Nobody Tells You AI Is Mostly Plumbing (Kevin Williams)

Kevin Williams is the founder and CEO of Ascend AI Labs. Kevin started his first company in business school, then spent years as the executive venture capitalists brought in to decide whether a struggling portfolio company could be turned around or had to be shut down. He went on to build product businesses by testing ideas with digital marketing, licensing patents and selling through Amazon, Walmart and Costco, and when Apple's tracking changes took away his visibility into eight figures of ad spend, he leaned into machine learning out of necessity. He exited those companies shortly before ChatGPT arrived and founded Ascend two days after it launched. Expect to learn the third piece of AI work that neither strategists nor implementers cover, why organisations without a strong tech function are the sweet spot for an external AI office, the first thing any consultant should build with AI, why a working stack costs about twenty dollars a month, what an enterprise context graph is and why it is the opportunity nobody has cracked, the mistakes companies make before he steps in, why so much of his work is now AI plumbing, what he would do differently if he started today and much more… - 0:00 Who Kevin is and what Ascend does 0:24 Turning around venture backed companies 1:51 Testing ideas with digital marketing 3:33 When Apple broke ad tracking 5:02 The missing piece between strategy and implementation 7:59 Who benefits most from an AI office 9:55 A consultant's first steps into AI 14:33 The enterprise context graph 17:28 The mistakes companies make first 20:24 AI plumbing 21:23 What he would do differently 24:26 Where to find Kevin - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Kevin Williams:   / kevinguywilliams   Website: https://ascendlabs.ai - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... LinkedIn:   / mikulaszach   Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com