00:00:00 – 00:00:08 Nitin Bajaj Hey everyone, welcome to the Industry Show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj and joining me today is Deepika Chopra. Deepika, welcome on the show.

00:00:09 – 00:00:11 Deepika Chopra Hi Nitin, pleasure to be here.

00:00:11 – 00:00:15 Nitin Bajaj Great to have you here. Let’s start with who is Deepika?

00:00:16 – 00:01:53 Deepika Chopra The one question I’ve always been waiting for. So this is one question I always try to be honest and every time I get a different answer. So let me try. Deepika Chopra Deepika is born and raised in India and came to US a couple of years ago. I’m a mother, AI practitioner, spent more than 15 years in the financial services leading large scale AI digital transformation programs, turned into a builder, now a founder and CEO of AlphaU AI Groups, and also recently turned into an author of a book, Move First to Align Fast. Deepika Chopra If I look back into my journey, one thing that I noticed is I’ve always been curious, curious about how things work, not only within the technology or systems place, but also about people, right? Why decisions get made the way they are made, why we don’t see progress, even if with the best tools, with the best capabilities that exist. That curiosity led me through City, AIG, and it’s been learning journey for me. Deepika Chopra And all these through chapters, Nitin, one thing that I observed is growth does not come by knowing everything. It comes by the courage of asking better questions. If I were to sum up, who is Deepika? I’m a lifelong learner with bold ambitions, grounded by humility, and guided by the courage of becoming, even if the path is not clear.

00:01:54 – 00:02:17 Nitin Bajaj Love that. You’ve worn many different hats and have been led by curiosity. And that’s something I think we have deeply connected over just to explore, just to figure out what’s out there, what’s possible, what are the options that we can enable. So really love that. And looking forward to getting to know and feel some of those layers.

00:02:18 – 00:02:30 Nitin Bajaj So you mentioned AlphaU AI. Tell us what is it, but also why did you start it? What led to the moment for you to create and start something that is AlphaU AI?

00:02:30 – 00:03:04 Deepika Chopra Okay. So AlphaU AI, it’s a AI native investment intelligence platform designed for VCs and private equities, primarily the investors helping them to accelerate onto the decisioning process. So we help to source the deals faster, surface the risks ahead in the deal flow, and help investors to get to the memo generation faster. So we believe that within the private market investments, the process of decisioning should be explainable, intelligent, and real time.

00:03:04 – 00:03:41 Deepika Chopra Why we started with AlphaU AI, it’s a pattern that we’ve been seeing within the journey of leading AI transformation. And a system that we always wanted. Now let me go a little bit deeper into the why again. Earlier in my years within the AI space, very fortunate to be one of the early adopters in the field of AI, I was convinced that if we have the best technologies, people will use it. And that belief got changed when I started to see the patterns with the best technology, with the best skills that we had, with the policies in place. We did not see the needle moving.

00:03:41 – 00:04:06 Deepika Chopra And that resulted in AlphaU AI to build an infrastructure that people can move forward with the insights that are generated with the data and get the clarity to be able to make that decisions based on it. One of the thing that I keep telling everyone is insights does not generate an impact. People have to adopt what you’re building and that’s where we are leading into.

00:04:07 – 00:04:20 Nitin Bajaj Love that. I know you’re just getting started on this journey. Give us a sense of in the scheme of things, what milestones, what timelines, and where are you at today from that perspective?

00:04:20 – 00:04:32 Deepika Chopra Yeah. So we are in the early stages. It’s eight months old into the process of building the product. We do have the MVP and we have a selected investors that are helping us to evaluate.

00:04:33 – 00:04:49 Deepika Chopra But one of the learnings, as I said, initially we started with a mindset of, hey, let’s do the opportunity assessment and the risk alignment as well. So we’ve built the platform with the right data partners in terms of helping us to trade on the models and get the accuracy.

00:04:49 – 00:05:12 Deepika Chopra But again, the most important piece, which came out from my book as well in terms of the frameworks for the readiness. So where we are heading right now and the focus for 2026 is going to be how do I combine a product that has the technology, the best of the technology, but also a framework that helps to assess the readiness before you are making an investment.

00:05:13 – 00:05:16 Deepika Chopra So early stages, but yes, we are growing.

00:05:16 – 00:05:44 Nitin Bajaj That’s amazing. Now, amongst the many challenges you face, finance, investments, high regulation, different data sets, a lot of macroeconomic conditions that are happening that most are not necessarily aware of. Amongst all of these challenges, if you had to call out the one big challenge you’re facing, what would that be?

00:05:45 – 00:06:02 Deepika Chopra I would call belief. So as I said, we can get the quality data, we can get majority of the information that are already out there in the market as well in terms of assessing what deal is more profitable, what deals are more matching to our thesis.

00:06:03 – 00:06:17 Deepika Chopra We do have a gut instinct already. So if I were to break down the whole decisioning process, there is a data that factors in to a decisioning process. There is a gut instinct and experience that comes in.

00:06:17 – 00:06:39 Deepika Chopra So we are trying to accelerate onto a process that gives you a composite score. I call that a conviction engine that combines the unicorn opportunity score in terms of quickly assessing how profitable this opportunity will be for the investor. And then identifying the risks that gets identified a little later.

00:06:39 – 00:07:07 Deepika Chopra But the biggest challenge is even if I have all the data that are generated, how do you be confident to make a million dollar bet onto that belief and making them trust onto the data that’s coming is a iterative process. And we’ve been So far it’s been good because it is their thesis and we are providing a white label service in terms of looking at their process and helping them to accelerate on that.

00:07:07 – 00:07:17 Deepika Chopra So far it’s been good. I would not call it a challenge. I would call it a learning opportunity for us and building a system, as I said, which is more category defining.

00:07:18 – 00:07:24 Nitin Bajaj Now, on the flip side come opportunities. What’s the one you’re most excited about?

00:07:26 – 00:07:43 Deepika Chopra It’s a lot of things. So building a product that I always wanted, it was a dream. Not only I think it is a challenge that everybody was facing, so being part of that process. But more importantly, seeing something that is getting adopted and people say, yes, this is what we want, and they’re using it.

00:07:43 – 00:07:58 Deepika Chopra As I said, a system, even if you have the best product and sitting on the shelf does not give you a satisfaction, I guess the opportunity is, seeing this in the hands of the investors and being used every day is something that is an opportunity in front of us right now.

00:07:59 – 00:08:29 Nitin Bajaj And I know the opportunity will keep growing and more people will jump onto it. As we look into the future, I love to pause and reflect and I’d love to ask you for two moments in your life and career, one where things did not work out as you had expected, There was disappointment, failure, lessons, and another where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:08:30 – 00:08:56 Deepika Chopra Yeah. So I would double down on to one thing that I said earlier as well, the patterns that we were seeing. So when we started with running transformation in the large financial services, what I observed was we built a product with a mindset of, hey, we have a tool. Let’s apply it into a problem and we will be able to get to the solution faster and people will try to use it.

00:08:56 – 00:09:19 Deepika Chopra So coming in with a mindset of, hey, you have a technology first approach and applying it into a solution did not work. We shifted to a problem first mindset wherein we said, we say, hey, let’s identify a problem and use technology as an enabler to be able to solve that. Didn’t work because, hey, you did not take people along into that journey.

00:09:20 – 00:09:45 Deepika Chopra So realization for us was Hey, you are in the process in the journey. You have to make sure you’re bringing the human empathy and decisioning as part of the process when you are building. So one of the lessons learned was that and success when we started to see the hesitation turned it into more confidence in terms of adoption. That was shift in us. Yeah.

00:09:46 – 00:10:03 Nitin Bajaj That’s amazing. It’s always great to see those turnaround stories. Now, switching gears a little bit, we talked about work, passion, curiosity, and what drives and motivates you. But what do you do for fun? How do you de-stress? How do you kick it back?

00:10:03 – 00:10:13 Deepika Chopra Yeah. So I love to read. I love to, you can see, I am the set of books. So if I get time, which is very rare, but I love to read, I love to hike.

00:10:14 – 00:10:31 Deepika Chopra I love to volunteer and help. That’s one thing that I enjoy. So I do help kids with their projects. This summer we did a couple of AI projects for middle school with zero robotics and MIT. So that got me happiness in terms of, hey, it’s something being used in a good way.

00:10:32 – 00:10:46 Nitin Bajaj That’s amazing. Now, talking about books, is there one book or a podcast that is a favorite of yours and you would like to share with others and you can be biased. You can recommend your own book.

00:10:47 – 00:10:57 Deepika Chopra Yes, this time I would. If it was not this year, I would have recommended many books out of the one that’s already there. I’m big proponent of business and leadership books.

00:10:57 – 00:11:13 Deepika Chopra But yes, highly recommended my book, which is Move First, Align Fast. It’s a leadership playbook helping leaders to lead from the human side of AI transformation. It brings the trust and matrix like trust and clarity in a measurable form.

00:11:14 – 00:11:17 Deepika Chopra And the podcast is Hidden Brain. I enjoy that.

00:11:17 – 00:11:39 Nitin Bajaj Yeah, that’s one of my favorites. But I should say the book is very timely as we are going through this transition and this dichotomy of humans versus AI. I think it’s not a versus it’s how do we adopt and adapt and continue to adapt in this world that is constantly evolving. So very timely, very thoughtful.

00:11:40 – 00:11:49 Nitin Bajaj Now, onto my favorite part of the show, which we call the One Line Life Lessons. Deepika, I would love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:11:49 – 00:12:12 Deepika Chopra Yeah, there are a few, but my favorite one is progress over perfection. That’s always been my mantra. We all strive for perfection, but look at the progress that we’ve made in the journey and be proud of that. So that would be the one that I would call out. And the courage of becoming, that’s another one that’s always been the two favorites.

00:12:13 – 00:12:36 Nitin Bajaj Okay. Deepika, thank you so much for making the time to share your journey, your story. Really excited about the journey you’re on with AlphaU AI. I know you’re just getting started and there is many more successes to come. And thanks again for sharing your online life lessons. Really appreciate it and kudos and congratulations to you.

00:12:36 – 00:12:39 Deepika Chopra Thank you so much Nitin for having me on this show.