Jen Stave, Launch Director at the Digital, Data, Design Institute at Harvard Business School , joins the AI lab to share expert insight into the most common mistakes in AI transformation, and practical steps for how to avoid them.

• What is The Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard Business School, and what are their goals

• Why companies need to rethink their operating model to harness AI tools 

• How to measure the ROI of a major AI transformation

• How AI is disrupting data science 

• The role leadership plays in shepherding AI innovation in an organization

Jen is an AI expert, specifically in the landscape of business, and launch director at Digital, Data, and Design Institute at Harvard. 

The Digital, Data, and Design Institute is an environment motivating cutting-edge faculty research. They include 12 labs, each designed to explore and solve problems that our world faces today. The Institute also works with leading companies to adapt and secure AI and emerging technologies to transform their organizations. 

→Connect with Jen on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jen-stave

→ ⁠Learn more about Digital, Data, Design Institute at Harvard: https://d3.harvard.edu/

Alex Lehman, Vice President at Sapphire Ventures, joins the AI lab to discuss insight into the investment world after the recent generative AI boom and how businesses can use generative AI in their products. 

We dive into:

• The migration to a talent-based consumer market from a name brand consumer market

  Should companies stay on the sidelines or start experimenting with AI?

• The concern of data privacy and AI 

• Navigating AI-usage with your employees 

Alex is an AI Investment expert, Board Advisor at Women in Sports Tech, and Investor at Sapphire Ventures. 

At Sapphire Ventures, Alex focuses on enterprise infrastructure, data and analytics, and security. Sapphire contributes specialization, experience, and network to help teams navigate their companies journey to build a successful expansion stage to initial public offering. 

Alex is a Board Advisor for the non-profit, Women in Sports Tech, which provides growth and funding opportunities for young women working to pursue careers in sports and technology. 

→ ⁠Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alex-lehman-a0252975

→ ⁠Learn more about Sapphire Ventures: https://sapphireventures.com/

→ ⁠Learn more about Women in Sports Tech: https://www.womeninsportstech.org/

Rohan Sampath, Co-founder at Copilot, joins The AI Lab to discuss how executives can better understand and leverage VOC (Voice of the Customer) using AI.

We also dive into:

• Will AI startups become incumbents worst nightmare?
• The future of AI-powered sales
• How understanding customer sentiment with AI can supercharge your go-to-market
• How Copilot is helping companies dissect customer conversations in 60 seconds
• The evolution of conversational intelligence and LLMs (Large Language Models)

Rohan is an AI expert, advisor, podcast host, and co-founder of Copilot.

Copilot helps companies deeply understand the voice of their customer. Their tool records and transcribes customer conversations, use GPT-4 to extract topics, themes and insights that are tailored to your sales process and methodology (MEDDIC/BANT, etc.), and fill out your CRM with a summary of those insights.

Rohan is host of the AI Tech Sales Podcast. Every week, he interviews CEOs, Sales Leaders, and AI experts on how they think AI will change revenue organizations and the customer buying journey.

→ ⁠Connect with Rohan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rohansampath/

→ ⁠Learn more about Copilot: https://www.copilotup.com/

→ ⁠Listen to the AI Tech Sales Podcast: https://ai-tech-sales-podcast.simplecast.com/

Ryan Francis⁠, Partner and President of Chicago-based software studio, ⁠LaunchPad Lab⁠, joins the AI lab to share his perspective on how AI-driven development will redefine UX and programmer workflows.

• How ChatGPT will impact the future of web & mobile user experience
• Will ChatGPT replace Google as our go-to web search?
• How LaunchPad Lab went from development firm to AI firm overnight
• How ChatGPT will change how developers work
• How generative AI can transform the staffing industry

A entrepreneur and software engineer, Ryan brings a decade of experience building technology that transforms organizations inside out.

Ryan is currently Partner and President of Launch Pad Lab, a software studio that seemingly overnight has gone from a firm focused on web, mobile, and Salesforce development to becoming the go-to dev team for generative AI-driven solutions.

Before LaunchPad, Ryan held multiple roles within the finance world, most recently as Chief Financial Officer at Elixserve. On the side, him and his dad manufacture bunk beds and loft beds for adults as Francis Lofts & Bunks, a company the two founded in June 2012. Step Brothers anyone?

⁠https://youtu.be/3BlHY69ZsZ0⁠

→ ⁠Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn⁠

→ ⁠Learn more about LaunchPad Lab

Chris Hohman, VP of Product Management at FICX and Founder of Velocity AI joins the AI lab to discuss the age-old question in tech: to build or buy? In this episode, Chris shares his perspective on the pros and cons of open source vs in-house models — and more!

Other topics include:

• The challenges with generative AI in banking
• The different levels of impact AI will have on business
• Why we need to build models with a moral compass; the good & the bad of AI
• How restricting AI usage can create a digital divide in your company

Chris Hohman is a product leader and founder with over two decades of experience in the tech industry. He is currently the VP of Product Management at FICX and Founder of Velocity AI, a consultancy helping business embrace the AI revolution with confidence.

From scale-ups to industry Goliaths like Cisco, Adobe, and Amazon, Chris specializes in digital transformation, accelerating engineering efforts up to 50% through resource alignment and product development, and new technologies. With years of experience bringing successful products to market, Chris delivers with a unique combination of vision, leadership, management, and creativity.

→ ⁠Connect with Chris

Scott Francis, Former CTO of THX, Robert Half, and Technicolor Creative Studios (to name a few) joins the AI lab to discuss the dark side of ChatGPT and how companies *should* be using AI to amplify their differentiation in today's market.

Other topics include:

• Data security, control, and protection in ChatGPT
• Why leaders need to approach generative AI with a balanced mindset
• The #1 exercise all leaders should do in the era of AI
• How to find the right partners to set your AI strategy
• Setting AI usage policies and avoiding the “slippery slope”

A 4x CTO, lifelong programmer, IP expert, and one of the earliest adopters of generative language models in the enterprise. Scott Francis brings over 20 years’ of experience launching “Best Ever Possible” products, building IP portfolios, and driving value for large customers like Wal-Mart, CBS, and eBay. Scott has an impressive track record of unlocking $10s to 100s of millions of dollars in savings and revenue for companies, big and small.

→ ⁠Connect with Scott

Guy Levy-Yurista, CEO at Synthace joins the AI lab to share insight into the intersection of life sciences and new AI technology, and how it will revolutionize R&D for Big Pharma and beyond.

Other topics include:

• Who should drive a company’s AI strategy?
• Guy's framework for evaluating & deploying new technology
• How Big Pharma is accelerating new drug development with AI
• How scientists can work smarter with AI-driven experiments

An accomplished executive with deep multidisciplinary experience across science, technology and business, Guy specializes in commercializing advanced technologies in rapidly changing markets. Most recently, as CEO at Synthase, a life sciences R&D cloud company that is accelerating biological discovery by empowering scientists to flexibly program their lab automation without the need to code.

He previously served as the Chief Strategy Officer for Sisense, where he played a pivotal role in their success as a market-leader for data analytics. Guy holds a PhD in Physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the Talpiot program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

→ ⁠Connect with Guy

→ ⁠Learn more about Synthace

Kris Hammond, distinguished AI leader, professor of computer science, and co-founder of Narrative Science joins the AI lab to educate and advise leaders who are eager to harness the power of generative AI — while debunking the most common misconceptions in the market today.

Other topics include:

• The new sexiest job on the market
• How to build the right team to kickstart your AI strategy
• The role generative AI will play in revolutionizing decision-making
• 5 questions every business leader should ask before implementing AI

Kris is currently the Bill and Cathy Osborn Professor of Computer Science at Northwestern University. As faculty lead of Northwestern’s Computer Science + X initiative, he explores how computational thinking can transform fields like law, medicine, education, and business. Kris also serves as the Director of Northwestern’s Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence (MSAI) program and is founder of the Center for Advancing Safety in Machine Intelligence (CASMI), which aims to operationalize AI system design and evaluation from the perspective of their impact on human life & safety.

Additionally, Kris is co-founder of Narrative Science, a generative AI company that specialized in data storytelling (acquired by Salesforce in Dec. 2021).

With decades of experience in the field, Kris’ research and work lies at the intersection of data analytics and human + machine communication. His vision is to bridge the gap between the data that serves us and the language we need to understand it.

→ Connect with Kris on LinkedIn

→ Learn more about CASMI

→ Read more about the acquisition of Narrative Science