The AI Consulting Podcast

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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. Depa...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...