Today we're excited to welcome the return of the great and brilliant Sankar Narayanan. Sankar is Chief Practice Officer of Fractal Analytics, a unicorn AI & analytics services firm, which has raised $300+ million since its founding in 2000. Fractal Analytics offers a range of products and services, empowering optimal decisions across the world's largest enterprises. Episode topics include: dynamics on the buyer and vendor side for potential new AI/analytics partnerships, setting realistic expectations for a first project together, and the right questions to ask when vetting potential vendors or clients. Are you a non-technical professional, exploring opportunities to apply AI in your business? Download Emerj's guide: "Beginning with AI" emerj.com/beg1  

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Dr. Michael Segala, CEO and co-founder of SFL Scientific, a Boston-based Data Science and AI consultancy. Dr. Segala earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Brown University and co-founded SFL Scientific in 2015. Since then, his firm has grown to 30+ employees, was chosen as Nvidia's Service Delivery Partner of the Year (for the last two years), and has earned growing partnerships with distinguished clients like the US Military. Episode topics include: how data science can empower and automate Defense analysis, pattern recognition for anomaly and threat detection, and opportunities for embedding AI to support current and future workflows. Want to level up your organization's AI capabilities? Try Emerj Plus: emerj.com/p1

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Dr. Ben Goertzel, the man who coined the term AGI with his eponymous book, "Artificial General Intelligence." Dr. Goertzel is known by many from his role as Chief Scientist of Hanson Robotics, where he lead the creation of Sophia, the first robot to be granted national citizenship. Dr. Goertzel founded OpenCog, an open-source software framework for AGI. He also founded SingularityNET, a decentralized marketplace for AI algorithms. Episode topics include: Dr. Goertzel's optimistic vision for AGI's future, how it might be born, and why decentralized frameworks may offer the most fertile ground for AI evolution. Dan and Ben first met in 2012, and we're grateful to Ben for keeping up the conversation. No series on the Future of AI would be complete without him.

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Rick Calle of M12, Microsoft's corporate venture fund. M12 has leveraged Microsoft's leadership and know-how to allocate billions across its portfolio of 100+ startups. In this episode, Rick shares insights from M12 and hones in on critical levers that AI-driven enterprises can pull to reduce their energy costs. Rick is also one of the presenters at this year's AI Hardware Summit, hosted by this episode's sponsor: Kisaco Research. Attend virtually, Sept 29 - Oct 7. Register today!    

The great and brilliant Dr. Kristof Szalay returns to the podcast. Dr. Szalay is CTO and Founder of Turbine.ai, a simulation-driven drug discovery company, delivering targeted cancer therapies to targeted patient populations. Today's episode topics include: how AI integrates with the phases of drug discovery, development, and generally applicable enterprise deployment challenges. Want to discover opportunities to integrate AI in your organization? Try Emerj Plus: emerj.com/p1

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Dr. Steve Omohundro, Chief Scientist at AIBrain. AIBrain is creating Turingworld, a powerful AI learning social media platform based on AI-optimized learning, AI-powered gamification, and AI-enhanced social interaction. Dr. Steve Omohundro received his Ph.D. in Physics from U.C. Berkeley. He also founded an organization to support AI safety and another organization to advance new intelligence architectures based on the programming language Omda, the specification language Omex, and the semantics language Omai. Episode topics include: how humans can build safe AI, what facets of AI development might/might-not require global governance, how the international community might best collaborate to prioritize AGI development efforts, and how AI may influence our lives as consumers.

The great and brilliant Tim Estes returns for another conversation, this time focused on AI readiness. Tim is Founder & CEO of Digital Reasoning, an American AI company that raised over $130 million to bring cognitive computing services to intelligence agencies, financial institutions, and healthcare organizations. This episode's topics include: what AI readiness means, ground rules and AI readiness components including: data, expertise, and in-house talent. Want to learn more about how to implement AI in your organization? Download Emerj's guide: emerj.com/beg1

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Dr. Gregory Diamos, Transformation Engineer at Landing AI, an innovative AI engineering firm founded by Andrew Ng (who also founded Coursera and deeplearning.ai). Dr. Diamos holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Previous to his current role, he served as Silicon Valley AI Research Lead for Baidu, after stints at Nvidia and Intel. Episode topics include: what sets apart AI hardware from other CPU's, what businesses and industries will especially benefit from advances in AI chips. Dr. Diamos is one of the presenters at this year's AI Hardware Summit, hosted by this episode's sponsor: Kisaco Research. Attend virtually, Sept 29 - Oct 7. Register today!

Today we step farther into AI futures with the great and brilliant Jerome Glenn, Executive Director of The Millenium Project. This participatory think tank publishes the annual "State of the Future." For over a quarter of a century, Jerome has collaborated with organizations from the Red Cross to the Korean government to map out potential futures. Episode topics include: critical global stakeholders for technology governance, win-win scenarios for international collaboration, how artificial general intelligence might transform the future.

Today I'm excited to welcome the return of one of our veteran guests, the great and brilliant Dr. Babak Hodjat, VP of Evolutionary AI at Cognizant, one of the world's most intelligent enterprise IT integration & service firms. Babak has 20+ years of AI experience, founding his first AI startup in 1998 in the SF Bay area and later founding Sentient Technologies, which raised $174 million to innovate with AI in trading. In this episode, Babak shares best practices for pilot projects, to set expectations for enterprise implementations. Want to learn more about how to get started with AI in your organization? Check out Emerj's guide: emerj.com/beg1