Last week, Barron’s published an AI Roundtable cover story with insights from five experts on the opportunities and risks surrounding AI. The article validated that our research and summit series is focusing on the right topics for the 500,000+ CIOs, CISOs, CDOs, CTOs and business technology executives who are part of the HMG community.
On August 8th, Tom Peck, EVP and Chief Information and Digital Officer at Sysco (and HMG Strategy Global Leadership Institute Hall of Fame recipient and MIT Sloan CIO of the Year), led a similar discussion on the hype versus the reality of generative AI for our Global CIO & CISO Executive Leadership Alliance (CELA) group. The CELA service is the world’s leading peer-to-peer executive leadership community for global technology executives. The intimate brainstorming between the CIOs and business technology leaders who are part of the CELA service enables them to tackle common opportunities and challenges being faced in their roles to accelerate business results.
Our CELA members receive immediate feedback from each other on critical business, technology, operational and cultural challenges. This includes a recent issue faced by a fellow CELA member who was seeking — and received — expert advice on the right global ERP licensing model for his company to go with. You can’t find this type of peer-driven advisory service anywhere in the world!
During the session that Tom co-facilitated with me, he and other CELA members examined several considerations for applying AI across the organization. These include identifying the various stages of AI being offered by third parties (e.g., under development or generally available) as part of their build vs. buy evaluation criteria. We also explored the risks associated with utilizing AI, including the potential vulnerabilities of utilizing large data sets, sensitive customer data and data modeling in AI use cases. CELA members were so immersed in the discussion that we decided to continue the conversation in our September 13th CELA meeting.
The Barron’s article also delves into critical issues related to AI, including how the market is evolving, predictions about companies that stand to be among the biggest winners along with how the victors in the software layers are still to be determined. I was thrilled to see that Moveworks was mentioned by one of Barron’s panelists – Cathy Gao, a Partner at Sapphire Ventures which has committed to investing at least $1 billion in AI-focused startups, including Moveworks. Moveworks, which has also been backed by HMG Ventures since 2017 and was recently named to the Forbes Cloud 100 as one of the top private cloud companies in the world , uses its generative AI platform to boost employee productivity by surfacing information and automating tasks through natural language.
I’ve had the distinct pleasure of getting to know Bhavin Shah, the Founder and CEO of Moveworks, over the past several years. While the future of AI’s impact on the industry remains unclear, Bhavin has a clear vision for how generative AI can – and will – improve the productivity of employees across the enterprise, as Bhavin adroitly shared in his keynote address at our 2023 Atlanta CIO Executive Leadership Summit last week.
Bhavin Shah will be a featured speaker at our upcoming 2023 Southern California CIO Executive Leadership Summit in Partnership with Southern California SIM on September 14 at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa. To learn more about Bhavin’s talk track and to register for the summit,click here.
