AI and the Future of Work: Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace, Business, Ethics, HR, and IT for AI Enthusiasts, Leaders and Academics

333: How AI Is Transforming On-Call Life — The Future of SREs and IT Ops with Gou Rao, Co-Founder of NeuBird.ai

Apr 28, 2025

Gou Rao, co-founder of NeuBird, discusses his journey in tech and the creation of Hawkeye, an AI-driven site reliability engineer. He reveals that diagnosing IT issues accounts for 99% of the challenge and explains how Hawkeye helps SREs find actionable insights quickly. Gou also highlights the shift from simple chatbots to advanced AI systems, emphasizing the need for creativity over repetitive tasks to combat burnout. His entrepreneurial wisdom underscores that mistakes are valuable lessons on the path to innovation.

40:47

Episode guests

Gou Rao

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

AI-powered tools like Hawkeye transform IT operations by automating repetitive tasks and enhancing efficiency for site reliability engineers.

Agentic systems represent a shift from chatbots to intelligent tools that support decision-making in IT, ensuring human oversight remains crucial.

Deep dives

The Role of AI in IT Operations

AI plays a transformative role in IT operations by automating repetitive tasks that often consume significant resources. By leveraging advanced capabilities, AI can diagnose and resolve issues in real-time, which allows human operators to focus on more creative and strategic aspects of their work. This shift is particularly impactful for site reliability engineers (SREs), who traditionally face overwhelming tasks, often requiring them to sift through extensive logs and metrics during critical outages. Employing AI not only enhances operational efficiency but also empowers teams to mitigate recurring issues swiftly, ultimately improving overall service reliability.

Intro

5min

Transforming IT Support with AI Innovations

2min

Revolutionizing Site Reliability with AI

28min

Envisioning a Self-Healing Future: The Evolution of IT Operations

2min

Embracing Mistakes as Valuable Lessons in Entrepreneurship

4min

Gou Rao is a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of NeuBird, where he's building Hawkeye—an AI-powered site reliability engineer designed to identify, diagnose, and resolve IT infrastructure issues. He previously co-founded Portworx, which was acquired by Pure Storage for $370 million in 2020. In 2024, NeuBird raised a $22.5 million seed extension from M12, Microsoft’s venture arm, following a $22 million seed round led by Mayfield, Stepstone Group, and Prosperity7 Ventures. Gou holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Bangalore University and a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

In this conversation, we discuss:

Gou Rao’s journey from late-night support calls to co-founding NeuBird and building Hawkeye, an AI-powered site reliability engineer.
Why diagnosing IT issues is 99% of the problem—and how Hawkeye helps SREs move from noise to actionable insight in minutes.
The shift from chatbots to agentic systems—and why reasoning, not just automation, is the next frontier for enterprise AI.
How AI can reduce burnout by eliminating repetitive incident response tasks, freeing teams to focus on creativity and automation.
The importance of transparency, explainability, and human oversight in deploying AI systems with agency.
Gou’s reflections on entrepreneurship, including why “mistakes are an asset” and how jumping into the unknown can lead to your biggest breakthroughs.

Resources: