One is from Canada. The other is from Lebanon. Nearly a decade ago, still in their mid-20s, they took a leap of faith together that has landed them both on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List and at the cutting edge of the agentic AI industry. While it would be tempting to attribute this to Forethought – so capitalized because it’s the name of their company – Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Sami Ghoche says it was more about being brave.
“Deon and I actually started Forethought when we were 24,” he said in a 2024 interview, “and back then, I’m so grateful that we had the courage” to do that (“moreso him,” he adds). “One of the core lessons,” he continued, “is just jump in, because if you think about all of the ways in which something could go wrong, you’re just never going to actually do it.” Of course, the name “Forethought” isn’t exactly an accident. It evokes the ability to look ahead and meet moments at the right time – say, by starting an AI company in 2016.
By industry standards, that makes Forethought a true early adopter, reflecting Nicholas’ own journey with technology. The first member of his family to go to college, he attended the University of Waterloo to study technology after earning an internship at one of the top machine learning labs in Canada. After being rejected for employment by Y Combinator, Nicholas reflected on his future in the industry. “I was still fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential to answer questions,” he said, which led him and Ghoche to found Forethought.
The length of time being Nicholas’ internship and his creation of an industry rocketship was impressively short. Forethought has raised $90 million to date, and its goal, said Ghoche, is to get in front of as many eyeballs as possible. “I think there’s so much low-hanging fruit and so much inefficiency there,” he said, that taking a broad approach was “what we’ve opted to do.”
One of its newest products isn’t just getting in front of eyes, but being held to ears, as the company is pitching its Agentic AI customer-service platform, Forethought Voice. The company found that 77% of customers reported that service calls affected their view of a business, and the new product “isn’t choosing between efficiency and empathy—it’s achieving both.” Much like the story of Foresight’s founding, just one, and not the other, is not enough.