The Pulse of AI

Sean Gourley, CEO and Founder of Primer, joins to share his thoughts and insights about the threat disinformation poses to western democracies, as well as how to define it, identify it and combat it. His passion combined with his deep experience in the space, the unique perch that he sits on today which allows him to view the full landscape and the work that Primer has done in the space gives him incredible insights that he shares during this conversation. If you are concerned about how malevolent actors are using the latest technologies to sow discord through disinformation then this podcast is for you.

LATEST PODCAST: My guest is Sean Gourley, Founder and CEO of Primer AI. Joining me on this podcast is CEO and Co-Founder of Primer, Sean Gourley. As you know I cover AI in all of its various forms and for me NLP is and always has been one of the most exciting areas within the field of AI. And over the past several years the advances we have seen in NLP have been phenomenal and yet business leaders are just now beginning to see the potential that NLP represents. But this is quickly changing as companies like Primer begin to release powerful yet easy to use tools that bring NLP out of the research department and place them in the hands of business users. Primer recently released a new product line called Primer Engines. These are pre-trained engines that can be layered over your data allowing you to do the types of things that just a few years ago were plot lines in Hollywood movies. And just as importantly, or maybe even more so, they are designed so that even non-technical business users can easily use them. What used to take months and a significant amount of investment in terms of people and money can now be done in a day. Literally. As Sean likes to say they are reducing the cost of curiosity. All of this makes his company, in my opinion, one of the most exciting players in the space. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

This is the first in a four part series exploring how data and AI are set to really disrupt healthcare through conversations with the disruptors themselves including entrepreneurs, founders and AI experts. My goal is to discover exactly how AI and data are being used now, the barriers holding back innovation and what these experts think healthcare will look like in 10 years. On today's podcast, the first in the series, I am joined by Andrew Eye who is the founder and CEO of ClosedLoop AI. ClosedLoop describes itself as "Healthcares data science platform". Purpose build and dedicated to healthcare, ClosedLoop combines an intuitive end to end machine learning platform with a comprehensive library of healthcare specific features and model templates. They have taken a vertical approach and it is really paying off both for them and their customers.

On this podcast I am joined by Braden Hancock who is a co-founder and Head of Technology at Snorkel AI. Snorkel AI is unlocking a better, faster way to build applications With Snorkel Flow, the first truly data-centric AI platform. To date they have raised over $50 million from top VC firms such as Greylock, Lightspeed, GV and others. Snorkel AI is solving a real problem that has been holding back AI adoption by simplifying data labeling and making AI projects look more like software development efforts. Delivering both successfully will encourage companies to more fully embrace AI by removing some of the barriers and hassles that make "doing AI" so difficult. On this podcast we talk about Braden's journey to entrepreneurship, the origin story of Snorkel, how their approach to data labeling works and how it helps unlock the power of AI in the enterprise, why SME's are the key to data labelling and why Snorkel's approach empowers them, why you should drop what you are doing and immediately send in a resume and much more. I am excited for this conversation because Snorkel AI is solving a real problem in the industry that has been holding back AI adoption and I am just really impressed with their team. In my opinion this is definitely a company to keep an eye on. Let's get to it!

Online platforms are overwhelmed with speech that is harmful. Companies are trying to get their hands around the problem in order to solve it, because it is driving people off their platforms in droves. But it is a difficult problem to solve. Companies need to establish policies, set up governance committees and protocols, find technical solutions and hire moderators. Justin Dave, Co-Founder and CEO of Spectrum Systems, founded his company to attack this problem with Contextual AI. I invited Justin onto the show because I love what Spectrum Labs is doing but I also think that he has great insights into the problem and the range of approaches needed to solve it. Podcast Transcript: Spectrum Labs elevator pitch (1:29) The professional journey of Justin Davis, Co-Founder/CEO, and why he started Spectrum Labs (2:32) What is Contextual AI and how does it work? (4:47) Quantifying the size of the negative/violent/hateful/etc that Spectrum Labs is trying to solve (8:50) How does a company work with Spectrum Labs to address this problem? (12:10) How many companies are taking this problem seriously? (16:42) Who are Spectrum Labs competitors? (20:29)

On this podcast I am joined by Risto Miikkulainen from Cognizant and by Dr. Nuria Oliver from Valencia Spain who led her team to victory in the Cognizant sponsored Xprize Pandemic Response Challenge which was a four month, $500k challenge that focused on the development of data-driven AI systems to predict Covid-19 infection rates and prescribe intervention plans that regional governments, communities and organizations can implement to minimize harm when reopening their economies. Dr. Oliver's team was made up of 20 leading researchers and policy experts from universities and research institutes throughout Valencia, Spain. Click through to see time stamps of the discussion for easier listening. Transcript Time Stamps: 2:16 - Risto tells us about the origins of the Xprize Challenge and why it is so important 4:09 - Dr. Oliver talks about her background and how her work on other pandemics led her to being in a position to put a team together to advice the regional government of Valencia from the beginning of Covid and how that led to entering the Xprize Challenge 8:07 - Dr. Oliver tells us about her team 10:33 - Risto tells us about the different phases of the competition and what challenges competitors faced 12:55 - Dr. Oliver talks about how she and her team approached the competition, how they leveraged their strengths, key strategic approaches and more 18:00 - Dr. Oliver responds to a question I have around whether diversity was a key competitive advantage of her team 21:02 - Risto tells us what he thinks really made Dr. Oliver and her team stand out from the rest of the competition 22:52 - We discuss how this could be applied to other issues and using AI and competitions in general for policy development 32:34 - We discuss the differences, and pluses and minuses, of short competitions vs longer competitions and what is the best approach to big problems

On this podcast I am joined by Risto Miikulainen, a professor at the University of Texas in Austin and Associate VP of Evolutionary AI at Cognizant, and Mitja Lustrek, who is the head of the Ambient Intelligence Group at the Josef Stefan Institute located in Slovenia, to talk about the recently completed Xprize Covid Challenge where Mitja and his team came in an impressive second. Podcast Outline: :19 - Risto explains the genesis of this Xprize 3:50 - Mitja introduces us to his institute and team 6:27 - We talk about why Evolutionary AI is an interesting approach for things like Covid 11:00 - We dig down into each of the phases and goals of the competition 14:12 - Mitja walks us through his teams strategy and how they approached the challenge from a technical standpoint 20:12 - Risto highlights some of the really interesting things that Mitja and his team did to set themselves apart from the competition

Coming off a recent $30 million Series B funding I am joined on this podcast by Victor Kushch, Co-Founder and CTO of Fairmarkit. Fairmarkit is an exciting venture backed company that has created an intelligent sourcing platform that empowers organizations to more efficiently purchase the goods and services they need. Basically by equipping procurement and supply-chain teams with automation and data, Fairmarkit promotes competitive bidding while reducing manual work within existing processes. It is a big market that is ripe for disruption and Fairmarkit hopes to be that disruptor!

On this podcast I am joined by Mike Hughes and Antonio Allegria to talk about Low-Code generally and what Outsystems is doing specifically in the space. Low-Code is transforming how software gets developed and we are really just at the beginning of the revolution it is driving. Outsystems is doing some really neat stuff and I love their vision around what it is going to take to win the Low-Code market. SHOW SUMMARY: Start - Outsystems elevator pitch 1:57 - What is Low-Code? 4:01 - How does Low-Code help enterprises digitally transform? 6:54 - Low-Code and AI? 12:14 - What differentiates Outsystems from others in the space? 17:58 - Outsystems Customer Use Cases? 21:29 - How does Low-Code empower IT and does it change the talent mix? 27:09 - Where will the game be won in Low-Code? 29:07 - What types of people are you looking to hire and why should they work at Outsystems? 32:25 - What are the important takeaways that business and technical leaders should gain from this podcast?

On this podcast I am joined by Sagi EliYahoo, the Co-Founder and CEO of Tonkean. Tonkean's Adaptive Business Operations platform simplifies the orchestration of complex, enterprise-level business processes with a truly no-code interface. Ops professionals are becoming a critical component of business units and No-Code generally, and Tonkeans platform specifically, empowers them. I think everyone will benefit from Sagi's keen insights. Summary: 2:06 - Tonkean elevator pitch 3:55 - Who uses No-Code? 7:10 - What is Adaptive Process Automation? 12:00 - No-Code use cases 18:16 - Tonkean is the "Operating System for Business Operations" 22:22 - CIO's reaction to no-code? 25:14 - No-code helps empower business unit ops 30:30 - Why will Tonkean be the leader in the space? 33:52 - Why work at Tonkean?