Conversations on AI is a forum for the world's leading minds to exchange thoughts around the business of AI. As technology advances and AI increasingly transcends into being a daily part of our lives, we aim to provide thought leadership on business models around this changing paradigm through this platform. What we have here are simple, no holds barred, candid discussions that we hope are helpful for an audience of business leaders from mid to large enterprises across the world.
The path to knowing how to build the next generation of products goes through understanding the methodology used by the world's largest brands to capture the consumer imagination through their offering. So who better to unveil the way than Sriram Krishnan, the man behind products for Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat
From working on mobile ads and products for Facebook, Snapchat to running consumer products on Twitter, Sriram Krishnan opens up on his experience with technology products and why mental models are critical for people to start trusting Artificial Intelligence.
This engaging discussion also captures:
Speakers:
Sriram Krishnan
Product Leader, Investor, Advisor
Sriram Krishnan is an experienced product leader and investor. For 2017-2019, he lead products on Twitter's core product teams.
He is also an active investor/advisor in several early-stage companies in the US and in India. Sriram previously ran various mobile ad products for Snap and Facebook.
Aakrit Vaish
Co-Founder & CEO, Haptik
Aakrit Vaish is the Co-Founder & CEO of Haptik, one of the world’s largest conversational AI companies. He started the company in 2013 and lead it to a successful strategic investment with Reliance Industries in 2019 in a $100 million transaction. Aakrit invests in startups and has been a part of the Entrepreneur 35 Under 35 and Business World 40 Under 40 List
Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. The platform has enabled over 300 virtual assistants, reaching close to 100 million devices and processing over 3 billion end customer interactions. Haptik is backed by Reliance Industries, a $100 Billion+ conglomerate, with close to 500 million customers.
As COVID-19 engulfed the world, the need for medical services and medicines went through a sea change. On one hand, the world was grappling with the immediate need for COVID-related health infrastructure. The pandemic has lent a sudden push to the e-pharmacies business in India.
To understand the sector and the impact of technology in this booming business, Bruce Schwack from Netmeds.com joined us for a free-wheeling discussion.
With the evolution of online pharmacy to an online care system, Bruce has witnessed the little pharmacy turn into a Walgreen superstore. Customers are driven to online pharmacies which have turned into a health & wellness superstore. Watch this interaction to understand what he thinks about the segment and the role that Netmeds will play in shaping this Industry.
This discussion focuses on:
The online-offline pharmacy collaboration
The disruption in the pharmaceutical supply chain due to Covid-19
Exceptional customer service via digital transformation
Voice technology and its impact in this segment
Speakers:
Bruce Schwack
Director of Communications & Chief Customer Experience Officer, Netmeds.com
Bruce has developed and managed customer service centers for multiple brands throughout the world, including more than 50 centers throughout India. He has resided in Chennai since 2008.
Priyanka Ahuja
VP, Customer Success Jio Haptik
Priyanka comes to us from London Business School prior to which she has been part of the Indian startup ecosystem in the zero to one journey of Chai Point and Uber Eats India.
At Uber Eats, she was responsible for launching the restaurant marketplace in Bangalore. At Chai Point, she was the first female member of the core team and also the youngest Business Head. She wore multiple hats - built the B2B arm of the business ground-up while scaling it to become a key revenue driver of the business
The increasing focus of companies on cost reduction and improving efficiency accelerated the growth of AI in the fintech market. Artificial Intelligence in fintech is allowing organizations to reduce their cost, automate their procedure and decrease the possibilities of mistakes.
Dinis Guarda specializes in the crossroad between strategy, ideas, business, poetry, technology, and how 4IR, AI, Fintech, digital transformation, and blockchain are changing humanity. With his expertise and host Vikram Kamath's experience, this interaction covers a rainbow of topics right from fraud detection to touchless transactions and so much more.
This discussion shines the spotlight on:
AI in the BFSI services sector
Investing in people to ensure execution of technology-first processes
Increasing levels of automation
Digital priorities for businesses in the financial services industry
Dinis Guarda
Author | Founder | Creator | Youtuber | Influencer
Dinis Guarda is committed to researching, creating ideas and solutions for the future of society, businesses, and organizations and how to advance with Technology IP, solutions, strategies, action education, thought leadership in #smartcities #digitaltransformation #AI #blockchain #Fintech #society5.0 #4IR #future.
As the author of books, and Top 1-10 Global Influencers/Thought Leader, he writes and reflects on the challenges of humanity and our cities and organizations.
As an influencer, he has gained recognition by institutions such as thinkers360, Cointelegraph, crypto weekly.co/100/, Forbes, and others.
He has a combined social media presence that reaches directly 500,000+ active data - communities across Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube.
Vikram Kamath
Director of Product, Jio Haptik
Vikram has 14+ years of experience and joined Jio Haptik from Amazon where he was a Product Lead responsible for launching new products in the North American market. He has led a team of 25+ members at Amazon and his latest product is on the path to making $500M in revenue in the next 2-3 years
Vikram has worn multiple hats which are important to make a product successful & looks after product strategy, operations, commerce & more at Hapti
Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. The platform has enabled over 100 virtual assistants, reaching close to 100 million devices and processing over 3 billion end customer interactions. Haptik is backed by Reliance Industries, a $100 Billion+ conglomerate, with close to 500 million customers.
Dennis has supported global brands like McDonald's, FedEx, AT&T, Starbucks, Wells Fargo in their customer experience journey.
He is also Co-Founder of a unique initiative called the 'Customer Experience Factory'
Technology is a key enabler for customer experience. Today organizations rely on technology to understand customers better, provide quicker resolutions, empower better & personalized interactions, and proactively engage for both, sales and support.
Hence when it came down to the changing landscape of CX, we spoke to Dennis Wakabayashi who is helping businesses improve the CX marketing of their organization by introducing the best solutions available along with the latest technology innovations.
Dennis is known for delivering enterprise-level Customer Experience solutions for brands around the world with a focus on the integration of traditional and digital marketing practices to create Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV). Watch this interaction to deep dive into the changing world of CX.
This discussion focuses on:
Optimizing the digital roadmap
Dennis Wakabayashi
VP of CX Implementation, RR Donnelley | Top 50 (CX) experts of the decade🎤
Dennis Wakabayashi is the VP of the world’s 7th largest marketing solutions company where he is responsible for the strategy and execution of integrated marketing also known as customer experience (CX) for Fortune 500 companies.
In May 2020 he was named a top CX expert of the decade and ranks among the top 150 cx influencers globally.
He regularly hosts/MCs marketing industry events, appears on international podcasts and is a renowned public speaker, author, and educator. He has more than 50,000 social media followers and is dedicated to empathy, collaboration, and growth for customers and brands.
To reach out to Dennis Wakabayashi,
Visit: www.denniswakabayashi.com
Alex Fields
Director, Market Development Jio Haptik
Alex Fields is Director of Market Development for North America at Haptik. He is focused on expanding the North American business through partnerships with both channel partners and tech partners. Alex most recently worked in strategy at the world's largest blockchain company. Prior to that, he worked as a strategy consultant
In order for the business and the customer experience (CX) to change, people have to change & stories act as the catalyst in facilitating this change.
Stories - The catalyst that drives change is what motivates our host to deliver an exceptional experience to his customers
According to research from IDC, 34% of companies believe they’ll fully adopt digital transformation within 12 months or less. How does that alter customer experience? Is AI really going to alter the entire CX landscape as we know it? Questions galore and we have the perfect guest to answer them all.
With over 3 decades of experience, Mike Wittenstein brings us a unique way to look at the amalgamation of customers and technology. Our host, Aaron Shagrin with over 2 decades in global sales & business development has Mike on the hot seat for a really interactive and informative session.
This discussion focuses on:
Mike WittensteinFounder | Managing Partner | Business Strategist | Executive Coach @storyminers.com
Mike has been helping leaders craft and execute strategies that increase and sustain their competitive advantage. A lifetime of diverse global experiences has taught him how to kindly ask tough questions, translate clients’ words into stories, and express business strategies as customer and employee experiences.
To reach out to Mike Wittenstein,
• Visit: www.storyminers.com
• Ask: www.storyminers.com/yama
• Email: mike@storyminers.com
Aaron ShagrinGeneral Manager, North America Jio Haptik
Aaron Shagrin is Senior Vice President of Revenue & Partnerships for North America at Haptik. He brings over 20 years of experience in global sales, business development, product management, and corporate strategy at multiple startups, Fortune 500 companies, and investment firms. Most recently, Mr. Shagrin was General Manager at Evolv Technologies, AI and ML-powered conversion optimization SaaS platform company
Did you know that our guest Dan Gingiss is the author of The Experience Maker (September 2021) and Winning at Social Customer Care!
He also hosts the Experience This! Show podcast and The Experience Maker Show.
During the pandemic, consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels, and companies and industries have responded in turn. Digital adoption has taken a quantum leap. With customers rapidly interacting with digital channels, businesses are adopting technology at a faster pace than expected.
Hence when it came down to reimagining CX, we approached Dan Gingiss who has over 20-years of experience in delighting customers. From technology to marketing and AI, this conversation between Dan and Alex really dwells on the shift in customer experience.
As Dan Gingiss says, "When you create a remarkable experience for your customers, they become your best marketers".
This discussion focuses on:
Dan GingissKeynote Speaker🎤| Customer Experience Coach🙋🏻♂️| Author📖| Podcaster🎧
Dan Gingiss is an international keynote speaker and customer experience coach who believes that a remarkable customer experience is your best marketing strategy. His 20-year professional career spanned multiple disciplines including customer experience, marketing, social media, and customer service. He held leadership positions at McDonald’s, Discover, and Humana.
He earned a B.A. in psychology and communications from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. in marketing from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
To reach out to Dan Gingiss, Visit: www.improvemycx.com
Find out more about his upcoming book, 'The Experience Maker'
Alex FieldsDirector, Market Development Jio Haptik
Alex Fields is Director of Market Development for North America at Haptik. He is focused on expanding the North American business through partnerships with both channel partners and tech partners. Alex most recently worked in strategy at the world's largest blockchain company. Prior to that, he worked as a strategy consultant
With more than 15 years of experience in Artificial Intelligence, Kapil Bardeja opens up about building AI-powered products, enterprise analytics, and the OKEAN platform with host Akshay Kulkarni, Product Manager, Jio Haptik and sheds light on how AI helped keep their business agile during the pandemic.
Analytics? It is hard to imagine its impact on our day-to-day lives but they play a critical role. This week's guest comes from an agile organization that leveraged its AI expertise to diversify its product portfolio when the pandemic struck.
The conversation focuses on:
Kapil Bardeja
Co-Founder & CEO, Vehant Technologies
Kapil Bardeja is the Chief Executive Officer, co-founder, and a member of the Board of Directors of Vehant Technologies. He is responsible for the overall business strategies and operations of the organization. Mr. Kapil founded Vehant after a successful stint in Mckinsey & Co. He brings with him vast knowledge and experience of 17 years as a senior business leader in the S&M domain and Marketing Research. He holds a Masters's degree in management from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi
Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant - They have redefined the way we interact with voice technology while becoming household names in the process. In fact, you’re likely to have a higher recall for these brand-names than you would for your neighbor’s name!
All these statistics deduce one conclusion -The impact of AI-powered voice technology is growing at a rapid pace.
So what is causing this shift towards audio and how is Artificial Intelligence contributing to this?
In this discussion, you will learn about:
Presented by
Niraj RuparelHead of Mobile & Emerging Tech, GroupM
Niraj Ruparel heads Mobility and Emerging Tech at Groupm India. He has vast experience in mobile marketing, Voice Marketing, consumer platforms, brand communications, and marketing analytics. He has been recognized as one of the top 40 rising talents in Asia Pacific by Campaign Asia Pacific. Niraj has also been named in the list of top 25 Mobile Marketing Leaders in the country by World Mobile Congress
Host: Pratyush KukrejaHead, Enterprise Sales & Marketing, Haptik
Pratyush Kukreja heads Enterprise Sales for India and MEA at Haptik. He comes with extensive experience as a founder at two startups, working with PE and VC funds and multi-industry exposure. He has done his Masters from Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, and has had stints across the US, Malaysia and India
While rethinking the customer strategy, we came across a very unique thought process on service. There are two sides to service: the outcome and the experience. Outcomes are quantitative while the experience side is qualitative.
To make the experience side distinctively memorable and likely to create a compelling story, it takes innovative people, aided by great technology, with a laser focus on the customer and their unique aspirations. Innovative people typically come from cultures led by leaders who are effective at inspiring, encouraging, coaching, mentoring, supporting, etc. Customer-centric strategies must include support of the cultural side of the enterprise, not just its tools.
This free-wheeling discussion with Dr. Bell is all about that experience. The author of the best-selling book, Inside your Customer's Imagination takes us on his journey of creating a profound customer experience while highlighting how customer-centric strategies must include support of the culture side of the enterprise and not just its tools.
This discussion shines the spotlight on:
Dr. Chip R. Bell
Senior Partner at the Chip Bell Group | Keynote Speaker | Best-selling Author
Chip has served as keynote speaker, consultant, and trainer on innovative service to such major organizations as GE, Microsoft, Nationwide, Marriott, Lockheed-Martin, Cadillac, etc. He has been ranked in the top 10 best speakers in the world on customer service by Global Gurus for the seventh year in a row.
The author of 24 books, Chip's newest book, "Inside Your Customer's Imagination: 5 Secrets to Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions,” was released in the fall of 2020. He has appeared live on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business Network, Bloomberg TV, NPR, ABC, and his work has been featured in Fortune, Businessweek, Forbes & more eminent publications. You can know more about him at chipbell.com/
Teja Edara
Senior Manager (US/EU), Customer Success, Jio Haptik
Teja is an experienced customer success manager with a focus on net retention and driving growth. He has also been a successful founder in the past building products/platforms in conversational AI, digital marketplaces, and e-commerce. Currently, Teja is a Sr Customer Success manager with Haptik and manages Haptik’s customers in the North America and EU region
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Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. The platform has enabled over 100 virtual assistants, reaching close to 100 million devices and processing over 3 billion end customer interactions. Haptik is backed by Reliance Industries, a $100 Billion+ conglomerate, with close to 500 million customers.
A recent McKinsey survey of global companies found that as of 2020, only 15% of respondents “are scaling automation techniques across multiple parts of their business.” So, even though the last few years have forced organizations to adopt new technology, there is still a significant blue sky for leaders when it comes to AI and how it can help them drive business decisions.
Yet the adoption of AI & related technologies is set to witness a seismic shift across industry verticals. Our guest, Babak Hodjat highlights the importance and advancement of technology in today's day & age.
Babak with all his expertise in the field of natural language processing, machine learning, genetic algorithms, distributed AI, and more, discusses a host of issues with Aaron Shagrin.
This discussion focuses on:
In this interaction, Babak talks about the Pandemic Response AI System which illustrates the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) that the AI generates for different countries and regions over time and their predicted effect. Click on the link to access this demo - https://evolution.ml/demos/npidashboard/
Babak Hodjat
CTO for AI, Cognizant
Babak Hodjat is the CTO for AI at Cognizant where he leads a team of developers and researchers bringing advanced AI solutions to businesses. Babak is the former co-founder and CEO of Sentient, responsible for the core technology behind the world’s largest distributed artificial intelligence system. Babak was also the founder of the world's first AI-driven hedge fund, Sentient Investment Management. Babak is a serial entrepreneur, having started a number of Silicon Valley companies as the main inventor and technologist.
Babak has published many papers in the fields of Artificial Life, Agent-Oriented Software Engineering, and Distributed Artificial Intelligence, and has 31 granted or pending patents to his name. He is an expert in numerous fields of AI, including natural language processing, machine learning, genetic algorithms, distributed AI, and has founded multiple companies in these areas. Babak holds a Ph.D. in Machine Intelligence from Kyushu University, in Fukuoka, Japan.
Aaron Shagrin
General Manager, North America Jio Haptik
Aaron Shagrin is Senior Vice President of Revenue & Partnerships for North America. Based out of Austin, Texas, Aaron is leading all go-to-market activities including revenue, sales, marketing, and partnerships for North America
He brings over 20 years of experience in global sales, business development, product management, and corporate strategy at multiple startups, Fortune 500 companies, and investment firms. Most recently, Aaron was General Manager at Evolv Technologies, AI and ML-powered conversion optimization SaaS company.
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Haptik is an artificial intelligence company powering conversational assistants for brands to transform customer experiences. The platform has enabled over 100 virtual assistants, reaching close to 100 million devices and processing over 3 billion end customer interactions. Haptik is backed by Reliance Industries, a $100 Billion+ conglomerate, with close to 500 million customers.
Adrian Swinscoe has been helping create, develop and grow businesses that take care of their customers in the best way possible. In this conversation, he decodes the evolution of customer support and the subsequent impact of technology
According to research from IDC, two-thirds of the CEO’s of Global 2,000 companies will shift their focus from traditional, offline strategies to more modern digital strategies to improve the customer experience before the end of the year - with 34% of companies believing they’ll fully adopt digital transformation within 12 months or less.
"Over the last year, the impact of the pandemic has forced organizations to reevaluate the business models that have served their customers well. This, in turn, has pushed them to develop digital channels and utilize technology to serve and engage with their customers"
These are the words of Adrian Swinscoe as he channels all his experience to share interesting insights in the field of customer experience.
This discussion focuses on:
Adrian Swinscoe
Customer experience advisor, Author, Speaker, Workshop Leader, and Aspirant Punk at Punk CX
Adrian has been helping organizations of all sizes deliver better customer service and customer experiences. He is an advisor on specific service/experience/engagement issues on an ongoing or project-by-project basis. He builds the internal team and leadership capability via mentoring, thought leadership (whitepapers and keynotes for internal/customer/public events), and masterclasses. Adrian is also a best-selling author, Forbes contributor, blogger & podcaster
Sundeep Teki, a consultant to deep tech startups on AI/ML & an emerging leader in neuroscience joins us for a conversation that deciphers his views on voice technology, neuroscience, startups and Artificial Intelligence
A leader, consultant, founder in the field of artificial intelligence & neuroscience having published 40+ papers, Sundeep Teki provides an intriguing perspective around the field of AI and voice technology in this conversation.
This discussion focuses on:
Sundeep Teki
Leader - AI | Startups | Neuroscience | Ex: Amazon Alexa AI, Oxford, UCL
Sundeep Teki, a leader in AI and Neuroscience with professional experience in 4 countries (USA, UK, France, India) across Big Tech (Conversational AI at Amazon Alexa AI), unicorn Startup (Applied AI at Swiggy), and R&D (Neuroscience at Oxford University and University College London).
He has published 40+ papers on Neuroscience and AI (1800+ citations), built and deployed AI for consumer AI products, secured £500k+ in competitive research funding, and is recognized by the Royal Society, UK as an ‘Emerging Leader in Neuroscience’
Micael McTear, an esteemed Emeritus Professor at Ulster University and the author of several famous books including 'Spoken Dialogue Technology', 'The Conversational Interface', and 'Conversational AI' joins us for a conversation that decodes his views on voice technology, conversational AI and the future of Artificial Intelligence
Researcher in the field of spoken dialogue systems for more than 20 years and an author of several books, Michael McTear provides a unique perspective of looking at conversational AI and voice technology in this free-flowing discussion that also captures his work with children facing learning difficulties, mental health monitoring and home monitoring of older people
This intriguing discussion captures:
Michael McTear
Emeritus Professor & Author, Ulster UniversityMichael McTear is an Emeritus Professor at Ulster University with a special interest in spoken language technologies. He has been researching in the field of spoken dialogue systems for more than 20 years and is the author of several books, including Spoken Dialogue Technology: Toward The Conversational User Interface (Springer, 2004), Spoken Dialogue Systems (Morgan and Claypool, 2010), with Kristiina Jokinen, and The Conversational Interface: Talking to Smart Devices (Springer, 2016), with Zoraida Callejas and David Griol. He has just completed a new book Conversational AI, published by Morgan & Claypool in November 2020. Michael has delivered keynote addresses and tutorials at many academic conferences and workshops and is a regular presenter at the annual SpeechTEK conference. He has also presented at the Conversational Interaction conferences in San Jose, ProjectVoice, and the REWORK AI Assistant Summits in London. Currently, Michael is involved in several research and development projects investigating the use of conversational agents in socially relevant projects such as mental health monitoring, and home monitoring of older persons
From discussing conversation design challenges to building trust with users in the banking domain, this podcast with Adi Sharma & Sarah Karam from the Royal Bank of Canada covers a rainbow of issues related to conversation design specifically from a banking perspective
To know more, visit our website:
Linguistics covers various types of social and physical sciences while also looking at sound structures of language. It is such a vast field and the Product Manager at Botmock, Brielle Nickoloff helps decode the merits of linguistics. She talks about how it is aiding conversation designers, leveraging linguistic principles for design work and so much more.
You can also listen to this episode on our website - https://www.conversation.ai/interview/conversation-design/linguistics-support-conversation-design
From uncovering the analogy of conversation design, challenges, and workflows to learning about the next generation of designers, Conversation Design Institute's CEO, Hans Van Dam opens up on AI and design in this free-wheeling discussion
There are multiple possibilities in language that synthetic media can enable. But what is synthetic media or what does the term uncanny valley signify?
Synthetic media signifies the ability for AI-driven systems to generate audiovisual content being one of the most exciting developments enabled by recent progress in deep learning.
In this podcast, we hear about synthetic media and how it is taking off, the challenges of interfacing humans with it, how does one deal with the issue of uncanny valley, and a lot more including thoughts around multilingual implementation
For more such interesting podcasts, visit - https://www.conversation.ai/
The path to knowing how to build the next generation of products goes through understanding the methodology used by the world's largest brands to capture the consumer imagination through their offering. So who better to unveil the way than Sriram Krishnan, the man behind products for Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat
From working on mobile ads and products for Facebook, Snapchat to running consumer products on Twitter, Sriram Krishnan opens up on his experience with technology products and why mental models are critical for people to start trusting Artificial Intelligence.
This engaging discussion with host Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder & CEO, Haptik, also captures:
To listen to more such engaging content, subscribe at - https://www.conversation.ai/
ML products are solutions where Machine learning is the primary or one of the primary drivers of the product one is building. In any domain of product management, the ultimate goal is to try and solve the problem of an end-user.
In this podcast, we hear about the skills required in ML product management, decoding the product life cycle, measuring the efficacy and business impact of Machine Learning products, and how sometimes a non-ML approach is useful.
To know more, visit - https://www.conversation.ai/
Tech products that incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) are increasingly ubiquitous. As human beings, we’re frequently having more conversations with them. AI is playing a significant role in digital conversations, and the real architects behind this are conversation designers.
In this podcast, we hear about Conversations augmented by AI, what can we improve in conversations with tech products, the evolution and challenges faced by designers, and how AI demonstrating genuine empathy is the holy grail.
To know more, visit - https://www.conversation.ai/