When Klemen Simonič and Ambrož Bizjak asked their professors questions in the hallway of their faculty in Ljubljana fifteen years ago, to which even the professors had no answers, they probably never imagined that they would one day develop a speech-based artificial intelligence that would surpass Google, Microsoft, and even ChatGPT. And even less likely – that this AI would understand the Slovenian language better than your grandmother from Goriška Brda (the birthplace of Slovenia). Welcome to Soniox – a technological story that even Silicon Valley would envy. From the story of how small Slovenia can surpass the world and the giants.