Future of Tech Amdocs

In this episode, Avishai sits down with AI pioneer Yoav Shoham. Yoav was a professor of computer science at Stanford for 28 years, where he was the director of the AI Lab. He is also a serial entrepreneur and has founded various companies across industries. Most recently, he co-founded AI21 labs. AI21 Labs aims to take AI to the next level and builds LLMs for enterprises that make machines thought partners. Join him and Avishai for a great discussion, and hear why Yoav doesn't believe Gen AI truly exists, AI21’s mission, and his vision for the future. 
 
The AI winter is over. AI is at the top of everyone’s mind today, but it has existed for decades. Yoav experienced the ‘AI Winter,’ a period during the 1990s when interest and funding in AI dropped. Yoav says that the effects of the winter have worn off, and that the learnings and changes from the period and beyond have helped us reach the AI boom of today. 
 
Lots of experiments, little deployment. Yoav says that while there is mass experimentation with AI, there is much less deployment of the technology. Proving the ROI of AI is something companies like AI21 must do to encourage uptake from large enterprises. 
 
Trust is key. Yoav identifies that reliability, predictability and explainability are key for LLMs. These models often don’t know when or why they are wrong. Ensuring that we can trust these models is key to their progression and adoption. 

Interested in further exploring the impact of GenAI? Tune in to Your Career: Is it Choice or Chance? Podcast for insightful discussions within the workplace domain.

The journey through GenAI continues! In this episdoe, Avishai enjoys talking to Dr. Sharon Zhou, founder and CEO of Lamini. Sharon's PhD in GenAI from Stanford along with her business career made the dialog intriguing. Sharon studied both classics and computer science at Harvard, and she has risen to be a pioneer in the GenAI space, having recently been named an MIT Tech Review 35 under 35.

Building on our recent episode with NVIDIA’s CTO, this discussion will immerse listeners deeper into Large Language Learning Models.

Key Takeaways

Fine-tuning is key. As the competition in LLMs heats up, Sharon says that standing out is about taking your LLM from elementary school to PhD level through fine-tuning and strategically teaching models all the expertise they need to level up. 

Gen AI should be accessible. One of Sharon and the team at Lamini’s missions is to ensure that enterprises of all levels have access to Gen AI solutions, not simply those with huge budgets. 

Gen AI is the new calculator. Sharon points to how scared the education industry was when calculators first entered the markets and compare it to the current anxieties about Gen AI. Educational systems will have to adapt, and ultimately Gen AI and LLMs will help transform the education space. 


Interested in further exploring the impact of GenAI? Tune in to Your Career: Is it Choice or Chance? Podcast for insightful discussions within the workplace domain.

In this exciting episode, Avashai is joined by Michael Kagan, CTO of NVIDIA. He and Avishai dive into the challenges and opportunities faced by organizations when it comes to the explosion of Gen AI. Michael has been at the forefront of the tech space and is passionate about the potential implications of AI, and has said that we are experiencing AI's ‘iPhone moment.’ Don’t miss the exciting conversation to learn more about the future of Gen AI, as well as the exciting things happening at NVIDIA.

Key Takeaways: 

Gen AI takes physical infrastructure. Michael mentions that many people overlook that the physical space, hardware and CPU needed to run Gen AI models is huge. This has implications for organizations as well as the environment that cannot be ignored. 

Gen AI will improve human collaboration. Michael emphasizes that he is excited about the potential of Gen AI when it comes to improving human collaboration. He believes Gen AI will help humans overcome language and cultural barriers that can impede effective collaboration. 

The world is exponential. Michael says that the world is exponential, and this includes Gen AI growth. He believes this new tech will come to impact all industries, and ultimately will allow humans to become more efficient and better at their jobs. 

Interested in further exploring the impact of GenAI? Tune in to Your Career: Is it Choice or Chance? Podcast for insightful discussions within the workplace domain.

Welcome back to Future of Tech! In this special season, Avishai sits down with some of the leading thinkers in Generative AI. In this episode, he is joined by Charles Lamanna, Corporate Vice President, Business Apps & Platforms at Microsoft. He and Avishai discuss what Microsoft is doing to educate their workforce about Gen AI, the impacts of Gen AI on large enterprises like Microsoft, and what he sees coming down the pipeline. 

 

Key Takeaways:

Charles is an AI optimist. Charles says he focuses on the fact that the majority of Gen AI use cases are human-directed. He believes humans will be able to leverage Gen AI to make their processes more efficient and productive, not replace them entirely.  Gen AI will be adopted across industries. Charles believes that AI will be harnessed by all industries, not just tech. He believes it will allow organizations to grow without compromising service.  Enterprises need to invest in employee learning. Charles stresses that in order to harness the power of Gen AI, enterprises should invest the time and money to properly train their workforce on how to use Gen AI, and how to do so securely. 

Interested in further exploring the impact of GenAI? Tune in to Your Career: Is it Choice or Chance? Podcast for insightful discussions within the workplace domain.

This week, lace up your boots and be sure to stretch, because we have an exciting new Future of Tech to share with you!
Avishai had a chance to sit down with Jonathan Lee, the Senior Director of Sports Performance Technology for Intel. If you never connected Intel and sports technology before, you certainly will after this conversation. 
In this lively conversation, Jonathan dives deep into how Intel’s AI is benefiting all facets of sports, from player performance to fan experience, and even advanced athlete scouting in underserved areas. Throughout the episode, he shares countless ways in which Intel’s technology is affecting the world of athletics for elite professionals and weekend warriors alike, highlighting the myriad ways these innovations will impact sports on every level. 
Enjoy the episode!
Main Takeaways:
Creating Scalable Athletic Solutions: Jonathan shares how AI solutions can scale to serve multiple types of athletes, from elite professionals to casual players, as well as benefiting the health and wellness space.

AI and How It Will Redefine Athlete Scouting: Intel’s AI Scout is changing the way player performance is evaluated, using 3D analysis to objectively gauge an athlete’s potential against a growing field of competitors.

Bringing Athletic Opportunities to Underserved Areas: Jonathan shares an inspiring story of how AI Scout made it possible for two unknown prospects from a remote village to be discovered and considered for an organized football program.

Key Quotes: 

(16:29)“For sports, there are many applications that involve, how do we get athletes to perform better. Or how do we enhance a broadcast so that a fan feels more engaged with the action?  And we're at an exciting place right now in technology where we have things that really bridged the gap between the athlete and the fan.”
(18:19)“A lot of the things that we work on are meant to democratize and allow technology to be not just by the very elite athletes, but all the athletes on the team, and not just all the athletes on a pro or elite team, but actually down through your weekend warrior, your consumer, even in the health space as well.”
(22:37): “We use computer vision to extract 25 or more key points from the body, and then whether you use one camera or multiple cameras, we can create a 3D model of the athlete. And then from there, we can calculate biomechanics, kinematics, and provide that to a developer, or in some cases, we've built our own applications on top of that. Again, this is without the use of any sensors or suits. It's just AI.
(34:28): “Last year as a team, Purdue [baseball team] stole 48 bases. That put them at 130 first out of all the teams in the country. This year they stole 116, which ranked them number 10, right? And they had a great season. We're really at the cusp here on how to use tech to actually improve performance, right? And it's being demonstrated.” 
(54:35): “Being able to, to provide that information in, in real-time or near real-time would be something that would, that, that, um, would make the gym experience a bit more compelling as well as safe.”
 

We can be so passionate about tech that we can get caught up in its concepts and capabilities. But what is at the core of all technology?
Our guest today, Mark Potter, the Chief Information Officer at Optus, says “that great technology is a result of people.”
Mark’s fascinating career evolved from studying civil engineering to eventually working in the banking and telecommunications industries. The throughline for him has always been a desire to come up with solutions to challenges.
Tune in for more of Mark’s story and learn how he keeps perspective on what he values the most. Enjoy this episode!
Main Takeaways:
Humanity is the Foundation: Mark reminds us that humanity is behind impressive tech. He also points out how a company with “purpose” attracts employees who are seeking the same. His view is that engineers want to be a part of performing meaningful work.
Building a Career: In advice to up-and-coming talent, Mark advises that people focus more on attaining an employment situation with “career” potential rather than narrowly looking for a “job.” Leaning into a longer-term mindset is sage advice to build one’s career and life.
The Future at Optus: In envisioning the future of Optus, Mark imagines a business that moves rapidly with simplified processes and where there is a great deal of interconnection. His vision is a beautiful one that’s hopefully realized in many companies.
Maintaining Perspective: Shouldn’t we assess our values just as rigorously as our work data? Mark describes a process he’s undertaken to map out his priorities and then contemplate if he’s been focusing his attention on these values.

Key Quotes:
[05:58] “As a CIO, I think that great technology is a result of people. The paradox is great Technology is all about the people, and that's absolutely true across banking and telecommunications.”
[09:03 - this is the correct timestamp. If I try to hyperlink, it goes to a different section] “And typically what I find is that great engineers want to solve real problems and get beyond tech for tech’s sake and get into tech for some sort of higher order purpose. And so our purpose is really key to the way that we attract and retain people and [it’s about] creating the opportunities for teams to have that real impact.”
16:49) “I'd love to see technology as just part of the product and product management. So you can imagine moving from a project management bias that we have at the moment into product management and then the technology is embedded [and] embraced within the product itself. So, the distance between a business stakeholder and an IT colleague is a lot more blurred than what it has been historically.”
[29:57] “So I think platforms as an economy have kind of broken the economic paradigm of a traditional value chain.”
[39:58] “I think organizations where there's a meritocracy rather than a bureaucracy is important where talent can be elevated based on merit. And then maybe, last but not least, organizations, that have got a culture where failure is okay. Learning through getting things a bit wrong is a great way to learn.”