On the occasion of San Francisco Tech Week 2023, ServiceNow, HederaHashgraph, Inventus Law, and SupportVectors, co-sponsored a roundtable conference with prominent entrepreneurs in Generative AI, from the Bay Area, San Francisco. The event, hosted by Orbis86 and Virtualness.io, shed immense light on the emerging landscape of GenAI and Web3, and the enterprise investment scene. The esteemed panel of guests included— Kirthiga Reddy, Kamal Ahluwalia, Amelia Lin, Alex Petrenko, and Vache Moroyan.
Kirthiga Reddy is the CEO and co-founder of Virtualness.io, a mobile-based AI platform for Web3, helping creators and brands conveniently create and sell their digital collectibles with the use of generative AI. She was the first employee of Facebook India, working as an MD for India and South Asia.
Kamal Ahluwalia is the president of Ikigai Labs, a platform for building AI apps. He is also a board member of the US-India Business Council and comes with a huge experience in AI.
Amelia Lin is the CEO and co-founder of Honeycomb, a family photography platform, powered by generative AI. She also runs GenAI Founders, the first Slack community started for founders building in GenAI. VC Backed Moms is another community she fosters. It’s the world’s largest community for venture-backed founders who happen to be a mother.
Alex Petrenko is the CEO and co-founder of ZibraAI, a Ukraine-based startup for building 3D virtual assets to be used in the metaverse and virtual reality using GenAI.
Vache Moroyan is the SVP of Product and Design, and Product Marketing at Observe.ai, a conversational chatbot and intelligence platform for contact centers or call centers.
Fostering Diversity to Sail Everyone Along the GenAI Wave
Hailing from Ukraine, Petrenko sheds some light on the difference in the GenAI entrepreneurship and investment scenario between the US and Ukraine, and elsewhere— “Unfortunately, in Ukraine, we don’t have proper education specifically around machine learning. Majority of engineers are self-taught, and it’s limited us in terms of launching those ideas and building actual companies.”
Reddy agrees— “The level of access really struck me, and I think GenAI can really equalize the playing field.”
Petrenko then adds an optimistic perspective of operating from the developing nations— “We have done things at a really reasonable price. So it’s much more cost-efficient to have a team based in Ukraine.”
Ahluwalia throws in a great point on the table about the importance of inclusion of women— “I think how we take women along with us on this AI journey, is upon all of us. I really hope that five years from now, we should have civil women billionaires who have leveraged AI to actually generate wealth for themselves, and for others. That will be the mark of us doing well.”
Impressed by the remark, Amelia quips cheerfully, “I do plan to become a billionaire with this plan.”
Regulatory Implications and Ethical Concerns over the Extent of Usage of GenAI
Amelia touches upon how to cope with what the future of the GenAI regulatory landscape may unfold— “I had a conversation recently with a professor at Stanford Law, about the intersection of tech and law right now. And he said that one of the things that is the most exciting to him today is that, right since the internet was starting, this is the first time startups are really getting to compete with the big guys. I asked, how much should we be worrying about keeping up with the regulations? A lot of this stuff hasn’t even been written yet. He said, it’s going to get figured out, but it’s going to take years. (In the meantime,) go build.”
Ahluwalia stresses the idea of not stopping building due to regulatory disparity— “It (the legislation) will not catch up with AI for the next 5-10 years… If you value something, don’t put it on ChatGPT… Most of the wealth right now is cornered by the same segment of people. But GenAI will unlock massive things. You will actually unlock massive opportunities, and that’s where we need to go.”
Moroyan advises building with a futuristic approach— “Make sure you’re not running PII information, Personal Identifiable Information, through ChatGPT. Make sure you’re redacting that information even within your own models. Because you don’t want to open up for a potential lawsuit down the road. Just take simple things like GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) into account as you’re building so that way you’re not putting yourself in harm’s way.”
Market Situation in Terms of Procuring Funds and Budgets
Rising interest rates are a cause of concern for entrepreneurs. The panel talks about what it takes to tackle these concerns and the action plan for it in the future.
Ahluwalia seems to be of the opinion that the funds are not scarce, given one has a substantial product. He reassures— “I think amongst the VCs, the frenzy and the interest in AI is already there. We thought it’ll be materialized in six months; it’s already there, so (money is) not an issue. There’s plenty of money out there.”
Reddy adds— “It goes back to whether you’re solving a real problem, a big problem? Do you have a differentiated approach? And can you tell that story? And if you can do that, then there’s always money for the good team.”
Moroyan explains the details about what factors affect when it comes to an enterprise deciding upon marketing through contact centers, and what are the difficulties faced. He says, “The issue right now is budget competition, more than anything else across the board. Everyone in software is probably feeling that.
So every CFO right now is squeezing each of their teams and their line items to say, like, is this necessary? Is that necessary? My previous company cut off over a billion dollars in just software, and we had to get to the EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, Amortization) numbers that we were shooting for.”
The Future Vision of GenAI
All the panelists finally go on to discuss where they see their companies headed in the next 3-5 years.
Petrenko says, “We envision ZibraAI as Canva portrait, basically creating all types of 3D assets with like reading, animation, textures, etc., for the next three years.”
Moroyan says, “Observe.ai helps your contact center regarding the intelligence layer. Whether it’s before a call, during a call, post call, or while doing the analysis, you need that layer. Not just the after-the-call interaction to make your agents, and products and services better, but also actually powering the interaction itself and making it much smarter.”
Amelia shares— “At Honeycomb, our vision is to enable anybody to take their family’s story from ordinary to extraordinary. And you don’t need to be a professional photographer, videographer, or documentarian to make that happen. We could just take your everyday photos, and turn them into a story, and do it for you magically.”
Ahluwalia says, “In the words of Guy Kawasaki, an evangelist for Apple, let a thousand flowers bloom. So I think with Ikigai Labs, we expect, like, hundreds of use-cases being solved through, in the next 3-5 years.”
Reddy concludes— “Virtualness aims to give creators the distribution and the ability to connect with fans across the globe. We have a creator disability activist. And there are 300 million creators like that, and wide platforms like Facebook give a huge distribution medium. But monetization is still lacking. And that’s what we want to solve with Virtualness, and help accelerate that journey.”
Disclaimer: The article is a transcription of the interview conducted by RJ Soniya Ahuja. No statement or comment in the article is a direct or indirect portrayal of the writer’s views or opinions. The interview does not intend to promote, demote, or demean any organization or community. It also does not intend to give the readers any financial or investment advice.
Soniya Ahuja, a respected leader in the Web3 and crypto community, empowers through Orbis86. With a background at Deloitte and Broadcom, her expertise spans two decades. Through initiatives like the 1111 Orbisons NFT collection, Soniya promotes diversity and community engagement. As host of “The Silicon Dreams,” she shares insights on AI, ML, and Web3, inspiring worldwide innovators. Passionate about educating and onboarding one million individuals into Web3, Soniya fosters adoption and understanding.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/10/04/generative-ai-facets-and-web3-with-entrepreneurs-from-bay-area/