The AI Consulting Podcast
The AI Consulting Podcast helps AI service providers, advisors, and consultants find more AI opportunities, grow their companies, and deliver more value to clients. Each week, Emerj founder Daniel Faggella interviews AI services and consulting leaders to discover how they started and grew their firm, and the AI skills and best practices that have allowed them to help their clients succeed.
Episodes
The Business Case for AI Beyond Efficiency and Automation - with Deborah Golden of Deloitte
Today's guest is Deborah Golden, Chief Innovation Officer for Deloitte US operations. Deborah joins Emerj CEO and Head of Research Daniel Faggella on today's show to discuss how generative AI is reshaping industries, unlocking creativity, and driving bold innovation. With over 27 years of experience in technology and business transformation, Deborah has held key leadership roles, including leading
AI Assistants for Agents to Enhance Support and Satisfaction - with Venk Korla of HGS
Today's guest is Venkatesh Korla, President and CEO of HGS Americas. Venkatesh joins Daniel Faggella, CEO and Head of Research at Emerj AI Research, to explore how enterprises can leverage generative AI to enhance customer experience (CX). Their discussion delves into the balance between automation and human empathy, focusing on strategies to minimize hallucinations and improve service efficiency
Insights from Deloitte's State of Gen AI Report - with Dan Helfrich of Deloitte
Today's guest is Dan Helfrich, Chair and Chief Executive Officer at Deloitte Consulting. In this conversation with Emerj CEO and Head of Research Daniel Faggella, Helfrich speaks about the findings of Deloitte's research. Deloitte has polled a tremendous volume of enterprise leaders on where they are investing in AI, from operations to R&D. Helfrich also details the kinds of results business leade
Streamlining Enterprise Workflows with Large Language Models - with Babak Hodjat of Cognizant
Today's guest is Babak Hodjat, CTO of AI at Cognizant, the AI services giant. Babak joins us on today's podcast to discuss how large language models might bring value to the enterprise. In this conversation with Daniel Faggella, CEO and Head of Research at Emerj Artificial Intelligence Research, Hodjat explores how a series of specialized models could streamline entire segments of business workflo
Founder Story: Growing an AI Product Profitably - with Siva Pullabhotla of Docskiff
In today's episode, we speak with a founder who profitably grew by finding product-market fit early in a profitable niche. Our guest is Siva Pullabhotla, Co-Founder & CEO at Docskiff Inc. Docskiff focuses on contract intelligence in the procurement space. In this episode, Siva discusses the kinds of assumptions you should begin with if you're looking to find a product-market fit fast. He also talk
Landing BIG Enterprise Clients as a Small AI Consultancy, Lessons Learned - with Rick Oppedisano of Delta Bravo AI
This week's guest is Rick Oppedisano. Rick is a member of our Emerj Plus community and the Founder and CEO of Delta Bravo, an AI consulting firm based in the United States. In this episode, he shares his founder's story, highlighting what it looks like to meet a giant enterprise customer, like Rolls Royce, and how to build those kinds of enterprise relationships for the long term. He also discusse
A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Profitable Consulting Business - with Michael Zipursky of Consulting Success
Our guest this week is Michael Zipursky, CEO and Founder at Consulting Success. Consulting Success is a firm dedicated to training consultants of various skill levels. Michael had previously run several consulting firms himself, and in this episode, he shares his insights on the best initial steps to get a consulting firm off the ground. He further discusses what to do first, how to determine what
How Independent Consultants and Thrive in a Data-Flooded World - with COMATCH Co-founder Christoph Hardt
This week's guest is Christoph Hardt, Co-Founder and Managing Director of COMATCH. COMATCH is a platform matching consultants, mostly strategy consultants, to customers around the globe with their initial focus in the EU. The company now boasts over 100 employees and, through their success, has gained access to thousands of consultants and gained a sense of how smaller, independent consultancies a
Successful AI Deployment Means Executive AI Education - with Michael Segala of SLF Scientific
This week's guest is Michael Segala, CEO at SFL Scientific. SFL Scientific is a fast-growing AI consultancy in the Boston area with about 40 team members after six years of business. After receiving his Ph.D. from Brown University in 2013, Michael held several data science positions before founding SFL Scientific. Michael has interfaced with cutting-edge startups, S&P 100 companies, the U.S. Depar
Starting a New Career in AI Consulting, Lessons Learned - with Christopher Pavlak of Deloitte
This week's guest is Christopher Pavlak, a Specialist Master of AI Ethics at Deloitte. He is also a leader in AI ethics efforts with Deloitte at the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center at the DOD. Today, Chris speaks about the transition into AI consulting. Chris also talks about his own career experience and how he was able to frame his past experience in a way that enabled him to land a job in
Pivoting from an AI Services Firm to an AI Platform Company - with Roey Mechrez of BeyondMinds
This week's guest is Roey Mechrez, the CTO of BeyondMinds, an AI firm based in London. Today he speaks about the origins of BeyondMinds and how the company got off the ground by doing unique and bespoke projects. Roey also discusses how he's aiming to transition towards offering products in addition to their existing services. While Roey is not looking to transition BeyondMinds to a pure Saas firm
Why AI Governance is Relevant for Consultants and Business Leaders - with Christopher Pavlak of Deloitte
Our guest this week is Christopher Pavlak, currently serving as a Specialist Master for AI Ethics and Governance at Deloitte. Today, Chris speaks with us as a consultant himself about what AI governance is at a practical level and how consultants and business leaders can think through AI governance as a framework to help them mold more successful AI adoption strategies. We're also grateful to have
How to Spin Products Out of Your AI Company - with Joseph Suquet of Fligoo
This week's guest is Joseph Suquet, a Partner, Board Member, and Executive Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Fligoo. Fligoo is an AI firm based in the Bay area with employees worldwide. Today, Joseph shares how Fligoo turned from primarily AI services to offering its own suite of products. He specifically discusses how to discover an AI product idea and turn it into an AI bus
How to Scale a Technology Services Firm Quickly - with Graham Holt of Daitan
This week's guest is Graham Holt, GM at Daitan. Founded in 2004, Daitan was recently acquired for an undisclosed amount after being ranked as one of the fastest-growing companies in America by Financial Times. Today, Graham shares his insights on what it looks like to scale talent and processes, procedures, and departments. He also discusses how Daitan experimented with different models for servic
Lessons Learned Starting an AI Services Firm - with Falkonry CEO Nikunj Mehta
Today's guest is Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and Co-Founder of PolyAI. PolyAI is an AI voice company based in the United Kingdom. Nikola previously appeared on an episode with us to discuss the future of voice AI for the customer experience. Today, Nikola dives into the use-case of appointment-setting with AI for voice. He talks specifically about the technical constraints, AI capabilities, and how to crea
Demystifying the Technical Challenges of AI Adoption - with Roey Mechrez of BeyondMinds
This week's guest is Roey Mecherez, CTO of BeyondMinds and Ph.D. from the Israeli Institute of Technology and Electrical Engineering. In this episode, Roey shares his business knowledge and experience at BeyondMinds, which has raised approximately $15M to date. Roey also discusses how to explain the technical nuances around preparing data, training algorithms, the iteration process, and more in a
Setting Expectations for Complex ML Solutions - with Vish Rajalingam of MulticoreWare
This week's guest is Vish Rajalingam, AI Solutions Architect at MulticoreWare, a 250-person AI services firm focused primarily on smart cities and autonomous vehicles. Vish also holds a Master's degree in Computer Science, focusing on Artificial Intelligence from UT Arlington. Today, Vish shares his insights from his experience working on and understanding algorithms and interacting with clients a
What's Unique About Selling AI Services to Mid-Sized Firms? - with Sam Daish of Qrious
Today's guest is Sam Daish, Head of AI and Data Science at Qrious, a technology services firm based in New Zealand. Sam didn't start his career in consulting and shares what it was like to learn today's skills. Sam also discusses some considerations for AI fluency for mid-size firms and effective strategies for starting conversations that transform into real AI projects. We're grateful to have Sam
Overcoming Client Misconceptions About AI Strategy - with Joseph Suquet of Fligoo
Today's guest is Joseph Suquet, Director of Strategy and Corporate Development, Partner, and Board Member at Fligoo, a 50-person AI Services firm that focuses on AI projects for companies such as Mastercard, Coca-Cola, and more. Today, Joseph speaks about some of the common misconceptions he sees in the enterprise world regarding AI strategy and how consultants can tactfully help clients achieve b
How to Pivot from AI Services to an AI Product Company - with Ash Fontana of Zetta Venture Partners
Today's guest is Ash Fontana, Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners, a firm based in San Francisco. Ash was also a previous guest on our AI in Business Podcast. Today, he gives his recommendations for companies looking to transition from being service-oriented with AI to becoming more product-oriented. Ash also shares some lessons from his experience investing in AI firms and insights from h
Finding AI Projects to Match Your Clients' Real Goals - with Bhaskar Roy of Fractal
Today's guest is Bhaskar Roy, Client Partner of the APAC region and AI Consultant at Fractal Analytics. Bhaskar has previous experience working on analytics projects at Accenture and Target and now takes on both analytics and AI projects at Fractal Analytics. Today he shares how he thinks about the art and science behind transforming customers' initial intentions into a first AI project that can t
Using Referrals to Growing a Tech Services Firm to 500+ Team Members - with Graham Holt of Daitan
Today's guest is Graham Holt, GM of Digital Solutions at Daitan, a technology and data science services firm founded initially in Brazil. With over 500 employees, Daitan is listed by Financial Times as one of America's fastest-growing. Today, Graham shares his perspective and business lessons about leveraging client referrals, and he details the principles that enabled Daitan's quick and successfu
Hard Lessons Learned in Launching an ML Consulting Company - with Cory Janssen of AltaML
Today's guest is Cory Janssen, Co-founder & CEO of AltaML, a consulting firm based in Canada focusing on exciting machine learning projects across various industries from insurance to energy and more. Previously a successful entrepreneur, Cory started, grew, and sold a well-known media property called Investopedia. In today's episode, Cory will discuss his unlikely path to creating a machine learn
Adapting a Services Firm to AI, Lessons from the Era of Big Data - with Xena Ugrinsky of Pilot Wave
Today's guest is Xena Ugrinsky, the CTO and co-founder at Pilot Wave Holdings - a financial sponsor that helps businesses remain competitive in the technological age. Today Xena speaks to us about her experience of seeing the rise in Big Data a decade ago and how it is comparable now to the era of AI, especially learning from how service providers and clients both need to evolve. In addition, Xena
Finding Decision-Makers, Setting Expectations, and Delivering Value - with Dave Timm of Red Marble AI
Today's guest is Dave Timm, CEO of Red Marble AI, an AI consulting software development firm in Melbourne, Australia, with an overarching focus on how AI can enhance human performance and workforce productivity. In today's episode, Dave will talk about the factors to consider outside of data and algorithms. These include business values and leadership expectations, which help shape project deliver
How Partner Programs Support the AI Services Ecosystem - with Pallab Deb, Head of Partner Solutions at Google Cloud
Today's guest is Pallab Deb, head of partner solutions & AI partnerships at Google Cloud. Previously running AI at WePro, an industry giant when it comes to IT services, he brings a wealth of experience to the table. Not only does Pallab do a great job of explaining the whole partnership dynamic between tech companies, but he also takes a look at the program from both sides of the field - how it c
How to Assess the AI Readiness of Your Clients - with DJ Das of ThirdEyeData.io
Today's guest is DJ Das, Founder & CEO of Thirdeyedata.io. DJ speaks to us today about AI Readiness. How ready is your client to adopt AI technology? AI requires new workflows and data infrastructure, even a new executive understanding in terms of the strategic value of AI, so how do you assess your clients' readiness? We find that more and more folks in the services space have to find some kind o
Pivoting a Tech Consultancy into a Machine Learning Services Firm - with David Ponevac
Today's guest is David Ponevac, former CTO of Duos Technologies, and not currently with them at the time this recording is released. David speaks to us today about transitioning from a tech services/consultancy into an AI services company. In addition, he talks of his own experience with Duos Technologies' transition from older, pre-ML tools into Machine Learning, what that's meant for them in ord
How AI Services Firms can Scale and Differentiate with IP - with Anand Mahurkar of Findability Sciences
Today's guest is Anand Mahurkar, CEO and Founder of Findability Sciences, a firm with around a hundred employees in Boston, India, and Tokyo, focusing on three core areas of AI and data-related services. First, Anand speaks to us today about differentiating your services by developing core intellectual property. What it looks like to develop intellectual property that has value beyond the hours th
How a Lawyer Started an AI Consulting Firm - with Karen Silverman of The Cantellus Group
Today's guest is Karen Silverman, CEO and Founder of The Cantellus Group, a California firm offering workable solutions and support to business and policy leaders as they navigate frontier technologies and how to manage them. Karen speaks to us today about how she uses the Emerj Plus platform and what she has learned from Emerj Plus to further her business, and she also talks about her experiences
Breaking into AI Consulting without an AI Background - with Sam Daish of Qrious
Today's guest is Sam Daish, an Emerj Plus member and Head of AI and Data Science at Qrious. Qrious is a sizable tech services company based in New Zealand. Sam talks to us today about how we went from being trained as a teacher of the classics to someone who worked in big industry and startups, and now to someone who works in AI services and has learned all the skills required for AI services. Ski
From 0 to 250+ Employees in Computer Vision and ML Services - with AGK Karunakaran of MulticoreWare
Today's guest is AGK Karunakaran, president, and CEO at Multicoreware, a Sunnyvale firm with over 200 employees worldwide. AGK speaks to us today about making the transition from an idea to a firm with more than 200 employees and how to bend and mold a company to take over and focus on a particular niche and set of industries. We dive deeper into the art and science of finding your focus as a serv
Making the Move from Big Data Services to AI Services - with DJ Das of ThirdEyeData.io
Today's guest is DJ Das, Founder & CEO of Thirdeyedata.io. DJ speaks to us today about how he got off the ground by starting meetups. He speaks about how he leveraged and grew a network, developed early conversations enough to build his early revenue, team, and base of employees based on earlier projects. He also talks about the pivot from big data into AI and data service-related offerings. Are y
Going from Data Science Freelancing to an AI Services Business - with Stylianos Kampakis of The Tesseract Academy
Today's guest is Stylianos Kampakis, CEO of The Tesseract Academy, a London-based firm whose mission is to help tech ventures and entrepreneurs improve their growth and launch new ideas. Stylianos speaks to us today about stepping out on your own, being your own boss, and spinning out businesses and how to grow a presence, develop a personal brand and work your way towards growing a company from t
How to Win Your Few First AI Consulting Clients - with Marius Kierski of Sigmoidal
Today's guest is Marius Kierski, managing partner of Sigmoidal, a firm based in New York and Poland focused on AI and the development of AI projects. Marius speaks to us about his start in AI consulting, when he had no revenue guarantee and wanted to get his business off the ground. He talks about what did it look like to win early contracts, what were some of the sources he used to get leads, how
Evolving a Market Research Company into an AI Services Firm - with Ric Edinberg of The Evolved Group
Today's guest is Ric Edinberg, US President at The Evolved Group, which started as a market research firm, and they built an AI platform to support their work and the results they drive for their clients. Today Ric talks about what it looks like to evolve that layer of AI services on top of existing services offering. The lens that he applies will hopefully apply to almost any existing consulting
Finding the Right AI Fit in the Enterprise - with Sanjiv Gossain of Cognizant
Today's guest is Sanjiv Gossain, Global Head of AI for the Google Cloud business group of Cognizant, one of the world's largest IT firms. Sanjiv speaks to us today about finding the right AI fit in the enterprise. We walk through the discovery session process in terms of what team members have to be in the room, how we prioritize tasks and possibilities, how we look at workflows and find AI pocket
How to Discover AI Opportunities with Clients and Co-Create an AI Transformation Plan - with Arnab Chakraborty of Accenture
Today's guest is Arnab Chakraborty, Global Managing Director and Applied Intelligence NA Lead for Accenture, the world's biggest IT services company, with an extensive AI practice. Arnab speaks with us this week about the art and science of getting a discovery session off the ground. How do we open the C-suite's eyes, how do we move forward with education in a way that unearths AI projects, and ho
Streamlining AI Adoption with Clients, a Professional Services Perspective - with David Ponevac of Duos Technologies
Today's guest is David Ponevac, CTO of Duos Technologies. Duos Technologies focuses on the transportation industry's automated systems, intelligent digital video, integrated smart Command and Control centers, and a broad range of smart sensors systems. David speaks to us today about what he's learned and how he's come to develop a cheat sheet for onboarding new clients. No matter what your process
Off the Shelf, or Custom Built? Finding the Best AI Fit for Clients - with ElectrifAI CTO Luming Wang
Today's guest is Luming Wang, CTO of ElectrifAi, a company that offers pre-trained AI models. Luming has held many lofty technology roles for companies in the US, like Microsoft, Amazon, and Uber. Luming provides some great insights today into how to guide clients to the best possible solution for them, how to pair up a client's opportunity and a client's problem with the right kind of AI tool tha
Bootstrapping an AI Firm with a Purpose - with Krunam CEO Chris Wexler
Today's guest is Chris Wexler, CEO of Krunam, a firm that helps detect and prevent the spread of children's criminally distasteful images; this is a job well suited for AI and essential for keeping bad things from happening globally. Chris is also a member of our Emerj Plus community. He speaks to us today about how he came up with the idea and how he bootstrapped and pulled together the necessary
Industry and Workflow Expertise in Starting an AI Consulting Business - with Falkonry CEO Nikunj Mehta
Today's guest is Nikunj Mehta, CEO, and Founder of Falkonry, an AI platform firm in the industry space. Nikunj speaks to us in this episode about the importance of focus on getting a company off the ground. What does it look like to focus on a sector and workflows to build early traction with sales and deliver more value? He speaks a lot about the importance of subject matter experts, not just fol
Turning a Cloud Services Firm into an AI Services Firm - with Techolution CEO Luv Tulsidas
Today's guest is Luv Tulsidas, Founder, and CEO of Techolution, an Inc 500 firm, servicing rather large enterprise customers with cloud and AI services. Luv speaks to us in this episode about what he started his consulting firm off as in the first place, about some of the early blunders he made regarding what services he brought to market and what he thought he was going to be. And then he talks a
Starting an AI Consulting Company from Scratch - with Red Marble AI CEO Dave Timm
Today's guest is Dave Timm, CEO of Red Marble AI, an AI consulting software development firm in Melbourne, Australia, with an overarching focus on how AI can enhance human performance and workforce productivity. In today's episode, Dave talks to us about developing your AI consulting business idea, finding your first clients, and landing your first projects. He also goes into how to find technical
The Importance of Educating Clients as Part of the AI Consulting Process - with Cognizant's Head of AI, Bret Greenstein
Today's guest is Bret Greenstein, SVP and Global Head of AI at Cognizant, one of the top 5 largest tech consulting companies globally, with 2019 revenue at nearly $17B. Bret shares with us today the importance of educating our buyers. What does it look like to interact with a client who has an idea of an AI project, inform their idea of what AI is, and help refine and define the problem to solve i
Announcing the AI Consulting Podcast: Who it's For and What We'll Be Covering
I'm excited to announce the launch of our AI Consulting Podcast! If you want to start or grow an AI consulting company, you're in the right place. In this short introduction episode, I cover: (a) What themes and insights we'll be covering for AI consultants on this show, and (b) A highlight reel of some of our early AI Consulting Podcast guests and topics for next week. Be sure to subscribe - we'l
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