Abhi I.’s Post

Grateful to have been a speaker at the recent "Investing in Artificial Intelligence" event at UT Dallas, hosted by the Dean of Executive Education in partnership with the Center for Finance, Strategy, and Innovation (CFSI). It was an honor to share insights with 80 distinguished CFOs from Financial Executives International (FEI). CFO's as key decision makers in capital allocation have an important role to play in both encouraging and putting the right governance and metrics around #GenAI. The discussions on Generative AI's evolving value chain and its impact on corporate value creation were fulfilling. I learned a lot from the dialogue on how CFO's are thinking about this topic, the questions they have and what is interesting to them. Wish we had more time to go deeper and take more questions! Really loved the collaboration with the other distinguished speakers at the event: David Springate, Director of the Center for Finance Strategy & Innovation at UT Dallas. Elizabeth Jones, Associate Director at the Center for Finance Strategy & Innovation. Cuneyd Kaya, Director Analyst for Artificial Intelligence at Gartner. Sushil Ahuja, Deals Partner and HR Transformation Practice Leader at PwC. Thank you to FEI, CFSI & UT Dallas for this incredible opportunity! Let's continue to innovate and lead in AI together! #GenAI #FEI #UTDallas #CFSI #Leadership #Innovation #CFO #Finance Dallas AI

It was such a pleasure collaborating with David Springate of UT Dallas CFSI and David Evans of Sentiero Ventures to present a session on Generative AI Investing perspectives for the Harvard Business Club of Dallas. We covered a lot of ground from understanding the ecosystem stack, our perspectives on the dynamics and opportunities in each layer of the stack. We also discussed how this massive investment flood compares to past investment spikes as seen in the internet and electricity eras! We ended with a lively discussion on what’s next , what will it take to generate returns on the investments being poured in and what opportunities exists in the DFW area. We had a great engaged audience who stayed through the entire two hour session and asked great questions! Many thanks to Brian Buffington , the president of the Harvard Business School Club of Dallas . Many thanks to Nirav Patel, whose company Bristlecone, a Mahindra group company hosted us. And as always many thanks to Mary Lovell of the HBS club for all that she does to help the club out together these events! Final thank you to Babar Bhatti and Dallas AI for connecting us all together. #generativeai #genai #investing #harvard club of dallas #UTDallas #Harvard business school club of Dallas #DallasAI

OpenAI Unveils GPT-4o: The new battle for the gateway UI ! OpenAI demoed the capabilities of their newest flagship model GPT-4o. They are making it available through a new updated UI, and also through the API. GPT-4o ("Omni") - is a conversational model that improves on its capabilities over text, audio and vision. This new model reasons across voice, text and vision instead of just of just combining them. GPT-4o can be combined with: real-time vision (both still images and videos), memory, GPTs, browse, and advanced data analysis. This makes GPT-4o way faster (2x) and crucially cheaper per token (50%) with a 5x faster rate limit compared to GPT4. But the most powerful impact is how conversational and natural it sounds with the ability to use different tones and even continue post an interruption as a result of understanding the context and the tone of the conversation. The demo was eye-opening with no lag. Demos ranged from math tutoring to telling bed-time stories and real time translation from Italian to English. The model was clearly picking up on emotions and able to change tone and voice to demonstrate emotions. What was magical, and just slightly creepy, was it gave off the appearance of enjoying the interaction! Those of you who were fascinated by the movie "Her" - know where this could go! With this demo, OpenAI has put all other providers of natural language assistants on notice - don't be surprised to see a fire back from everyone else in this space - Apple, Microsoft, Google among others. In a bid to make ChatGPT even more ubiquitous, they rolled out a desktop version of ChatGPT, and an improved Web UI. This feels like shades of the last browser battle playing out all over again. If you recall that bygone era - Netscape pioneered that paradigm, only to be caught and passed by Microsoft, Google & Apple all with their own entrants who bundled this with each of their devices and Operating systems. Mira Murati who led the introduction also emphasized their focus on safety, not a surprise given the drama over the last year. In terms of implications for others, what comes to my mind is the interview that Sam Altman and Brad Lightcap gave recently. (I am paraphrasing) "If your company builds on a foundational model and you cheer a 10x improvement, then you likely building the right way and have a sustainable business model, if it sends a chill down your spine - you may want to reformulate your product/company thesis". Would love to hear your thoughts on this announcement - do you agree that this represents a browser like moment to capture the new UI gateway for the masses? Who is most at risk? Who benefits the most? What would you do differently as a result of what you heard on the demo? #genai #openai

Surprised, delighted and grateful to be named to the 2024 Dallas AI 75 list! Many thanks to Dallas Innovates and Quincy Preston for the lovely write up which was bought to my attention over the weekend by David Evans who was also similarly and deservedly honored. Grateful to whoever nominated me and voted for my inclusion - to be included on a list with notables like Mark Cuban, entrepreneurs like Dave Copps and academics like Gautam Das. Many thanks to Aamer Charania and Babar Bhatti who are the founders of Dallas AI which has created a focal point to channel AI knowledge and entrepreneurship into the DFW metro areas and given many of us a chance to give back. It's a pivotal time for #genAI and for applied AI in the context of all the industries that Dallas Regional Chamber champions and are so well represented in the DFW metro area. https://lnkd.in/gMVX_8rU

Last week, many of us had the immense pleasure of attending HBS in Dallas and welcoming the Dean of the Harvard Business School Dr Srikant Datar to Dallas. It’s been over 50 years since the Dean of the Business School visited Dallas and Dr Datar’s initiative is much appreciated by the alumni here. After a rousing welcome led by the President of the HBS club of Dallas Nancy Schmitt , we got an update on the school from Dean Datar. He also reminded us of the mission, vision and values of the school and surprised us with the breadth and depth of the application of generative AI at the school. We also had a chance to hear about the new HBS Midwest research center and meet Alicia Dadlani. Dean Datar made a remark that rang true to me: The school is furthered by the selfless efforts of those who have planted trees with no expectation of enjoying the shade of those trees. It’s a great reminder to all of us to pay it forward to advance the state of the community with no expectation than that of doing good and knowing that we have similarly enjoyed the efforts of those who came before us. It was a terrific turnout and I had a chance to meet old friends Brian Buffington , Satin Mirchandani and many others, make new ones and even meet up with three other class of 1997 MBAs: Rindge Leaphart, Stacey Paddock Malcolmson and Mark Huhndorff. Those others that I didn’t have a chance to meet or talk to, please connect on LinkedIn and let’s try to catch each other next time!

It was an honor and a privilege to be a judge at the TiE University Dallas startup finals to send off a winner to the Global competition in Silicon Valley. All four teams embodied the spirit of why we hold events of this sort. To have four teams of aspiring young entrepreneurs show up bright and early on a Saturday morning to share their dreams with us got us energized and optimistic about the future! Big call out to all the teams who made the semi-finals! Pls keep going and building your business. Anisha Holla - we are all rooting for you! Pls do keep pulling on any of us as you prepare for the finals. Ram Viswanathan , Satyajit "Doc" Doctor , Iqbal (Ike) Mutabanna , it was a real pleasure to be your partner on the judges panel. Ram Viswanathan and Sundar K , thank you for inviting me and helping so much with the logistics!

Rajiv Parikh and his crew at Position² have an uncanny ability to get you to share your beliefs. We bantered that even successful companies and individuals have to consistently assess the situation to reinvent and transform themselves multiple times over the course of a career or over the lifecycle of a company. I've personally had to do this - starting off as a coder with a CS background and then over my career evolving to GTM leadership. Similarly, the companies I've worked at - Qualtrics most recently have also pulled off multiple pivots on their way to becoming market leaders. Simple lesson to absorb, not always that easy to implement! Intellectual curiosity and a mentality of being a lifelong student helps! What tips can you share on how you or you company are constantly adapting?

I had the opportunity to attend an amazing GTM summit put together by Rajiv Parikh and his team at Position² where I learned from a terrific set of peers. It was fun sharing my journey from growing up in Mumbai to coming to the US and then a brief synopsis of my career and learnings over the years. I believe that keeping customers and employees at the center of any strategy is critical and Qualtrics has reinvented itself multiple times over the years to develop what I consider to be the most completed experience management (XM) platform available on the market. In times of furious technological change, deep Intellectual curiosity and life-long learning are the only way to keep current. Reinvention and transformation are critical aspects for every individual and company!