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Exploring AI's Pace of Evolution, AGI's Future, and Data Dominance with Adept CEO David Luan | E1855

This Week in Startups

Wed Nov 29 2023



AGI's Potential Impact on Workflow:

  • Speculation about the timeline for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and its practical implications in everyday workflow, such as AI assisting with task prioritization based on email content and providing proactive suggestions.
  • Considering AGI's definition based on its ability to execute complex workflows akin to human decision-making processes, potentially achievable within one to two years.

Innovative Data Sourcing Approach:

  • Discussion on challenges associated with sourcing training data for language models, highlighting limitations of traditional datasets like Common Crawl and emphasizing an innovative approach involving Reddit as a source of high-quality, user-endorsed information.

Multimodal AI Development:

  • Exploration of the emerging trend towards multimodal AI systems capable of understanding both text and images, signifying a broader scope for AI application across various domains.
  • Emphasis placed on building AI agents capable of executing sequences of actions to achieve specific objectives, demonstrating a strategic direction towards developing comprehensive AI solutions aligned with practical business needs.

Enterprise Automation and Productivity Enhancement:

  • Adept CEO outlines their focus on targeting operational areas within enterprises for implementing automation solutions, including processing invoices, managing data transfer between systems, and streamlining customer onboarding procedures.
  • Highlighting the potential impact beyond mere task delegation by improving time-to-revenue metrics through streamlined customer interactions, reflecting a broader goal of optimizing productivity and resource allocation within organizational workflows.

AI Reliability Concerns and Solution-Oriented Approach:

  • Shedding light on prevalent reliability issues plaguing existing agent-based systems built upon GPT technology, emphasizing suboptimal accuracy rates leading to diminished trust among users.
  • Adept's proactive response involves internal development efforts focused on refining foundation models tailored for generating precise actions in real-world contexts. These initiatives aim to address reliability concerns while enhancing overall performance.

AI in Business:

  • Adept CEO, David Luan, discusses the challenges faced by AI companies when pitching to investors, emphasizing the need for differentiation from established tech companies such as HubSpot and Salesforce.
  • The conversation highlights the importance of recognizing that organizations use multiple software tools daily, requiring workflows that span different tools and custom workflows tailored to specific users.

Monetization Strategy:

  • Adept's approach involves catering to enterprise demand by offering relatively high annual contract values (ACV) based on identified use cases.
  • There's a deliberate intention to leverage enterprise demand initially, with plans to refine and segment revenue streams as the company matures.

Path to General Intelligence:

  • The discussion centers on Adept's vision for its product evolving over time, enabling users to delegate tasks they prefer not to handle while gradually advancing towards interactions where AI agents become adept at handling higher-level responsibilities.
  • CEO David Luan draws from his experience at OpenAI and Google, highlighting the critical path of building AI agents capable of learning from top knowledge workers and understanding the consequences of their actions as essential for achieving general intelligence systems predictably.

Future of AGI:

  • Speculation arises regarding the timeline for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), with projections indicating significant advancements within one to two years in certain areas.