Strauss AI Chief Targets 2x Returns as 80% of Enterprise POCs Stall
Ai4
Enterprise AI initiatives stall before production unless organizations ground projects in rigorous data engineering, role-specific upskilling, and a strict rule to discard any tool offering less than a twofold efficiency gain.
## Background
Published on YouTube by the Ai4 channel on August 18, 2026, this presentation features Ilai Soloducho, Chief AI Officer and Chief of Staff to the Group CEO at Strauss Group. According to the page description, the session explores why scalable business value from AI remains elusive, focusing on organizational psychology, team upskilling, and practical frameworks to transition from workforce fear to trust and measurable P&L return on investment.
## TL;DR
Soloducho introduces a dual-track enterprise AI model that balances rapid, low-friction quick wins with foundational, long-term initiatives directly tied to P&L growth. Using Pixar's Inside Out as an organizational framework, he addresses workforce fear of obsolescence through historical precedents like ATMs and radiology, advocating for role-specific upskilling that turns AI into an amplifier rather than a replacement. He cautions against low-yield initiatives below a 2x efficiency gain and warns that 80% of enterprise AI proofs-of-concept fail without rigorous data engineering and objective evaluation benchmarks. Emphasizing that enterprise AI adoption is only at the 'minute 20 out of 90' mark, he calls on leaders to cultivate curiosity, humility, strict accountability, and durable in-house data architecture.
## Atmosphere & style
The presentation blends corporate pragmatism with reflective, narrative-driven insights, moving smoothly between personal software history, pop culture analogies, and enterprise boardroom realities. Soloducho delivers his arguments with measured poise and analytical candor, cutting through breathless industry hype with sobering statistics about POC failures. The talk guides the audience on a deliberate emotional journey from disruption-induced anxiety to structured, confident execution, creating an atmosphere that feels grounded, strategic, and deeply attuned to human organizational dynamics.
## Key takeaways
- [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) The core mission of enterprise AI is not chasing technological hype, but improving decision-making to directly impact the organization's P&L statement.
- [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) A dual-track strategy combining rapid 'quick wins' with long-term 'big stones' (core operational/manufacturing initiatives) helps sustain momentum and deliver structural ROI.
- [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) Approximately 80% of enterprise AI proofs-of-concept fail to reach production because bridging the gap between prototype demos and production systems requires solving organizational psychology and change management.
- [04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) Enterprise leaders must act as an emotional 'control panel,' actively navigating organizational emotions including fear, anxiety, nostalgia, and joy.
- [04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) Historical precedents like ATMs in banking and deep learning in radiology demonstrate that automation expands service capacity and shifts human roles toward higher-value advisory tasks rather than eliminating jobs.
- [04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) AI adoption succeeds when organizations provide a 'Superman suit' that augments human capability through role-specific upskilling and mandatory hands-on experimentation.
- [09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=575s) Leaders must practice institutional humility by preserving working legacy processes and only pursuing AI implementations that deliver at least a 2x operational improvement or net-new 0-to-1 capability.
- [09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=575s) Without rigorous decision rubrics evaluating data readiness, time to value, feasibility, and P&L impact, an estimated 80% of AI spending becomes impactless noise.
- [13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) Unchecked enthusiasm must be tempered by replacing subjective sentiment with quantitative evaluation frameworks ('evals') and curated golden datasets before deploying models to production.
- [13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) Trust serves as the true North Star of an AI strategy, requiring cross-functional governance across IT, cybersecurity, plant operations, sales, HR, finance, and legal teams.
- [13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) Between 80% and 90% of practical enterprise AI effort resides in data engineering—cleansing, pipelines, ingestion, and governance—rather than prompt engineering or front-end dashboards.
- [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=1054s) Effective AI leadership demands continuous learning, humbleness, and strict accountability, ensuring employees and leaders remain fully responsible for the accuracy of AI-generated outputs.
- [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=1054s) Enterprise AI transformation is in its early stages (comparable to minute 20 of a 90-minute soccer match), meaning organizations must build internal architectural muscles rather than over-relying on external contractors.
## Detailed walkthrough
### [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) Background and the Dual Strategy: Quick Wins vs. Big Stones
Ilai Soloducho serves as both the Chief AI Officer and the Chief of Staff to the Group CEO at Strauss Group, a prominent food and beverage enterprise. His career in technology began at age seven as a self-taught programmer, leading to founding a social network startup at age twelve, accelerating his computer science degree, serving in Israeli intelligence, and working in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office. He spent more than five years at Palantir Technologies partnering with Fortune 500 executives and Western governments on data-driven decision-making, completed a master’s degree at the Harvard Kennedy School focusing on technology adoption in large public institutions, and worked at Google X (The Moonshot Factory) on AI for coding before transitioning to Google Labs to build autonomous AI agents.
Soloducho argues that the fundamental mission of enterprise AI is not chasing technological hype, but using AI to make better decisions that directly impact the organization's profit and loss (P&L) statement. To translate AI into measurable return on investment (ROI), he outlines a dual-track operational model:
```mermaid
flowchart TD
accTitle: Dual AI Strategy Model
subgraph S1["AI Initiative Tracks"]
direction TB
QW["Quick Wins<br/>• Rapid productivity tools<br/>• Low-cost licenses ($20/mo)<br/>• Value in hours or days"]
BS["Big Stones<br/>• Core manufacturing & ops<br/>• Long-term structural ROI<br/>• Implementation > 6 months"]
end
subgraph S2["Business Objective"]
PL["Measurable P&L Impact<br/>Cost reduction & revenue growth"]
end
QW --> PL
BS --> PL
```
While global estimates project an economic potential of $4.4 trillion for AI and indicate that 88% of organizations have initiated adoption, roughly 80% of enterprise proof-of-concepts (POCs) fail to scale into production. Startups often showcase dazzling video demonstrations backed by millions or billions in funding, yet a massive operational chasm separates a prototype demo from production-grade enterprise software. Successfully crossing that divide requires focusing on organizational systems, human psychology, and change management rather than pure algorithm design.
- **Dual-Track Delivery:** Running rapid, low-friction "quick wins" concurrently with six-month-plus "big stones" preserves momentum while building durable operational capabilities.
- **Enterprise Failure Rate:** Despite widespread experimentation, 80% of enterprise AI POCs stall before reaching production.
[04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) Managing Organizational Emotions: Inside Out Framework and Overcoming Fear
Drawing an analogy to the Pixar film *Inside Out*, Soloducho suggests that enterprise leaders must act as the emotional "control panel" of the organization. As employees encounter disruptive technologies, they naturally cycle through fear, anxiety, nostalgia, and joy. Rather than suppressing these human reactions, leadership must acknowledge, guide, and channel them productively.
The primary emotion confronting enterprise AI is fear—specifically the widespread anxiety that "AI will replace us." Soloducho counters this narrative with two historical precedents:
1. **The Automated Teller Machine (ATM):** When ATMs were introduced in the late 1960s and early 1970s, industry analysts predicted the extinction of human bank tellers. Instead, ATMs made operating branches significantly cheaper, leading banks to open far more branches. Overall teller employment increased, while the nature of the job transitioned from routine manual cash handling to higher-value advisory tasks like wealth management and investment consulting.
2. **Radiology and Machine Learning:** In 2010, the advent of deep learning for medical imaging sparked predictions that human radiologists would soon be obsolete. Instead, machine learning reduced imaging costs and expanded diagnostic screening capacity, which in turn increased overall demand and led to higher net employment for radiologists.
To convert fear into agency, organizations must equip staff with a "Superman suit"—technology that amplifies human capability rather than replacing the individual. This transformation depends on customized, role-specific upskilling (tailoring modules for manufacturing, legal, sales, or marketing teams rather than delivering generic tech overviews) paired with mandatory hands-on experimentation. When employees directly test tools against real-world workflows, their confidence grows, triggering a ripple effect of elevated job satisfaction and trust in executive leadership.
[09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=575s) Balancing Nostalgia and Anxiety: Discarding the Noise and Decision Criteria
Nostalgia in legacy organizations manifests as resistance to modifying established workflows. Soloducho cautions against forcing AI onto every business problem, advocating for institutional humility. Leaders must differentiate between what to preserve, what to discard, and where to create net-new value:
```mermaid
flowchart LR
accTitle: Legacy Evaluation Matrix
subgraph Assessment["Process Evaluation"]
direction TB
P["Preserve<br/>Working processes; leave untouched"]
D["Discard<br/>Broken workflows or <2x gains"]
I["Innovate<br/>0-to-1 growth opportunities"]
end
Assessment --> Dec["Informed Strategy<br/>Internal BU data + Industry benchmarks"]
```
If an AI tool promises only a marginal efficiency gain (such as a 1.1x or 1.2x boost), it is rarely worth the organizational disruption and operational overhead. True disruption requires targeting at least a 2x operational improvement or 0-to-1 business expansion. These priority calls must be validated using empirical internal field research across factories and business units alongside external competitive benchmarking, rather than internal political jockeying.
On the other end of the emotional spectrum is Anxiety, where business units attempt to tackle every conceivable use case at once. Soloducho warns that without strict governance, 80% of AI expenditure becomes "impactless spending." Organizations must maintain a structured decision rubric and evaluate a clear menu of technical options:
| Decision Criterion | Strategic Evaluation Factor |
|:--- |:--- |
| **Data Readiness** | Is internal data clean, structured, compliant, and accessible? |
| **Time to Value** | Can meaningful operational impact be demonstrated rapidly? |
| **Delivery Feasibility** | Does the technical overhead align with internal team bandwidth? |
| **P&L ROI** | Does the deployment meaningfully lift revenue or reduce structural costs? |
| **Solution Fit** | Does the tool balance budget, customizability, and workforce productivity? |
[13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) Joy, Trust, and the Heavy Lifting of Data Infrastructure
Joy emerges when an AI implementation clicks and workflows become frictionless, but unmanaged enthusiasm can introduce dangerous blind spots. Soloducho emphasizes moving away from subjective vibes ("this model feels great") toward rigorous, quantitative evaluation frameworks ("evals"). By constructing "golden datasets" containing 15 to 20 representative, manually validated test prompts, teams can mathematically score model accuracy (for example, achieving a 90% benchmark versus a 60% failure rate) prior to greenlighting production deployments.
Because trust was missing from the original *Inside Out* cast, Soloducho used generative AI tools to design a custom avatar for Trust, dubbing it the "true North Star of your AI strategy." Building trust requires deep cross-functional governance uniting IT, cybersecurity, plant managers, frontline sales, HR, finance, and legal teams to safeguard data privacy and maintain regulatory compliance.
Underpinning this entire framework is the unglamorous reality of data architecture. Recalling his tenure at Palantir, Soloducho notes that while executive clients consistently requested polished front-end dashboards and predictive visual analytics, 80% to 90% of the actual work resided in data engineering: data cleansing, pipeline construction, ingestion, and governance. Standard foundation models and simple prompt engineering have hard ceilings; achieving enterprise-grade autonomous agents and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) requires integrating curated internal enterprise data with fine-tuned foundation models.
[17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=1054s) Core Leadership Values and the 90-Minute Journey
Navigating the AI landscape requires five core leadership values:
- **Curiosity and Continuous Learning:** Technical assumptions become outdated every three to six months, demanding active, ongoing education across modern model iterations.
- **Humbleness:** Acknowledging technical limitations and respecting the specialized expertise of domain operators.
- **Strict Accountability:** Leaders and staff must take full ownership of final outputs. Soloducho recalls an incident where a presenter relied on AI-generated slides but could not explain the underlying figures, emphasizing that using AI never absolves an individual from knowing the facts.
- **Mission-Orientation:** Keeping organizational focus anchored on core business value rather than tool novelty.
- **Pragmatic Expectation Setting:** Recognizing that the enterprise AI transformation is in its infancy.
Drawing an analogy to soccer, Soloducho observes that enterprise adoption is only at the "minute 20 out of 90" mark—excluding extra time and penalty shootouts. Organizations should focus on building durable internal muscles, architectures, and data pipelines rather than relying entirely on third-party contractors and vendors. By focusing relentlessly, executing systematically, measuring empirically, and embracing continuous learning, enterprise leaders can successfully guide their teams through the long-term AI journey.
## Notable quotes
> [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) The fundamental mission of enterprise AI is not chasing technological hype, but using AI to make better decisions that directly impact the organization's profit and loss (P&L) statement. — Ilai Soloducho
> [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=4s) A massive operational chasm separates a prototype demo from production-grade enterprise software. — Ilai Soloducho
> [04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) AI will replace us. — Ilai Soloducho
> [04:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=248s) Equip staff with a 'Superman suit'—technology that amplifies human capability rather than replacing the individual. — Ilai Soloducho
> [09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=575s) If an AI tool promises only a marginal efficiency gain (such as a 1.1x or 1.2x boost), it is rarely worth the organizational disruption and operational overhead. — Ilai Soloducho
> [09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=575s) Without strict governance, 80% of AI expenditure becomes 'impactless spending.' — Ilai Soloducho
> [13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) Trust is the true North Star of your AI strategy. — Ilai Soloducho
> [13:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=793s) 80% to 90% of the actual work resided in data engineering: data cleansing, pipeline construction, ingestion, and governance. — Ilai Soloducho
> [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=1054s) Using AI never absolves an individual from knowing the facts. — Ilai Soloducho
> [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhnVyGMiYac&t=1054s) Enterprise adoption is only at the 'minute 20 out of 90' mark—excluding extra time and penalty shootouts. — Ilai Soloducho
## Mentioned
Ilai Soloducho, Strauss Group, Palantir Technologies, Google X, Google Labs, Harvard Kennedy School, Israeli Prime Minister's Office, Inside Out, Pixar, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
## Video description
Ilai Soloducho - Chief AI Officer & Chief of Staff to Group CEO, Strauss Group
With AI adoption at an all-time high, why does transformative business value remain so elusive at scale? While it is tempting to focus solely on the technology, I will explain why the true challenge of AI integration in the food and beverage sector lies in the human process and organizational psychology. This talk will illustrate how to navigate the complex emotional landscape of AI adoption—moving from fear and anxiety to joy and trust. I will share practical frameworks for upskilling teams, preserving what works, filtering out impactless noise, and ensuring every initiative delivers measurable ROI. Join me to learn how to prepare your organization for the new journey of AI leadership and turn early quick wins into long-term strategic evolution.
80%企业POC停滞之际,Strauss AI负责人瞄准2倍回报
企业AI项目往往在投入生产前停滞,除非组织将项目根植于严格的数据工程、针对具体岗位的技能提升,以及坚决弃用任何效率提升不足两倍工具的严苛规则。
Soloducho提出了一种企业AI双轨模式,在快速、低阻力的短期见效举措与直接挂钩损益增长的基础性长期项目之间取得平衡。他借用皮克斯电影《头脑特工队》(Inside Out)作为组织框架,通过自动取款机(ATM)和放射学等历史先例来缓解员工对被淘汰的恐惧,主张开展针对具体岗位的技能提升,使AI成为工作能力的放大器而非替代品。他告诫企业不要开展效率提升低于两倍的低收益项目,并警告称,若缺乏严格的数据工程和客观评估基准,80%的企业AI概念验证都会失败。他强调当前企业AI的落地仅处于“90分钟比赛的第20分钟”,呼吁领导者培养好奇心、谦逊态度、严格的问责机制,并构建持久的内部数据架构。
Strauss Group 首席 AI 官 Ilai Soloducho 指出,企业 AI 的核心目标是直接改善损益表(P&L)表现;通过短期“速赢”与长期核心项目的双轨模型推进,能有效破解约 80% 的 POC 无法投入生产的瓶颈。 (0:04)
面对员工对 AI 取代人力的恐惧,历史上的 ATM 和放射医学案例表明自动化能扩展服务能力并带来更高价值岗位;领导层应充当情绪“控制面板”,通过定制培训为员工打造提升效能的“超人战衣”。 (4:08)
为防范 80% 的 AI 支出沦为无意义噪音,企业应建立涵盖数据就绪度与 P&L 影响的严格决策指标,保留已有成熟流程,仅针对可实现至少 2 倍效率提升或 0 到 1 突破的场景立项。 (9:35)
企业级 AI 的稳固落地高度依赖数据清洗与管道治理等底层基础设施,这占据了 80% 至 90% 的实际工程量;必须运用黄金数据集与量化指标(evals)替代主观感觉,以此建立跨部门信任。 (13:13)
企业 AI 转型目前仅处于“90 分钟赛程的第 20 分钟”,管理者需保持好奇、谦逊与严格问责,重点强化组织自身的内部数据工程与技术底座,而非全面依赖外部供应商。 (17:34)
Reading summary
Strauss Group Chief AI Officer Ilai Soloducho argues that successful enterprise AI adoption depends on translating technical capability into measurable profit-and-loss impact, which requires navigating organizational psychology and unglamorous data engineering rather than chasing prototype hype.
Dual-Track Delivery and the POC Gap (0:04)
While global estimates project that artificial intelligence holds $4.4 trillion in economic potential and 88% of organizations have initiated adoption, roughly 80% of enterprise proof-of-concepts stall before reaching production. Soloducho attributes this divide to the operational chasm separating venture-funded video demos from production-grade enterprise software, emphasizing that bridging it requires solving organizational and human challenges rather than focusing solely on algorithms.
To ensure AI produces measurable profit-and-loss (P&L) impact, Soloducho outlines a dual-track delivery model. Organizations must concurrently deploy "quick wins"—low-cost tools, such as $20 monthly licenses, that deliver rapid productivity in hours or days—alongside "big stones," which are six-month-plus transformations of core manufacturing and operational workflows designed for long-term structural returns.
Managing Workforce Emotion and Automation Fears (4:08)
Drawing an analogy to Pixar's Inside Out, Soloducho contends that leadership must act as an emotional control panel to guide employee fear, anxiety, and nostalgia toward productive agency. To address widespread anxiety that AI will replace human labor, he highlights historical parallels. The introduction of automated teller machines (ATMs) in the late 1960s and 1970s lowered branch operating costs, leading banks to open more branches and ultimately increasing total teller employment while shifting responsibilities to advisory tasks. Similarly, the 2010 rise of deep learning in radiology lowered diagnostic costs and expanded screening volume, increasing net demand for radiologists.
To replace fear with agency, Soloducho argues organizations should treat technology as a "Superman suit" that amplifies human workers rather than displacing them. This approach requires customized, role-specific upskilling tailored for individual departments—such as legal, sales, or manufacturing—combined with mandatory hands-on experimentation on daily tasks to build employee confidence and leadership trust.
Filtering Use Cases Against Business Impact (9:35)
Legacy organizations frequently confront nostalgia that resists changing functional processes, alongside anxiety that drives business units to chase every conceivable use case. Soloducho warns that without rigorous governance, up to 80% of enterprise AI expenditure turns into impactless spending. Consequently, he cautions against implementing AI for marginal efficiency improvements of 1.1x or 1.2x, which rarely justify organizational disruption. Instead, initiatives must target at least a 2x operational gain or zero-to-one business expansion.
Prioritization decisions must be validated through empirical data collected from factory floors and business units alongside external industry benchmarks. Soloducho frames technical choices around five primary criteria: internal data readiness, speed of delivering value, delivery feasibility relative to team bandwidth, direct P&L ROI, and solution fit balancing cost, customization, and workforce usability.
Engineering Foundations and Rigorous Evaluation (13:13)
Unmanaged enthusiasm for AI pilots can create blind spots when teams rely on subjective impressions. Soloducho advocates replacing anecdotal reactions with quantitative evaluation frameworks ("evals") built on curated "golden datasets" of 15 to 20 manually validated prompts to measure model accuracy mathematically before greenlighting production. To anchor strategy, he identifies trust as the critical objective, requiring cross-functional governance across IT, cybersecurity, plant operations, sales, HR, finance, and legal to protect data privacy and ensure compliance.
Underpinning this operational model is foundational data architecture. Recalling his experience at Palantir Technologies, Soloducho notes that 80% to 90% of enterprise AI work consists of data cleansing, pipeline construction, ingestion, and governance. Because basic prompt engineering has strict limitations, scalable autonomous agents and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) depend fundamentally on integrating curated internal data with fine-tuned foundation models.
Soloducho concludes that enterprise AI is only at "minute 20 out of 90" of its overall adoption journey. He asserts that successful long-term navigation requires continuous learning, humility toward domain experts, strict human accountability for AI outputs, and building internal data infrastructure rather than relying entirely on third-party vendors.
[0:04] Ilai Soloducho: The fundamental mission of enterprise AI is not chasing technological hype, but using AI to make better decisions that directly impact the organization's profit and loss (P&L) statement.
[0:04] Ilai Soloducho: A massive operational chasm separates a prototype demo from production-grade enterprise software.
[4:08] Ilai Soloducho: AI will replace us.
[4:08] Ilai Soloducho: Equip staff with a 'Superman suit'—technology that amplifies human capability rather than replacing the individual.
[9:35] Ilai Soloducho: If an AI tool promises only a marginal efficiency gain (such as a 1.1x or 1.2x boost), it is rarely worth the organizational disruption and operational overhead.
[9:35] Ilai Soloducho: Without strict governance, 80% of AI expenditure becomes 'impactless spending.'
[13:13] Ilai Soloducho: Trust is the true North Star of your AI strategy.
[13:13] Ilai Soloducho: 80% to 90% of the actual work resided in data engineering: data cleansing, pipeline construction, ingestion, and governance.
[17:34] Ilai Soloducho: Using AI never absolves an individual from knowing the facts.
[17:34] Ilai Soloducho: Enterprise adoption is only at the 'minute 20 out of 90' mark—excluding extra time and penalty shootouts.
Original transcript
[0:04] So, hello everyone. It's great to be here.
Thank you so much for joining this session.
[0:09] Uh my name is Eli Soloduho. I'll say a
few words about myself before we begin.
[0:15] Uh so, I'm the Chief AI Officer and the Chief of
Staff to the Group CEO at Strauss Group, a leading
[0:22] company in the world of food and beverage.
Before Strauss, I worked in Google X, called
[0:27] Moonshot Factory, where I focused on developing AI
for coding capabilities across Google. Uh and then
[0:35] my team graduated to Google Labs, also focusing
on developing Google's AI agents and capabilities.
[0:42] Uh my background is pretty technical. I was
a software development since I was 7 years
[0:46] old at the startup I had at the age of 12, a
social network. I finished computer science
[0:51] studies pretty early, and I served in the
Israeli intelligence, worked in Israel Prime
[0:55] Minister's Office, and then I worked for more
than 5 years in Palantir, a big data company,
[1:01] where I work with key stakeholders from Western
governments and Fortune 500 companies to help
[1:07] them make better decisions based on data. Uh and
then I did my masters at Harvard Kennedy School,
[1:13] uh where my focus was how to leverage technology
in large institutions and governments. Um so,
[1:22] uh before we begin, I would like to say a few
words about the philosophy and the core the core
[1:28] vision. In the end of the day, our goal is to make
better decision, use AI to make better decisions,
[1:34] uh and deliver better outcomes across the entire
organization. But, what what does it actually
[1:40] mean, deliver better outcomes? And in my view, the
focus should be on impact on P&L. There's a lot of
[1:48] hype and buzz around AI, but I think it's really
important for you, as the leaders in the world of
[1:54] AI, to focus on the things that really matter,
the things that really that move the needle.
[2:00] And think what are the things that really can have
ROI and impact on our P&L. And usually I divide it
[2:06] into two categories. The first one is what we
call quick wins. It's not always that we need
[2:12] rocket science technologies to make AI in our
organization. Sometimes it could be a $20 license.
[2:19] It could be something that can unleash the
organization to run faster and drive productivity.
[2:26] And the second area is what I call big stones.
Those are things that for the long term. In the
[2:31] end of the day, AI is not magic. It's not that
in a day we can reduce cost by 10% or increase
[2:38] revenues by 15%. Those things take time. If we're
thinking about our world drive AI in operations in
[2:45] manufacturing, those are things that are for the
long term. Usually can take more than 6 months.
[2:51] Versus quick wins that we can see results even in
a matter of hours or days. And what I think that
[2:57] you as future leaders in AI think it's that
we should do both of them simultaneously.
[3:03] We should drive the quick wins but also think
for the long terms about the big stones.
[3:09] So, I think that you know, all of you are aware
of if you have heard of the huge potential of AI,
[3:14] right? I think it says $4.4 trillion of the
potential and we see 88% of the organization
[3:21] actually adopting AI. But we also see
that 80% of the POCs fail to scale.
[3:29] Right? So, we see organization using AI, but it's
different than using AI in a pilot or in a demo
[3:37] versus having it in production. We see startups
that raise millions or even billions of dollars
[3:43] and they look really well on the demo, on a
video. But in the end of the day, there's a huge
[3:47] gap if we want to scale it in a in a in a large
organization. And today, you know, the easiest
[3:54] thing for me would to focus on technology,
but today I want to focus on the process
[3:59] of the system, of what's the right way to do it in
order to really see results in your organization.
[4:08] So, how many of you, raise your hand
if you've seen the movie Inside Out?
[4:13] Oh, wow. Quite a few. So, I will
for those of you who haven't seen it
[4:19] This is Joy, coming to you live
in Riley's mind. Make some noise.
[4:26] Sadness is in the house. It's
Anger. Let me [screaming] at 'em.
[4:33] We got to get our mouth guard,
people. Fear. No, no, that's not ours.
[4:37] Disgust. Glad to have her on our team. Our
little girl's growing up so fast. Ow. Sorry.
[4:46] It should be nothing but smooth sailing from
Hello. I'm Anxiety. Where can I put my stuff?
[4:52] A new emotion. sorry. We wanted to make such
a good first impression. What do you mean, we?
[5:00] I'm Ennui. [gasps] Look at your hair. Oh,
yeah, not happening. That's on we. On what?
[5:08] It's what you would call the boredom. What's
your name, big fellow? That's Embarrassment.
[5:15] Welcome to headquarters, Embarrassment. Oh,
we're doing a fit. No, oh, no, go hide. Oh.
[5:21] You got a real sweaty palm
there, buddy. [laughter]
[5:26] By the way, it's a great movie. If you haven't
seen it with your kids or families, I would highly
[5:30] recommend. So, the movie talks about that, you
know, kids have feelings, right? It's okay they
[5:36] feel fear sometimes. It's okay they feel anxiety.
It's okay they feel joy. But, the concept around
[5:42] this movie is that we have this control panel that
you should control when you use fear, when you use
[5:47] the excitement, when you use the nostalgia. And
I think that the same thing happens in AI when we
[5:53] drive a transformation in organization. Our role
is to be that control panel, and it's okay that
[5:59] the organization have different feelings. It's
okay they fear from AI. It's okay they are very
[6:03] anxious about that, but we need to control that.
So, let's start with the first feeling, fear.
[6:09] When the unexpected is staring you in the face,
fear is there to keep you safe. [screaming] With
[6:15] speed and wisdom, fear assesses the situation
and settles your nerves in his own special way.
[6:23] He's got this. Thank you, fear. Get to know
all So, I'm sure many of you are, you know,
[6:31] hearing podcast and articles and and you know,
everybody's talking about will AI replace us?
[6:37] And to answer this question, let me take you
back in history to the late '60s, early '70s,
[6:43] when the ATMs, the automatic teller machines, were
introduced. So, instead of depositing checks or
[6:49] withdrawing cash with a bank teller,
you would do it in a with a machine.
[6:54] And all those and all the experts said back
then that, "Hey, now that we have the ATMs,
[6:59] we don't need the bank tellers anymore,
and their number will be will decrease."
[7:04] But in fact, what happened is that the number of
that bank tellers only increased. So, you know,
[7:11] the number of branches increased, and it was
cheaper to open more branches, and the bank
[7:16] tellers actually did other things, right? They did
wealth management, investment, and other stuff.
[7:23] Another example is not so so far ago, 2010,
when machine learning models were introduced
[7:30] in the world of radiology. So, also, people say,
"Hey, we don't need radiologists anymore because
[7:35] we have all the machine learning models." But in
fact, the number of radiologists only increased.
[7:41] Why? Because it was again was cheaper. You
could scale it more. More people could use
[7:46] this re-examination of radiology and now
we see more radiologists than before.
[7:52] So in order to confront the fear and to in order
to help your organization, so you would really
[7:58] need to focus on mindset shift, right? We need to
let them feel empowered. And it's not that it's
[8:04] going to replace us like, you know, like a better
version of themselves. Think about a Superman suit
[8:10] that you're putting on yourself that give you
extra power. So this is what we think about
[8:15] what we could give our employees when we think
about AI. Obviously upskilling them, giving them
[8:21] all the knowledge and the literacy needed in
order to be able to deal with the world of AI.
[8:27] And I think that it also should be also customized
to their needs. It's different when you see, for
[8:32] example, a training or or an exercise about how
to use AI versus how to do it in manufacturing,
[8:38] how to do it in legal, how to do it in sales,
how to do it in marketing. So this is also
[8:43] very important and finally practical learning. All
the time get their hands dirty. Let them play with
[8:49] it. Not just keeping in the theory, but when they
see the value, when they play it with their hands,
[8:55] when they see real use cases, they could
actually feel the the big big potential of AI.
[9:02] And what I believe this creates is the
ripple effect. So um I think that, you know,
[9:07] when employees feel that that when they use
AI, it also give them the higher level of
[9:12] satisfaction of their of their work. They feel,
"Hey, I'm working in a in a in a in a place that
[9:18] give me all those cutting edge technologies and
I feel that I'm working in an innovative place."
[9:23] So I think it's also really important
for them to feel satisfied in their work
[9:27] and also see that, "Hey, the the leadership
is actually committed to the process of AI."
[9:35] Let's move to nostalgia. Oh, remember when we all
finally came up to headquarters? That was like 30
[9:42] seconds ago, nostalgia. Yeah, those were the days.
Nostalgia, you weren't supposed to be here yet.
[9:49] You still have about 10 years, two graduations,
and a best friend's wedding before you're invited,
[9:53] but I will keep you in the loop, I promise. So,
look, not everything needs to be solved with AI.
[9:59] We need to respect the existing processes,
the existing ways that people do work,
[10:06] and and solve their problems. And we need
also to be very humble and understand, "Hey,
[10:11] what are the things that we need to
preserve?" Don't touch it. They work.
[10:15] Don't don't do everything about it. Don't put AI
on every single place in the organization. What we
[10:20] need to discard, what are those things that don't
work? Or what are the things that we could do at
[10:25] least two X difference. If it's like 1.1 or 1.2,
like it's slightly better than it was in the past,
[10:32] maybe it doesn't worth the effort, right? But
for those things that really move the needle,
[10:37] we need to dis- that we need to discard the the
old way and bring a new way, and where can we
[10:43] innovate? Where can we bring zero to one, where
we can bring new stuff to accelerate the growth
[10:48] of the business? And you know, my advice is
use multiple data sources to have as many as
[10:56] data points to make an informed decision. Not
just think about your intuition where to put AI
[11:03] or about internal politics. Think about internal
research that you're doing in the organization,
[11:08] working with people, going to the factories, going
to the business units, but also external research.
[11:14] And that means what is the industry doing? What
is the benchmark? What are other players doing
[11:20] right now to accelerate AI and also working
with consulting companies that have this
[11:25] type of knowledge. So, I think the mix of two and
being very data-driven here is the key to success.
[11:33] Anxiety. Orange? Who made the console orange? Do
I look orange? I didn't touch it. Orange is not
[11:37] my color. Not me. Hello everybody. Oh my gosh, I
am just such a huge fan of yours and now here I am
[11:45] meeting you face-to-face. [laughter] Okay, how can
I help? Um I can take notes, get coffee, manage
[11:51] your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things,
watch you sleep. Wow, you have a lot of energy.
[11:56] Maybe you could just stay in one place. Anything.
Just call my name and I'm here for you. Okay,
[12:01] love that. And what was your name again? Oh, I'm
sorry. I can get ahead of myself. I'm Anxiety.
[12:05] I'm one of Riley's new emotions and we are just
super jazzed to be here. Where can I put my stuff?
[12:11] What do you mean we? So you know anxiety is when
you know we want to do everything, right? When
[12:16] your organization they hear about AI, they want to
do all type of use case. Everybody wants to have
[12:20] it. But wait, 80% is impactless spending. And what
is really important is what should we focus on and
[12:29] even more important what would we not focus on.
And I think it's very important to have a clear
[12:35] defined criteria of what we're doing. Is it about
data readiness? Is it about the time to value?
[12:41] Is it about delivery easiness? Is it about ROI?
Is it a mix of them? But having a clear defined
[12:47] criteria of how we make decisions and in the end
of the day we also want to have a menu of options,
[12:53] right? Because we see I'm sure you're here
you're hearing from startups, you're hearing
[12:57] from large company. There's so many solutions
out there. So we also should come very humble
[13:03] and think about different different solution,
different options in order to really solve our
[13:08] problems. What are the things that in terms of
budget, in terms of productivity, in terms of
[13:13] customization really fit our needs here. Joy.
When everything in your life is going your way,
[13:21] that's when Joy takes control. This is Joy. With
an unstoppable spirit and unbeatable energy,
[13:29] Joy brings a smile to your face
and no, who cares? Let's party!
[13:37] So, look. For me, Joy is what happens when
AI strategy align perfectly and workflows are
[13:41] optimized. And you know, there's this excitement
in the organization. We can celebrate the quick
[13:47] wins. Everybody is happy. But, we should also be
very cautious of the blind spot. So, to give you
[13:55] an example, evals, evaluations, right? Building
those golden data sets. For example, having those
[14:01] 15 or 20 prompts that we do them manually,
right? And we actually create the output,
[14:07] and then we can quantify, we can quantify the
quality of AI model. Instead of just saying, "Hey,
[14:13] this AI model is great, or this one is terrible,
or this one is the best based on our intuition."
[14:20] We can actually use numbers. We can say, "Oh, this
solution or this model is 90% right, 60% right."
[14:26] So, when we use those evals, this is crucial when
we move from pilot phase to production phase.
[14:33] Having metrics and KPIs, and we'll talk about
it in a second. So, trust is actually something
[14:39] that is not part of the movie. I thought it's
really important, so I added it and I created
[14:44] a movie for a creature for trust, obviously using
AI. Console spins out of control. [music] One
[14:50] emotion brings the ultimate mandate. Meet Trust,
the true North Star of your AI strategy. Okay, so
[15:01] I don't know if the same as in the movie,
but try to did my best because I really
[15:05] think trust matters. Okay, trust matters. It's
not a one-man show, it's not just about you,
[15:11] it's about the whole organization. You have IT,
you have the security, you have the the people in
[15:16] the in the in the factories, you have the sales
people, you You the HR, the finance, you have
[15:23] a whole organization because AI it's not just
about technology. AI is not just about people.
[15:28] AI is not about process. It's a mix of things.
When we really want to do an an an transformation,
[15:34] we need to have everyone, all the relevant
stakeholders aligned about it. Clear ROI. We
[15:40] need to focus on things that matter and obviously
measure adoption. It's not just about the usage,
[15:46] it's about the value that the organization is
getting. Legal and privacy. In the end of the day,
[15:50] we need to be responsible, compliant, and
work very closely with our legal partners.
[15:56] Constant evil, we talked about it a minute ago,
and strategy. What are we doing and what are
[16:01] we not doing? Make sure everybody is aligned
about it. Let me say a few words about data.
[16:08] Data is king or the new [clears throat] oil
as The Economist magazine defined it in 2017.
[16:12] And in the world of AI, it's even more
crucial. So, let me person let me share
[16:17] a personal story. When I work in Palantir, I
worked with leaders like you uh in New York,
[16:22] in in in UK, in Switzerland, Brazil, Australia,
and others. And when I asked those leaders, "What
[16:28] are your biggest problems?" So, most of them would
say, "Hey, I want a fancy dashboard or you know,
[16:33] a fancy an analysis or you know, some In the end
of the day, this is the easy part. The dashboard,
[16:39] the reporting, the analysis. The hard part, the 80
90% of the work, even though it's not sexy and not
[16:45] everybody's talking about it, is data. And the
building the data transformation and pipelines.
[16:51] And once the data is reliable and safe,
that makes the rest of the work much easier.
[16:57] And same happens in the world of AI. If we want
to take our organization to the next level,
[17:02] and not just, you know, use vanilla LLMs and be
limited to prompt engineering, we would want to
[17:09] do fine-tuning, we would want to do rag retrieval
augmented generation. And for that, we would need
[17:15] to leverage our internal data together combined
with the powerful LLMs that were trained on post
[17:22] training on all the data in the in the internet
out there. So, data is something that is crucial
[17:28] if we want to have agents and all the other things
that are very very important for our organization.
[17:34] Um, a few values that I want to talk about.
First is curiosity. Even though that now you know
[17:42] ChatGPT 5.6, so you know Fable or Mythos and
you're top continuous learning being all the
[17:48] time curious about it is really important. This
world is moving very fast. In 3 to 6 months, what
[17:55] we are talking right now may be not be relevant,
right? So, we need all the time keep learning. Uh,
[18:01] humbleness, you know, we don't know everything.
Accountability. You should be accountable over
[18:07] the process, but also over the results. I've seen
the other day someone presenting slides with AI
[18:13] and I'm fine. I like people presenting using AI
to build their slides, but when I asked him, "Hey,
[18:18] what's this number mean? Or what did you write
there?" He was not accountable for that. He didn't
[18:23] know what the slides were. So, it's also important
to be accountable for the results of the AI.
[18:29] Mission-oriented and of course setting
expectation. This is just the beginning.
[18:34] Okay, when I joined X, I remember like
it was in 2021, I told my friends, "Hey,
[18:39] this is going to change the world." I could see
behind the scenes how amazing this technology was.
[18:44] And everybody said, "Come on, Eli. We heard
about AI." And then when ChatGPT emerged in 2022,
[18:49] everybody said, "Oh, AI. This is so exciting."
And everybody is all the time talking about it.
[18:55] So, even here I'm saying, "Hey, this is a long
journey." If you like soccer like me or you watch
[19:00] the World Cup, I would say we're in minute 20 out
of 90 not including extra time and penalties. So,
[19:06] this is a long long journey and I think it's very
important for you to build this internal muscle
[19:11] in your organization and not just rely on vendors
and and other contractors so because we need to
[19:17] prepare ourselves and the infrastructure
for the future. Prepare your org, focus,
[19:23] execute and measure and keep learning and
you will enjoy the ride. Thank you very much.