Itamar Arel is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and technology executive known for his contributions to machine intelligence and conversational AI. He earned his B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, as well as an M.B.A. from the same institution. Throughout his career, he has focused on applying artificial intelligence to real-world challenges, particularly in financial analytics and voice-based customer interactions. He led Apprente's acquisition by McDonald’s and Tenyx's acquisition by Salesforce.
Dr. Itamar Arel completed his Bachelor of Science degree in 1995 and his Master of Science in 1998 at Ben Gurion University of the Negev under the supervision of Professor Dan Sadot. He went on to earn a Master of Business Administration in 2002 and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2003, again under Professor Sadot. During his doctoral studies, he received the 1999 Intel Scholarship for Excellence in Doctoral Studies in recognition of his early work in machine intelligence and high-performance computing.
Arel also served as a research assistant in the Optical Communication Laboratory at Ben Gurion University during his academic training. After graduation, he served as an engineering officer on active duty in the Israel Defense Forces from 1995 to 2000, strengthening his technical and leadership skills.
In 2003, he moved to the United States to join the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He earned tenure and became a full professor by 2009, contributing to research and academic leadership in computer science.
Itamar founded and directed the Machine Intelligence Lab in Tennessee, where he concentrated on machine learning and reinforcement learning. His research addressed adaptive systems and advanced computational methods to improve intelligent decision-making.
Between January 2014 and July 2015, he served as a visiting associate professor in Stanford University’s Computer Science Department during a sabbatical from Tennessee. There, he collaborated with faculty and graduate students on research in machine intelligence and learning architectures.
Arel has secured multiple patents, including work on high-speed traffic simulation and reinforcement learning architectures. In 2004, he was awarded the U.S. Department of Energy CAREER Award for Young Investigators, recognizing his promise in advancing computational science and engineering.
Alongside his academic career, he pursued entrepreneurial initiatives in the technology sector. He co-founded and served as Chief Scientist at TeraCross, Inc. in Campbell, California, joining in February 2000 while completing his Ph.D. From 2008 to 2015, he co-founded Binatix Labs in Palo Alto, California. He served as Chief Technology Officer, applying proprietary machine learning techniques to financial data analytics, including market prediction, risk analysis, and automated decision-making.
Itamar founded Apprente in June 2017 to develop voice technology systems that automate customer interactions. The company specializes in conversational AI solutions for the food and service industries, using deep learning, natural language processing, and reinforcement learning to support voice-based order-taking and related functions.
He led Apprente's acquisition by McDonald’s and, he assumed the role of Corporate Vice President within McD Tech Labs, overseeing the deployment of applied voice AI systems. In April 2022, he co-founded Tenyx, Inc. and served as its CEO, focusing on AI-driven voice agents for customer service. In September 2024, Salesforce announced and completed its acquisition of Tenyx, after which he became Vice President of Voice AI Solutions at Salesforce. Before joining Salesforce full-time, he served as a strategic advisor to IBM Watson Orders in Mountain View, California, from January to March 2022. Throughout his professional journey, Itamar Arel has remained engaged in research and innovation, holding patents in hierarchical machine learning systems for lifelong learning, confidence-based reinforcement learning, and synthetic-data-trained conversational pipelines. He has also participated in DARPA’s UPSIDE program and holds senior memberships in IEEE, ACM, AAAI, and the BICA Society.
