in from day one.
PTC sees every conversation. Full transcripts and a running tracking sheet show PTC's team what members and attendees are actually asking — so Kai improves the programs and pages around it, not just the answers it gives.
What Kai means for PTC members and attendees
The measure of Kai is not the technology. It is whether a member in Singapore, a first-time attendee from Vancouver, or a prospective sponsor in Sydney gets the right answer, right away — and trusts it.
One definitive answer, any hour
PTC's community spans the Pacific Rim. Members and prospective attendees get accurate answers about membership, events, and programs when they ask — not when Honolulu's business day begins.
Help that respects your data
Kai walks you to the right registration steps and hands account or payment questions to PTC's team. By design, it does not collect personal information.
Always current
Answers update as PTC's site changes, so what Kai tells you about a deadline, a venue, or a program matches what PTC publishes.
A better event, on site
At PTC'27 in Honolulu, QR codes, display walls, and kiosks bring Kai into the venue itself — wayfinding and schedule help without hunting for a help desk.
A partnership through PTC'27. The same team that built Kai keeps it running, current, and expanding through the Honolulu conference, so PTC keeps a direct line to the people who trained it. Percepture and Pyra are also Platinum Sponsors of PTC'DC 2026 and PTC'27.
PTC'27, Honolulu — January 17–20, 2027
PTC'DC was the dry run PTC and Pyra planned from the first discovery session. The flagship debut comes at PTC'27 in Honolulu, where PTC plans to expand Kai into:
Physical activation
A collaboration with Dreamwall's ultra-high-definition micro-LED display walls gives Kai a striking on-site presence, with attendees interacting by QR code directly at the display.
Broader deployment
On-site kiosks, mobile app integration, and potential cyber-station pop-ups alongside the existing web experience.
Deeper features
Logged-in conversation history and early exploration of AI-driven attendee matchmaking for PTC's global member community.
The people behind Kai
Chief Executive Officer; executive sponsor of the Kai initiative and the voice of PTC's guardrails-first mandate.
Senior Marketing Leader; PTC's day-to-day partner on content, training data, and site integration.
Co-Founder & Chief AI Officer, Pyra, and Chief AI & Strategy Officer, Percepture; technical lead on Kai's build and rollout.
Frequently asked questions about Kai
- What is Kai?
- Kai is the Pacific Telecommunications Council's AI agent, available 24/7 at ptc.org/kai. It answers questions about PTC membership, events such as PTC'DC and PTC'27, programs, registration steps, and venue logistics in a natural conversation, drawing on PTC's own website content.
- Who built Kai?
- PTC and Pyra built Kai together. PTC's leadership — CEO Brian Moon and senior marketing leader Carolyn Pohl — set the scope, the guardrails, and the two-stage rollout; Pyra, the AI agent division of Percepture, led by Alex Mannine, designed, trained, and launched the agent inside those boundaries.
- What does Kai deliberately not do?
- Kai does not handle registration, take payments, or collect personally identifiable information. It carries built-in disclaimers, detects attempts to share personal data, and routes account or registration issues to PTC's registration team instead of guessing.
- How does Kai stay accurate as PTC's site changes?
- Kai was trained on PTC's public site, event pages, and internal documentation, and the system automatically pulls updates as pages change — so it stays current without manual retraining.
- How long did it take to build and launch Kai?
- About seven months. Discovery began in February 2026 and Kai launched publicly ahead of PTC'DC 2026 in September 2026. The flagship debut is planned for PTC'27 in Honolulu, January 17–20, 2027.
- Where can PTC members use Kai?
- Anyone can talk to Kai at ptc.org/kai, at any hour. At PTC'27 in Honolulu, PTC plans to bring Kai on site as well, through QR codes, display walls, and kiosks alongside the web experience.
- Can Pyra build an agent like Kai for my organization?
- Yes. Pyra builds white-glove AI agents for associations, events, and enterprise brands, starting with guardrails and scope before capability — the same way Kai was built with PTC. Talk to Pyra to map a pilot for your members, attendees, or customers.
Building something similar for your members?
Pyra builds white-glove AI agents for associations, events, and enterprise brands the way Kai was built with PTC — scoped and guardrailed first, trained on your own content, and kept current after launch.
Kai is live at ptc.org/kai. Learn more about PTC at ptc.org and about Percepture at percepture.com.