Interview #80 Raj Shukla, CTO of SymphonyAI

Join Raj Shukla, CTO of SymphonyAI, as he discusses the critical distinction between AI demos and production-ready systems, revealing that enterprises consistently underestimate the "last mile" challenges of authentication, authorization, and data scalability that break POCs when moving to production. Shukla explains how SymphonyAI's vertical AI approach pre-trains models on industry-specific ontologies and knowledge graphs for retail, financial services, industrial manufacturing, and enterprise IT, enabling faster ROI by providing pre-built agents and domain-specific context rather than expecting generic LLMs to solve everything. He addresses the hidden costs that shock CFOs—not LLM inference which has dropped 1000x, but the expensive work of making data and APIs AI-ready through proper governance layers and MCP server implementations, while warning that enterprises overestimate the autonomy achievable in the short term and underestimate the infrastructure work required for real process automation at scale.

Join Balaji Raghavan, Head of Engineering at Postman, as he discusses the critical gap between AI adoption and API readiness, revealing that while 80% of developers use AI, only 24% design APIs with AI agents as the intended consumer. Drawing from Postman's 40 million developer user base, Raghavan explains how human-designed APIs create ambiguity problems for AI systems, requiring additional tooling layers that often introduce security vulnerabilities through proxy credentials and unauthorized access risks. He addresses the uncomfortable reality that the industry is still in early stages of making AI reliably call APIs at scale, with hallucinations and context limitations preventing effective orchestration across hundreds of endpoints, while warning that judicious leaders must distinguish between deterministic flows and cases where expensive AI-based approaches are truly necessary to manage infrastructure costs and prevent cascade failures.

Join Stelios Diamantidis, Chief Product Officer at Cognichip, as he explores how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing semiconductor development by enabling more holistic design processes that can reduce development time by half and costs by 75%. He discusses how AI tackles complex challenges across the entire chip design workflow—from early product definition through manufacturing—including verification, debugging, and hardware-software co-design optimization. Diamantidis envisions a near future where AI agents serve as true co-designers, helping engineers navigate the complex trade-offs between performance, power efficiency, and chip area while enabling rapid creation of bespoke accelerators tailored to specific AI workloads.

Join Paul Canetti, CEO of Skej, as he discusses the unique challenges of building AI products that operate without traditional user interfaces, instead functioning as virtual humans with email addresses, phone numbers, and Slack handles that interact through natural language. Drawing from his experience in UX design at Apple during the iPhone era, Canetti explains how building non-deterministic AI systems fundamentally differs from traditional software, requiring multiple quality assurance layers to prevent hallucinations and ensure AI assistants know when to remain silent in group conversations. He explores the shift toward anthropomorphized AI assistants with distinct personalities, arguing that as forms become obsolete and natural language interfaces become mainstream, the future lies in liberating people to do uniquely human work while AI handles generic tasks that anyone could accomplish but everyone suffers through.

Join Zachary Hanif, VP of Data and AI at Twilio, as he discusses the fundamental differences between building AI systems in regulated financial services versus communication platforms, drawing from his experience at Capital One to implement rigorous model governance frameworks that reduce maintenance costs while accelerating development timelines. Hanif addresses the critical balance between explainable AI and high-performing black box models, emphasizing that organizations must identify where their use cases fall on the explainability spectrum rather than applying blanket requirements. He explores privacy-by-design principles for real-time AI systems, the challenge of moving from proof-of-concept to production (with 80% of AI pilots failing), and provides a practical framework for successful AI implementation that includes clear objective criteria, close collaboration between technical teams and domain experts, and properly tempered expectations for experimental development timelines.

Join Santosh Kaveti, CEO of ProArch, as he addresses the critical gap between AI ambition and execution in enterprise environments, where despite widespread C-suite commitment, only a quarter of organizations achieve meaningful AI implementation. Kaveti outlines his four-pillar framework for AI operationalization, emphasizing that AI adoption is fundamentally a people and culture problem rather than a technology issue, with 63% of companies lacking basic AI governance policies. He discusses the growing challenges of shadow AI usage, the convergence of IT and operational technology creating new security vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, and how organizations can build compliance frameworks that won't become obsolete as AI regulations continue to evolve rapidly.

Join Suman Kanuganti, CEO of Personal AI, as he discusses the shift away from the one-size-fits-all approach of large language models toward specialized personal language models that capture individual decision-making patterns and expertise. Kanuganti explains how artificial personal intelligence differs from artificial general intelligence, focusing on creating AI personas that can run efficiently on edge devices rather than requiring massive cloud infrastructure while maintaining privacy-by-design architecture. He examines the future of distributed AI systems and how smaller, specialized models can deliver superior performance for specific use cases while addressing the fundamental scalability and cost challenges facing the current AI industry dominated by power-hungry large language models.

Join Jay Dawani, CEO of Lemurian Labs, as he discusses the critical infrastructure challenges facing AI development and his company's efforts to rebuild the AI software stack from the ground up. Drawing from his experience as a former NASA AI advisor working on Mars Rover navigation and exoplanet research, Dawani explains how current AI systems are plagued by massive inefficiencies, with some data centers operating at only 10-15% utilization despite consuming enormous amounts of energy. The conversation explores how the industry must shift from kernel-based programming models designed for single GPUs to dynamic runtime systems that can efficiently manage communication and memory across hundreds of thousands of processors, ultimately making advanced AI more accessible and sustainable.

Join Richard White, CEO of Fathom, as he discusses how AI is transforming workplace productivity through intelligent meeting transcription and note-taking solutions. White explains how modern AI can now write better notes than most humans within 30 seconds of a meeting ending, while also enabling companies to capture and disseminate organizational knowledge more effectively by analyzing patterns across thousands of hours of meetings. The conversation explores the evolution from basic transcription services to sophisticated AI workflows that can generate action items, update CRMs, and provide executives with real-time alerts about important developments across their teams, ultimately reshaping how organizations communicate and collaborate in an AI-first workplace.

Join Nadia Harhen, General Manager of AI Simulation at SandboxAQ, and Jordan Crivelli-Decker from the Biosim team as they discuss how Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) are revolutionizing drug discovery and materials science by generating synthetic data through physics-based computational chemistry rather than just predicting outcomes like traditional language models. They explain how this approach accelerates drug development timelines, reduces animal testing needs, and enables breakthrough solutions for complex molecular problems that conventional software cannot handle, including work with Nobel laureate Dr. Stanley Prusiner that moved from research to clinical trials in just 18 months. The conversation explores how combining quantum mechanics principles with machine learning creates novel molecular IP across industries from pharmaceuticals to defense applications, bridging the gap between AI capabilities and practical scientific breakthroughs.