231: How to Let AI do the Work with Ajay Malik

05
Aug

Ajay Malik, CEO of Secomind.AI, is driven by his passion for leveraging AI to improve efficiency and productivity. Letting AI do the Work is the guiding principle at Secomind.AI, which helps incorporate AI into products, workflows, and customer support using their Enterprise AI platform, StudioX.

We delve into Ajay’s journey into AI, from his college days to his deep involvement at Google, and now leading Secomind.AI. He shares his AI Culture Framework, which has dramatically boosted productivity in his company: establishing an AI policy to mandate AI usage company-wide, leading by example, encouraging shameless and open use of AI, and continuously improving AI skills and applications. 

He also emphasizes the importance of curiosity and the ability to distinguish quality as key skills for effectively using AI. He recommends using multiple AI tools, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and others, to get diverse perspectives and improve problem-solving abilities.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Let AI do the Work with Ajay Malik

Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Ajay Malik, the CEO of Secomind.AI, a company that is helping you incorporate AI into your products, workflows, and customer support using StudioX, the Enterprise AI platform. Ajay, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me here. Very excited to be here.

Well, I’m excited too because you had a really good pre-call and I learned a lot about AI and plus I had a lot of fun. I expect we can transmit that fun to the listeners as well. I look forward to that. So let’s start with your personal Why. So what is your personal Why and how is your business connected to it?

Personal Why? Okay, so I have always believed that use automation or augmentation or whatever you can do to do things which can be done better. It’s almost like, you know what, I wear my glasses because I can see better. Humans have been always doing that. I’m talking like whatever the history we know, okay, we have always done that. And we’re wearing our shoes or using a stick when going up mountain, everything. We always augmented and to me, AI is a tool, AI is something which helps us do things better. That is my thing and I want everybody to use it.

Yeah, I love it. I’m actually right now listening to the Mars trilogy. And it was written, the third book, I think it’s Kim Stanley Robinson, it’s a man, his trilogy, it’s fascinating, it’s about conquering Mars and it was written in 1996 and these protagonists, they are using AI all the time and they explain how they are using AI and they’re using it very similarly to what we have started doing in the 2020s. So this book was really 25 years ahead of its time.

 I have to interrupt you. I have to tell you something so cool, okay, because you like to read and I want you to read one paper. It’s called the Computer of the 21st Century. Computer for the 21st Century by a man called Mark Weiser. I think it’s a paper from 1991 and the guy, I think we’d call him father of modern computing and something like that. I don’t know. It’s my inspiration paper and this paper has been talking about like this. Okay, what if you wake up you are tossing and turning in your bed in the morning because you are about to wake up, and then there is an alarm clock right there which can see that you are tossing and turning. So it slightly whispers, hey, time to wake up is coming okay and so it tells you and then it tells the coffee machine which is somewhere else, hey, you should start brewing the coffee so that he will wake up and he will get his day started. This is before Siri. This is before iPhone. Okay, this is before anything that was designed, which is doing computer image recognition and doing it. And the guy’s talking like, yes, this is how computer will help us in day-to-day life. He did not use the term artificial intelligence or AI or models or the thought process that AI, some assistant and everything connected and everything assisting us to do our job well. That was it, you should read it, you will enjoy it. It is a very inspiring paper. And it is like, I see AI exactly like this. Something which is there, a vigilant, overarching eye looking over me, helping me, or sometimes I talk to it or I ask it to do things for me.

Yes, love it. So I’ll check that out. So how do you get into AI? Did you read this paper and start to be interested or there was something else?

Well, it is so funny that I am my age has a connection to it So, I passed out in 1989 from my college in IIT India. And when I passed out ,my final year project was an expert system, AI expert system So I studied it in my school and this is like when the people say the new winter came after that. And after that winter came, when I took a job and everything, nobody talked about AI. So that was just my final year paper. And then in mid-2010 and around that time frame, I started getting interested into it. I was reading some news article. I’m a geek, okay? So to me, I always try to read and stay up on top of it. And I was one of those people in 2007 when iPhone came, I was in line for a day to get it first. Then AI was coming and I was learning and I was more and more fascinated in it. And then when I worked for Google, so much knowledge and talk about AI, I got much deeper association with AI. So I became an AI guy somewhere. Then when I left Google, I started the company and I’ve been doing AI since then.

So what you told me, which really struck me, was that maybe around the pandemic or maybe before, you decided that you’re going to switch, create an AI culture in your business and essentially make it skills no longer important and make it an expectation that everyone uses AI for everything they can. You said something like, I don’t even know if I heard it right. You said that you elevated the productivity in your business by 20 times.

Yeah, 25 times. Yes.

Yeah. So how did you do that? And what is your AI culture process? How did you do that?

Very nice. So with AI, one thing and as you said, AI is a tool and it tells you more. It can help you do things better because it gives you another set of vision on your data. It gets you another way of it does things for you. So I basically went into the eyes, I said guys we are going to have an AI policy. This is a policy for the company and the policy is everybody must use AI. I clearly said skill like, hey, I don’t want anybody to be focusing around and the differentiator skill is not going to be differentiated anymore. And I really believe that, skill is no more a differentiator. Skill you can get from ChatGPT. ChatGPT knows how to write in Python. ChatGPT knows how to write it in this. And I’m talking even before ChatGPT when we were using openAI and different other AI models. Even then I was like, I started pushing this. And now you have ChatGPT, which is an example everybody can understand. And I was like, use AI. I don’t like open a spreadsheet and try to analyze what pattern do I see in this spreadsheet from the sales perspective. Don’t look at things that I will do the work. Try to use AI to do the work. We took a trademark on the phrase, let AI do the work. And I believe in that. And we did that. We like, hey, and then what I did was the thing was like, be the example. And what that means, which is I was always even in the meetings, like I’m in meeting with you and, you know, sharing screen, I will share screen. And I had my own, I will like, I’m talking and I’m like, hey, I have to write an email and I will write and use AI to write an email. I was shamelessly using AI to show everybody. It’s okay. It’s like you know wearing eyeglasses. I am not ashamed of it. Same thing, using AI. Don’t be ashamed. People were trying to like people. I think it’s a human ego that I don’t need to use AI. I’m smarter than machine or AI or sometimes people don’t even want to tell that I am using AI and I’m excelling by using a tool. No, use it and tell everybody we are using this tool and this tool is good for us. And I want this tool to be available to everybody. Everybody should use it. And let’s differentiate between ourselves, not on the skills which the tool can do on the things, how I utilize the tool, how I utilize the AI and the people will be better who keep using, keep becoming better at using AI. And that’s how we will become better. The people who use AI, of course, there is a risk and there is a lot of real opportunity that some people will lose jobs, and but the main thing is the number one people who will lose jobs is not because of AI. They will lose jobs against the people who are using AI because your productivity will be so low, your quality will be so low, your efficiency will be so low, your costs will be so high compared to the people who are using AI. That I see. And that’s what I pushed in the team that no more, nobody, you know what, I don’t want anybody to, oh, you know what, it used to be like this. We are an engineering company, right, software development. And it used to be, oh, we have to do this. I have to do a research and it will take me time. No, research is instant. So let’s not go there. You can take, you know, what, 15 minutes, one hour, but it’s no more the research that is consuming the biggest time of your life. We are no more Google searching. Google search is a research where I am like going through every click and reading it and figure out which is more relevant. And so I push that. And that’s how I think and we are winning. We have a team which is producing so much. I’m so proud of the team and they are and it is like this. People have complained okay, ChatGPT is not getting this. Okay, it’s it’s getting confused. It’s getting lost. You know, these are the problems. I feel good that this is good. You are using the right thing. Use it ,the right tool and if there is a problem, then it is, and I tell you not just work at my home. My daughter calls me, I was talking to my daughter and I asked her, what are you doing? She said, I’m walking. I said, but why, what’s going on? She said, oh, ChatGPT is down.

That’s nice. That’s nice. So, Ajay, so let me ask you this. So if skills are no longer differentiator, I accept that. Everyone has to use AI. So what does it take for someone to be really good at AI? Is there certain talents that could be leveraged for someone to be good in AI? What is the differentiator between the people who use AI successfully and those that don’t? And don’t just tell me that one is using it more and being more diligent. I get that. But what else is needed for someone to be good at AI? What are the talents required for?

The talents that are required are very soft talents. And let me say, so one is inquisitive, curious. So what that means is when you ask AI, don’t ask and get satisfied by one answer, okay? Ask AI and use different AI models, different AIs, don’t limit yourself to one AI and use different and ask different questions and different ways and tell it, okay, even if you get a solution, don’t be satisfied with one solution. Ask for more. There are more solutions. Ask for other ways. Be inquisitive to find what it is, because you as a human in the loop will be the differentiator by selecting the right technique. AI will give you all things because you will not be able to express your use case or exactly what you want in the right words and the solution matching may not be perfect also. So you have to be always inquisitive. Do not stop at one answer or two answers. Go like I do like, hey, how do I solve this problem? It gives an answer. No, that will be the mistake if you do that. And that will be the differentiator, two percent, because you have to always expand your knowledge on the possible solutions and get that and use AI to get all the solutions and learn and use it for your learning and then ask also again, if it selects something, why did you select this? What is this? Why not do this? Be the Confucius. Confucius was all about ask questions. Be that. Don’t stick to AI. Take AI for granted. Learn. Use AI as a learning tool. That is the thing people have to do that. Very, very engaged discussions. Treat it as your brainstorming partner. That is one way to go ahead. Share on X

How do I develop myself so I can fully take advantage of AI. I’m thinking about in the traditional education system, I went to school, I get taught a lot of different subjects, reading, writing, arithmetic, and then chemistry and geography and whatever. Essentially, I got taught a lot of knowledge so that I can make sense of the world, and I can be more of a proficient person, I can do a job, and so on. If skills are no longer important, what is important? So what do people need to learn in order to be the person that can use AI effectively? Okay, be curious is important, but what are the skills that are needed in order for me?

What is the skill which is outside of the AI?

Yes, exactly.

Ability to distinguish quality.

What is required for that?

What is required for that is different because quality is different in every different product what you are building. So you have to be able to understand how that product which you are creating depends upon the use case. If there is a user experience of that product, if user experience is, then how you will create the quality in user experience. AI will not be able to do that. AI can guide it. That some things here and there but AI cannot tell actually. Okay, so you will have to use and so the ultimate skill is the problem-solving skill. That’s the other soft skill which you have to have. But you will use it for the quality determination like, I’m making this product. How will that user perceive it and understand what is that quality metrics? So having good ability to create good test plans, you will use AI for doing those things also, but you will have to think and you have to put yourself in those personas and you will have to, you will use AI to help and get help for persona definition also. But still, you will be the narrator of the play. How I use AI for this, how I do this, and you are connecting the dots. So you are the one who is connecting all the dots who are the ultimate running the show. That’s how you are using it. Yeah, you are going to use AI. I will use AI for writing a function, writing a Python program, or writing a test plan, but I will be the one connecting. But this is how I expect my customer to be using it. Okay, let me pick a very specific example. It will make more sense then. So, I am making a software for determining, helping a patient diagnose their disease. Person comes and they want to talk about it. So how I will ask the questions that is my thing. I should think that first 15% is me how will the interaction work with the patient and what will patient answer this? How should I ask this? And I have to be in really think, oh, but I cannot ask 200 questions here. Patient will like, okay, go away. So I have to find the right set and I have to think how to get that patient and then I can use AI to optimize, prioritize what questions to ask, get an idea of what questions to ask, what are the right questions to ask. But that interaction is my thing. Then that experience which I am giving is my thing. Okay, that is one part. And other side of that experience is how I will measure it. How will I, quality of it. So one side is like I wanted to build a good user experience. There is an AI, I will diagnose the problem, but whatever I am building, is it quality? Is it like the experience actually helped patient? Did the patient really like it? So what I’m building it to judge the quality. Was the patient annoyed? Was the patient comfortably giving answer and he or she gave the answers and how did the answers quality help me. And did I ask the right questions? All that part.

Yeah. Oh, so Ajay so what I’m thinking is and this is a really maybe this is an insight that I’m having right now. So a lot of people are afraid that AI is going to make us lazy. It is going to stifle our thinking because you no longer have to think. We can just ask ChatGPT if you have a question. But actually the way you describe it, what I’m realizing is that it is going to stimulate thinking instead rather than stifle it, because it’s going to take away from you all the grudgery that you would have to spend your time actually executing things and doing the research, actually writing stuff and doing all the execution stuff that is not 100 percent thinking, right? There is maybe 20 percent thinking in it, but there’s also putting things on paper and you’re typing stuff. And you can spend more of your time on thinking because everything else is going to be taken care of by AI. So actually, it’s very stimulating to grow our brains rather than shrinking.

You are on the money. I really believe that. Of course, then there will be people who don’t want to think. Who don’t want to think already.

They don’t think already.

So yes, Okay, but yes, but to me, I’m telling you, AI is like it is giving so much more catalyst. It’s so much more catalyst for my thinking more, my questioning more, my desire to learn more and everything. It’s forcing me to think more because I ask more questions. I am actually engaged more because now I want to do it better. I want to do it the best possible way. It cannot be done. I think the problem solving skill will only grow in humans.

Yes. So is there a risk that inequality is going to increase further?

Yeah, I do that. I feel that I feel really bad about it, but it will happen. And we have to figure out. I think as people who are more aware of AI, because there is a lot of world which is not even aware of what’s happening. Well, that’s how I think. Well, I’m saying we because I believe that we have a responsibility to think about the 8 billion people in the world. We cannot be just thinking about my own growth or my company succeeding. And I really believe that inequality will increase. There are a lot of people who are doing jobs like call centers. There are over 12 million people in call centers in India. And you know what? Those jobs will go away. They will go away because calling a person, a bot, getting the information, solving it, and with so much cybersecurity risk, I do not even want my data to be handled by a human in a remote country. I want my data to be handled by, like if I’m calling AT&T, I’m calling Comcast, Xfinity,

Yeah, but, Ajay, I’m not sure I believe that this will kill jobs. It will kill specific jobs, but overall, I don’t think.

Specific jobs. That’s what I’m saying. It will kill specifics. We have to work on that. But because that inequality, if we do not have those people learn how to start using AI to do their job better, you will still need those people because now those people will do something else.

Yes. I’m not afraid of because ever since the Ludus, we’ve been afraid of losing jobs and it’s not happening. In fact, unemployment is at an all time low. I’m thinking more inequality in terms of some people are going to be able to leverage AI so much. It’s going to give them tremendous power over the average person. So some people are going to be super powerful and most people will not. So it’s actually going to exacerbate. So already if someone is more learned, if they are more diligent, they’re going to be more powerful. And now with AI, that’s going to be something on the nth degree. So they’re going to be even more outside the norm.

I am with you. It is. It’s a fact. It will happen because you know what, the people who are using AI, they are growing. Our team has grown. I’m telling you, I had engineers and I had like staff who was not engineers and they grew. I had to actually increase their salaries. You know why? Because they were producing so much more now. I was like, no, they are doing the work, but so much, it was like they’re producing so much. So yeah, they were like growing and scale. And now those people are differentiated. They were like in support jobs, okay. They were doing help desk support and now they became so much more valuable in the team and they are doing so much more. I see them at a different level, genuinely. I am telling you, they are better. They are the top help desk support probably in compared to many other help desk support because they have grown up now and this is happening. This will happen. People who will use it, they will grow and the other side will suffer. This is why I was saying we have to really work on helping those people. If we bring awareness to everybody, I think those people will make, because a lot of people are, you know what, people get busy. People are busy with their jobs, eight to five, okay, they are busy and they don’t even have time to learn what’s happening in the world.

And AI is such an important thing, we have to bring it to them. We have to bring it to everybody. Share on X

Oh, Ajay, so I’d like to ask you something else. So you mentioned that someone should not only use one AI tool, but multiple AI tools. So what are the top three AI tools that you recommend people engage with so that they get a variety of responses?

Very good. First of all, before I go there I just want to say you know with AI there are three kinds of AIs. One is or you can even if you want to test two categories broad categories you can say the classic AI which is about looking at numbers big data and providing you forecast anomalies and data analysis. AI which is for data analysis. Then there is an AI which is a large language model which is on text where you can ask questions and it is sitting on the world data and providing the answer. So one is on the numeric side, data side, and the third is the classic AI which works on visual data. So to me, I see it like this. So you have three kind of AI on the number data, on the text information and the visual, okay? And a lot of people will not get exposed to the numeric AI. They should try to learn, use the other AIs to see how they can learn the numeric side. Like how do I see forecast? It’s my business. How is it growing? Is it going to put the numbers and understand what’s inside the numbers? That AI is not, which is available directly from chat GPT or any AI available today. That AI you have to figure out yourself how you do that so you can do better.

But that AI is a very, very important and critical part for your business or life. Share on X

And for that open source, a lot of software, a lot of companies, consulting people will have to go there. There is no easy answer there. It’s not something available today at least, which is like there is no tool like ChatGPT, which you can use for analyzing numbers for your business or doing something very specific. That’s where like we have built our platform StudioX. That is the whole idea that you can do numeric AI also. Okay, the data on that data. But the other AI, the language model AI, which everybody has access, you have ChatGPT, which is there, and which is the same thing behind the Bing, the open AI, which is behind the open AI, ChatGPT or the Microsoft Bing tool.

So it’s the same thing?

It’s the same thing. A little bit, but it’s the same thing, virtually the same thing. Same models. They are running the same models. Some new application is a little bit different but same models and then you have Google Gemini.

Is Gemini different?

Gemini is different it’s from Google yes and then you then you have Cloud. Cloud is another third good one, which is also another one. I would say, I would recommend these three to play with and use all of them to get your answers and learn. Right now, I will say that OpenAI or ChatGPT or Microsoft Bing are clear winners. They are really ahead of the game. But things are improving. AI, the world is changing. I think should stay like recently I saw Facebook Lama 3 model is doing very well. I’m very pleased with the performance and output of the Lama 3. So there are multiple choices out there. Use them because you will learn how they think. It’s like, you know what, you have a team, right? And where there are three people and they think all different for the same problem. So use them.

Yeah. No, I mean, I really took it to heart when we talked, I don’t know, maybe four or six weeks ago and you said you made it mandatory for everyone to use AI and I said the same thing. Everyone has to use AI we have to figure out how we can leverage it and we are using it for different things.

Do you see any difference?

Yeah, I mean, I’m not even gonna tell you what I’m using it for. Is that a competitive advantage?

Yes it is. You know what my kids told me? Papa, why do you tell everybody to use AI? It’s a competitive advantage. I said, it’s okay. I think it’s okay. So some things you tell everybody. This is one of those things. I want to spread the word. I want to tell everybody. It’s like a religion. You want to tell people.

I can see that. I can see that. So where do you see AI going in the next 18 months? What is going to change?

Quality will improve. Performance will improve. Speed will improve. Somewhere it is slow, it will improve. I also see AI will be, I will see a lot more chips, more hardware, a lot more effort happening in that direction. But I actually think the stuff which Elon Musk is driving the neural link right like you can put a chip in your brain and do it. Maybe not chip in a brain because that’s a big decision like I want to chip in my brain. But however, there is data, which is like, the brainwaves, there is data here. So whenever, like there are brainwaves happening and they are all the neural activity happening in the brain that translates into the energy and which you see that we don’t understand it. But these are very small ways which are out there. I think people will invest a lot more energy in putting AI tools, which I can just put because I think actually talking to bots, AI is also too much. A lot of times I don’t want to do so long conversations. So you know what I’m thinking and I want my thinking to be translated and an AI tool helping. I think there will be work happening and more work will happen. Neuralink is like, okay, you put a chip so that you can take care of your thinking and connect it to the world outside. But as I said, it’s a big decision to put chip in your brain. But if there is an add-on which can fit, I can wear it like airpods, right? Like I think Apple should do that. Put something here, put something there, and you know what, and then it works. I think that would be really cool.

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and they were talking about the new ChatGPT4o, I think it’s called, and how it is now you can have a conversation with the video AI in essentially real time. So it’s like 200 milliseconds, they can give you an answer. You can talk with them. And apparently, the companion application is a huge area where a lot of companies are working on so that you can have a companion that can emote with you and essentially be your friend kind of thing. And then I think Apple’s got this new visor that actually uses your eye as a cursor. That’s pretty powerful as well.

Pretty powerful, yes. I think technology is moving in very, very rapidly and in a very, very interesting way.

All right, Ajay, so if people would like to learn more about StudioX, what you can do for them, they want to connect with you, where should they go?

They can come to Secomind.ai, the website. They can come to me on LinkedIn or if they just want to like, not for business or anything, everything in the world is not about business or in purchase order. So they can, if they want to learn, they want to do something and they want to figure out how they do better in life or how they can use AI. They can schedule a one-on-one with me and I have time. I actually have more time because I use AI. So I think they can use, I can help them. If I can help them, I’d be very happy.

That is awesome. So definitely, I mean, take Ajay up on this. He’s not going to say it again. Book some time with him and learn, pick his brains. I definitely have put my company on a higher gear since we talked a few weeks ago, and we are super focused on AI. So Ajay Malik, the CEO of Secomind.AI, so check out the website secomind.ai, StudioX, and he’s on LinkedIn as well. So Ajay, thank you very much for coming. This is a super exciting time and a super exciting topic, and thanks for listening as well, and keep listening, keep following us on YouTube and on LinkedIn.

Thank you. Thanks for having me here. 

 

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