Beyond The Pilot: Enterprise AI in Action

Inside the 'Agent Economy': How 30,000 AI Assistants Took Over JPMorgan While most enterprises were scrambling after ChatGPT launched, JPMorgan Chase was already two years ahead. 🚀 In this episode of Beyond the Pilot, we sit down with Derek Waldron, Chief Analytics Officer at JPMorgan Chase, to reveal how the world’s largest bank built an internal AI platform that is now used by 1 in 2 employees daily. Derek shares the contrarian insight that drove their strategy: AI models are commodities; the real moat is connectivity. Learn how they scaled from zero to 250,000+ users, why they empowered employees to build 30,000+ of their own "Personal Agents," and how they are solving the data privacy challenge at an enterprise scale. 🔥 IN THIS EPISODE: The "Super Intelligence" Thought Experiment: Why raw intelligence is useless without enterprise connectivity. The Agent Economy: How JPM enabled non-technical staff to build 30,000 custom AI assistants. The Adoption Playbook: How to break through the "30% wall" and get the majority of your workforce using AI. Build vs. Buy: Why JPM built their own "LLM Suite" instead of waiting for vendors. ⏳ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction: The JPMorgan AI Story 01:45 - The 3 Core Principles Behind JPM’s Strategy 03:25 - The "Super Intelligence" Thought Experiment 05:00 - Data Privacy: Why JPM Doesn't Train Public Models 06:00 - Viral Adoption: From 0 to 250k Users 09:20 - Evolution of LLM Suite: From RAG to Ecosystem 14:00 - The "Moat" is Connectivity, Not the Model 23:00 - The Agent Economy: 30,000 Employee-Built Assistants 31:00 - Governance & Guardrails for AI Agents 33:00 - Crossing the Chasm: Getting to 60% Adoption 40:00 - The "Product" Mindset: Solving Business Problems First 42:30 - The Future: End-to-End Process Transformation 46:25 - The "Unsolved" Problem Derek Wants to Fix 🙏 SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR SPONSOR: This episode is presented by Outshift by Cisco. Learn more about their work on the Internet of Agents and the open-source Linux Foundation project: 🔗 https://www.agentcy.org 🎙️ GUEST:  Derek Waldron | Chief Analytics Officer, JPMorgan Chase HOSTS: Matt Marshall | VentureBeat Sam Witteveen | VentureBeat #EnterpriseAI #JPMorgan #GenerativeAI #AgenticAI #FinTech #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #BeyondThePilot . . . Subscribe to VentureBeat:     /  @VentureBeat   . . Subscribe to the full podcast here: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/venturebeat/id1839285239 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Zti73yb4hmiTNa7pEYls4 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/VentureBeat https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMQoSwszBxm5dCv2bdqGnJ0QAL9n7Ds4_ 🔗 CONNECT WITH VENTUREBEAT: Website: https://venturebeat.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/venturebeat X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/VentureBeat Newsletter: https://venturebeat.com/newsletters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We built AI agents by accident... and it worked. 🤯 In this episode of VentureBeat’s Beyond the Pilot, we go inside the engineering brain of Booking.com with Pranav Pathak (Director of Product Machine Learning). Pranav reveals how they "stumbled" into agentic architectures before the term even existed, how a simple text box revealed a massive missed revenue opportunity (the "Hot Tub" story), and exactly how they stack LLMs, RAG, and Orchestrators to handle millions of travelers without breaking the bank. If you are building Enterprise AI, this is the blueprint for moving from "cool demo" to production scale. 🚀 In this episode, we cover: The "Hot Tub" Revelation: How free-text AI search exposed features customers desperately wanted but couldn't find. Real ROI Metrics: How LLMs drove a 2x increase in topic detection accuracy and freed up 1.5x of agent bandwidth. The Booking.com AI Stack: A full breakdown of their Orchestrator → Moderation → Agent → RAG architecture. Latency vs. Intelligence: Why they don't use GPT-5 for everything and how they decide between small models and big brains. The Memory Problem: How to build AI that remembers user preferences without being "creepy”. 00:00 Introduction to Agentic Architectures 00:30 Meet Pranav Pathak from Booking.com 01:24 Evolution of Travel Recommendations 03:41 Impact of Gen AI on Customer Service 07:29 Building an Effective AI Stack 10:32 Agentic Systems and Best Practices 13:45 Choosing Between Building and Buying AI Solutions 18:51 Evaluating AI Models for Business Use 24:10 Challenges in Human Evaluation 25:06 Recommendation System and Data Utilization 27:26 Innovations in Travel Search 29:04 Journey and Challenges in ML Integration 32:08 Managing Memory and User Data 38:07 Future of Travel Assistance 41:33 Advice for New AI Integrations 43:57 Final Thoughts and Farewell 🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: OutShift by Cisco (Sponsor): outshift.cisco.com VentureBeat: www.venturebeat.com #ArtificialIntelligence #GenAI #Bookingcom #MachineLearning #AgenticAI #LLM #TechPodcast #EnterpriseAI . . . Subscribe to VentureBeat:     /  @VentureBeat   . . Subscribe to the full podcast here: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/venturebeat/id1839285239 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Zti73yb4hmiTNa7pEYls4 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/VentureBeat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our inaugural episode, we sit down with Ryan Nystrom, leader of the AI team at Notion, to pull back the curtain on Notion 3.0. Ryan reveals the journey of integrating powerful AI agents into the productivity platform and draws fascinating parallels between the current AI era and the mobile revolution he witnessed at Instagram. He shares exclusive insights into the development challenges, the critical role of tools, context, and curation, and how custom agents are poised to reshape work. Plus, Ryan offers essential advice for any company diving into the AI space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lift-and-shift isn’t enough. MongoDB’s Vinod Bagal breaks down how to modernize your data for AI — and why waiting could cost you your competitive edge. Host: Sean Michael Kerner Guest: Vinod Bagal For more stories visit venturebeat.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI is accelerating the cyber arms race — and former FBI agents Paul Bingham and Mike Morris say most enterprises aren’t ready. In this VB in Conversation, they break down the real-world threats targeting critical infrastructure, how AI is changing the attack surface, and why smart, layered defense starts with training the next-gen cyber workforce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Key Insights and Takeaways from VentureBeat Transform Event: AI and Enterprise Innovation In this episode, Matt and Sam recount their experiences and insights from the recent VentureBeat Transform event, an annual gathering focused on enterprise AI. They discuss the significant takeaways, including the increasing adoption of AI agents in production, the lack of dominance by any single hyperscaler in the AI model space, the focus on practical AI solutions over super-intelligence hype, and the evolving structure of teams in the AI-driven workplace. Highlights include insights from speakers at major companies like American Express, Google, IBM, and Zoom, as well as discussions on AI safety and the changing management dynamics with AI agents. Tune in to get a comprehensive overview of the current state and future of AI in enterprise settings. 00:00 Introduction and Event Overview 00:51 Key Takeaways from VentureBeat Transform 02:46 AI Deployment in Enterprises 04:37 Insights from Industry Leaders 08:48 Hyperscalers and Model Dominance 12:12 Real-World AI Applications 14:04 Focus on Practical AI Solutions 24:08 The Future of AI Teams 30:37 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Visa’s SVP of Data & AI, Sam Hamilton, joins VentureBeat to break down the hidden costs, trade-offs, and infrastructure realities behind running over 400 AI solutions incorporating 300 AI models at global scale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Google Cloud Next: In-Depth Discussion with Chief Evangelist Richard Seroter Join us for an exclusive interview with Richard Seroter, Chief Evangelist of Google Cloud, as he discusses the latest developments and insights from Google Cloud Next. Dive into conversations about AI advancements, the new agent development kit, and the multi-agent protocol, and how they are reshaping the future of cloud services and enterprise solutions. Learn about the balance between pre-built and custom agents, and Google's commitment to open-source and multi-cloud flexibility. Don't miss out on this insider look at the cutting edge of AI and cloud technology. 00:00 Introduction and Recap of Google Cloud Next 02:17 Interview with Richard Seroter Begins 02:51 Discussing the Developer Keynote and Agent Technology 03:31 The Evolution and Readiness of AI Agents 05:19 Google's Approach to AI and Agent Development 07:20 Comparing Google with Competitors in AI 09:02 Agent Development Kit and Industry Adoption 10:51 The Future of Multi-Agent Systems 16:04 Google's Open Source Strategy and Cloud Integration 21:11 Exploring Google's Interest in Agent Technology 21:45 The Future of Agent Marketplaces 22:27 Google's Role in Payment Processing for Agents 23:17 Community Adoption of Agent Protocols 26:20 Enterprise Applications of Agents 28:43 The Evolution of Agent Space 33:48 The Rise of Personal Agents 36:04 Balancing Innovation Across Google Cloud and Labs 38:00 The Impact of Pre-Built Agents 40:18 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cisco’s Anurag Dhingra joins VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall to unpack what it means to build a truly AI-ready network. From smart switching to agentic operations, Dhingra explains how enterprises must stay ahead of surging network demands — and why network intelligence is now foundational to scaling AI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Exploring Napkin.ai: Revolutionizing Graphic Design with AI Agents Join Matt Marshall, founder and CEO of VentureBeat, and Sam Witteveen as they interview Pramod Sharma, CEO of Napkin.ai, and co-founder Jerome Scholler, about their innovative AI-powered graphic design tool. Discover how Napkin.ai has rapidly grown to 2 million beta users with its unique ability to transform text into compelling graphics effortlessly. Learn about the sophisticated backend structure involving multiple specialized AI agents and the recently introduced custom styles feature that allows users and companies to define and perfect their graphic outputs. Perfect for anyone interested in the future of AI in graphic design. 00:00 Introduction to Napkin AI 00:24 Interview with Pramod Sharma 00:44 How Napkin AI Works 00:59 The AI Agency Model 01:56 Deep Dive into Napkin AI's Features 04:34 User Experience and Customization 08:00 Future Plans and Innovations 15:11 Technical Insights and Agent Structure 28:09 Conclusion and Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part 1: Inside the Cybersecurity-First AI Model LLMs are inherently non-deterministic — but more data isn’t always better. As Cisco’s Jeetu Patel explains, Cisco Foundation AI distilled 900 billion tokens down to the most relevant 5 billion to create the industry’s first AI model purpose-built for security. Part 2: AI Security: Built-in, Always-On Cisco’s Tom Gillis and Splunk’s Mike Horn reveal how distributed enforcement, self-upgrading firewalls, and AI-powered infrastructure are redefining security architecture and transforming what a SOC can do in the AI era. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally published in September 2024 As orgs race to progress from proof-of concept to full, scalable production in AI, there are many lessons and resets. Key to these are choices made around infrastructure. Intuit’s Credit Karma, with over 100 million users, has been one of AI’s success stories. Vishnu Ram, Credit Karma’s VP of Engineering, spoke with VB about those lessons – and how the learning will continue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NFL CISO Tomás Maldonado speaks with VentureBeat about defending Super Bowl LIX from adversarial attacks that potentially include weaponized AI, endpoint attacks, deepfakes, and finely tuned social engineering – and require collaboration with the FBI and Secret Service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally Released in February 2024 In his role as Global Leader for Tech and Digital Advantage at the Boston Consulting Group, Vlad Lukic has overseen hundreds of AI deployments. Now working with scores of enterprise companies racing to embrace gen AI, he finds that critical considerations are often overlooked, such as readiness of data and pivotal financial factors. Missteps such as deploying AI where it’s not really needed and neglecting the essential task of managing organizational change for seamless AI adoption can also tank the best intentions to capitalize on gen AI. He also has lots of advice on how to do it right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally published in July 2023 Kamran Ziaee, SVP, Technology Strategy & Global Infrastructure at Verizon sits down with VB Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall to discuss how data centers now must handle greater and greater demands. While high-performance computing used to be reserved for exceptionally data-intensive applications, like gene sequencing or self-driving cars, every industry is seeing real use cases for adopting HPC. Verizon is an example of a company that says HPC is now table stakes for many applications it runs in its data centers. While Verizon has consolidated down to three data centers from nine, it has also invested in multi-access edge computing (MEC) to ensure rapid response time for customers. We explore his unique approach to an optimized hybrid cloud, where many critical applications stay on-prem and highly elastic applications migrate to the public cloud to enjoy performance gains there. We touch on the Gen AI craze and the proof of concepts the company is running, which also point to a hybrid future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally published in October 2023 VentureBeat Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall talks with Mazen Rawashdeh, SVP & CTO of eBay, about how one of the world’s largest online marketplaces is using innovative technologies to power its data centers and reduce its environmental impact while meeting the growing demand for data processing in the age of generative AI. Rawashdeh explores the importance of fungibility between CPUs and GPUs, hybrid cloud, open source, running their data centers on 85% utilization and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally Published in July 2023 FedEx handles 100 billion daily transactions, from tracking packages to routing flights. To keep up with this massive data demand, the company has invested in data center performance, especially in high-performance computing. Ken Spangler, EVP of IT and CIO of Global Operations Technology, FedEx, talks with VB Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall about how the company has adopted the co-location model for the data center, which allows it to leverage the benefits of cloud computing while maintaining control of the technology stack. He also reveals how FedEx is partnering with edge computing providers to deploy “mini data centers” that can reduce latency and enhance security for its customers – and of course AI and automation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally published in October 2023 VentureBeat Editor-in-Chief Matt Marshall talks with Archana Deskus, EVP & CIO of Paypal, on how the payment giant, with more than 400 million users, is meeting the need for more computation, more power and more storage, particularly during peak periods — all while committing to sustainability and greater efficiency. Deskus dives into bursting capacity, data center consolidation, asset utilization, efficient code and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Originally Released in October 2023 How do companies identify the best uses cases for gen AI — and then navigate the complexity of AI-first products and tools to drive that innovation at scale? VB’s editorial director, Michael Nuñez, speaks with Databricks co-founder Reynold Xin and Vijoy Pandey, SVP at Outshift by Cisco, about the many factors that will determine how organizations succeed, or don’t, during a time of, as Xin says, bottom-up innovation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices