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hello and welcome to the techie podcast
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on the role of ai
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in transforming businesses and jobs
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artificial intelligence or ai brought in
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the industrial revolution
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and is changing the business landscape
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significantly
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it has created a disruption across
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sectors beyond productivity
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the current capabilities and future
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potential of ai are essentially
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limitless ai applications have led to
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enhanced automation
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of complex processes personalized
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customer experience
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improved risk management and much more
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we are witnessing the biggest evolution
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of the working era with the digital
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transformation
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now that we are gradually adopting the
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digital workspaces
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ai is eliminating job profiles still
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remains a concern
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folks in today's podcast we are in
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conversation with an expert who will
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take us through the digital shift
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ai is making please join me in welcoming
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prachand khati
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who is a partner with deloitte india in
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the consulting business
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working on analytics and cognition he
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comes with 20 plus years of experience
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in technology analytics product
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management and strategic marketing
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he has set up and grown multiple
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businesses in the technology
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and data analytics space welcome to the
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show prashanth
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thanks for pretty happy to be here thank
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you for having me
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let's move on and get going with the
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questions okay so the first one here i
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have for you is that how is ai
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revolutionizing
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the future of work in india
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right so aio's or artificial
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intelligence
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is revolutionizing both businesses
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and work in india so in terms of
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businesses i think there are a whole
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bunch of new
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transformations business models whether
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it is
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how we work with our customers how we
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service them how we run our operations
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how we run our processes etc
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and from a work perspective there are
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three broad changes
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that we see that are happening in the
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market
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among clients the first is efficiency of
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work
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and there's the whole concept of super
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jobs and super teams
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that we're seeing how do technology and
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people
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interact with each other and create
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superior impact
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the second one is in the deficit
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efficacy of decision making
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which is moving from decision making
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which
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might be based on past data and if
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experience
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into an ai driven recommendation to
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take specific decisions and thirdly
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uh and little ironically in unleashing
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creativity of
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uh the human workforce and as a deloitte
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we call it the age of width
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where machines work with humans
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uh bringing the best of each other and
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unleashing the creativity that
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humans have to inspire basically the
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humans
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uh to to do better in the workplace so
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i would say these these are the
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significant changes that we are seeing
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that artificial intelligence is driving
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in efficiency
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efficacy and creativity
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right tell us about the trends of
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increased application of analytics and
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cognitive tools
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so uh analytics and cognitive tools
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are pretty much ubiquitous in
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enterprises
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of these uh and in fact the pandemic has
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given a major boost to it
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uh whether it is for example what we
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call the customer facing functions
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sales and marketing customer service and
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experience
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etc or we look at in
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the what we call the middle office which
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is operations supply chain
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risk so on in multiple industries
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as well as internal processes which are
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hrit et cetera in each of these
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there is a significant drive
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which analytics and cognitive
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technologies are making so just for
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example in
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in especially given the pandemic
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most of our interactions uh you know
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earlier
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customers could walk into a workspace or
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into a retail space into a showroom
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and there could be multiple brand and
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stimuli they would be exposed to various
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nudges they would experience
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uh getting products from factory to
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points of sale and to customers there
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were different models that were being
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followed
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internally having people uh you know on
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board
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embrace the culture of an organization
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the technology processes
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that were that were there there were a
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number of ways of working that were
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there
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each of these has been now disrupted by
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ai
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and driven because of the necessity to
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be virtual
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across as well so uh
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personalizing the interaction with the
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customers
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nudging them to buy more and engage more
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efficiency or reliability of the supply
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chain to reach
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products to customers uh at a reasonable
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cost
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uh ensuring that our workforce is
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engaged
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and also we are on boarding looking at
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people who are likely to leave the
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organization etc
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and create good programs and
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interventions for employee engagement so
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across all of these
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ai is actually playing a very very
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important role
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and more broadly the tools of analytics
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and cognitive
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technologies so that that was a very
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holistic
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review of the entire segment where we
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can see
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ai working this actually actually brings
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me to another
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question here that uh you know how are
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companies reinventing technology through
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ai in the digital space
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companies are you know obviously uh you
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know while
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uh corvid has been a very difficult time
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i think in the lighter way
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it has been suggested that kovit has
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done more for
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the digital transformation agenda than
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probably most other drivers because it
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has become from a good to have
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to a must-have whether it's for large
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companies family driven companies small
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companies etc
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now where analytics and let me take
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maybe a couple of examples
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uh to to sort of make the point uh even
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stronger
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uh one of our clients uh had to shut
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down their entire set of
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uh showrooms and uh retail spaces
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available
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uh and they were you know present both
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uh
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across the country uh and therefore uh
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the digital agenda
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driven by ai was very critical um and it
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was a high value
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item which means even storing inventory
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is a problem
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therefore uh you know how do we reach
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customers
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how do we assure customers how do we
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make sure that
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their consumption patterns continue as
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well as to minimize
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the level of inventory that already
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exists how do we minimize it
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and going forward how do we plan the
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business better right so
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all of this was enabled through ai
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algorithms and then through a digital
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storefront and commerce
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which was as well as for internal
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processes
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another client of ours for example uh
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had a product business uh which
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obviously costs a lot of money to buy
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products up front
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and it has a certain life of a product
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so for example
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uh if i buy a pair of headphones maybe
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it has 12 months
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that i can use a mobile phone as 24
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months etc so this company's products
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they wanted to start as a service
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business model
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and create a new business model but
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obviously they have two basic
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issues one is how do we price this
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because there is no history of it it's a
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new business model
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in the new market and secondly how do we
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make sure
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that the life of the product is
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tracked and enhanced so that ebitda
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is is positive and you know profits
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profitability is maintained
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now for both of these there are
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different types of uh
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ai and machine learning models that were
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created a number of models but
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for to answer these two questions and
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therefore
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they are now in a new business model as
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well which is an as a service business
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model
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so obviously also a lot of companies
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if they've onboarded every employee in a
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remote fashion in the last
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12 15 months so the culture of the
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organization how to look at the right
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fits in the organization
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how to look at cvs and shortlist and
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hire the right people
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if certain people want to leave how do
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we engage better with them etc
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so even from the third example of course
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where
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employee engagement is being driven
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through ai and
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machine learning as well so across the
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board uh just to give a few examples but
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the digital
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uh transformation agenda is now what
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ceos are
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discussing and cxos as opposed to
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earlier
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and it is an essential for today
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and it's not a good to have for tomorrow
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rightly i just love those phrases you've
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used prashanth
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moving on to the you know since we were
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talking about employees here
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i would want to know that how do you
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think ai is reshaping the entire job
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market
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for employees
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so in terms of employees i think
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uh broadly what what ai is is doing
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is you know uh
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reshaping jobs in in three ways
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so the first is that uh the
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jobs such as for example let's take
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finance where
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there was a certain ways of working that
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were done now
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after the advent of ai and allied
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technologies there is a whole bunch of
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areas which necessitates finance
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professionals to not only be familiar
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with some of the parts of ai but be able
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to utilize
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uh you know some of the parts for the
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work products which are delivered
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through
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intelligent automation or through
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machines uh or as we call them right
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uh so that is one level of skilling up
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skilling that
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employees within the organizations have
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had to do
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and their work content has therefore
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changed the second
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is for example business leaders so
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earlier and and all of the points that
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we were talking about of
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analytics driven transformations and
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business models
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is eventually driven through business
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decisions and business leaders therefore
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have had to make sure that they are more
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savvy
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and we actually run a program called
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tech savvy uh to
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how do we make sure that uh people
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who sort of spent a lot of years in the
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industry
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who may not have exposure to modern
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technologies
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uh at the same level as maybe some of
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our millennials do
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how do we sort of ensure that they are
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able to leverage and use
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this the power of ai and therefore drive
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the decisions that need to be made
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from them right and also
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obviously there's a whole lot of mundane
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routine jobs
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whether it is in support functions
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whether it's an operations function
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which are more easily easily now
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automated because it's not a
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rule based automation but an intelligent
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automation which is ai driven which is
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possible
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therefore necessitating that the people
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who
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actually look at some of these functions
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and
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areas of work are more savvy are able to
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add that value
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more from a business and outcome
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perspective of what their
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kpis or their outcomes or outputs are
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expected
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uh and be able to manage the underlying
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ai pieces which lie within obviously
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there's also been a whole bunch of
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things for technology
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professionals who directly more directly
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deal with ai
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and for them you know it's it's been
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a time of learning and being able to
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deploy and actually manage some of these
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models into practice
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all right what would you advise to the
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existing talent aspiring to learn ai
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tools and technologies
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right so i think with with the demand in
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the market
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uh and and then supply and dem uh gap
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between supply and demand globally and
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also in india
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uh there's a significant uh demand for
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talent
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which is uh ai and ml uh
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educated so to say so there's obviously
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a whole bunch of courses uh which are
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available
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and a lot of professionals across
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different parts are looking
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at how do they get into this so while
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there is a good coverage or a decent
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coverage
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of picking up technologies and
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techniques
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uh which are taught so for example
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languages such as python and r
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and certain you know techniques etc
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programming etc which are taught
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in some of these i believe that for
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professionals to
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make an impact and differentiate
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themselves over longer term
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uh there are a couple of other skills as
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well that
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is very important that they need to
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compare one of them is
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uh to understand the basics
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and the fundamentals of how ai came to
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be and especially some of the
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statistical techniques
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because at what time and
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what place do we use what technique uh
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how much of data is required for a
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specific technique therefore
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is it reliable to use a specific
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technique
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some of the ai techniques tend to be
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black boxes that is
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they lack explainability whereas many
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applications you do need to have
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some understanding of what way what in
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input variable has impacted what output
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so therefore understanding the
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fundamentals of
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of statistics and therefore being able
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to make the right choices
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if given a problem statement right
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that's very important number one
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number two i believe is also an
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understanding of the real world so all
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the problems we solve
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whether it is for individuals or
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businesses have a real world context
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and therefore also have uh a limitation
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in terms of the availability of data
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you know the the real world is never as
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perfect as we would like it to be in
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order to you know sort of build an ai
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model
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so making those choices how do we
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ensure that we retain sanity
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of the you know in terms of data and
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accuracy in the real
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world while looking at the limitations
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that are imposed
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uh how does the output of what we have
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produced actually help someone
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or a process make a decision and
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effect an outcome right so i think these
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are
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two things uh which are very important
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in additional to the
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in addition to the third thing which is
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the uh the programming and techniques
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which also are very critical not to not
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to
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say that that's less critical but these
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would make a more complete
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professional in the ai and ml space
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thank you for sharing so much
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information on how ai
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is transforming and molding the business
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and job rules prashanth
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it was an absolute pleasure to have you
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and speak about ai
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likewise uh thanks to kriti and
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pleasures all bye thank you everyone for
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joining us today please stay safe and
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take care of yourself we will be back
00:16:12
with another
00:16:13
insightful podcast very soon till then
00:16:15
stay tuned for more
