[00:00:02 – 00:00:12] Nitin Bajaj

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj. And joining me today is Vibhanshu Abhishek. Vibhanshu, welcome on the show.

[00:00:13 – 00:00:23] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Thank you so much, Nitin. It’s wonderful to be here and to talk to you about, you know, my life journey and, what’s been happening all around us for the last couple of weeks or months.

[00:00:24 – 00:00:27] Nitin Bajaj

Let’s do that. Let’s start with who is Vibhanshu.

[00:00:28 – 00:01:35] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So, you know, I would say I’m like a kid in a candy store. I love solving problems, and as you can imagine, there are many problems around around us. More formally, you know, I’ve been trained as a computer scientist. I have been fascinated by both artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship even before I I knew what these terms meant. I ended up going to IIT Kanpur for my undergrad, learned a lot about artificial intelligence, computer science, back in the day when it was not very popular. Then, over the years, I ended up at at, Wharton where I did my PhD, where I learned a lot about economics. And since then, I’ve been trying to combine the world of AI with, economics and business. So I ended up being a professor at Carnegie Mellon more recently at UC Irvine. And then eventually, I you know, the force was too strong for me, so decided to start Alltius, which is a company focused on GenAI, and we are trying to bring the power of GenAI to enterprises.

[00:01:36 – 00:02:02] Nitin Bajaj

Very cool. Very fascinating. And, you know, I would love for you to dive deeper into some of those things starting with Alltius. Tell us, what is it? Why did you start it? And, you know, the impact so far. I know it’s still the early days. It’s still a very young team and young organization, but tell us how far you guys have reached and, what’s the mission and the vision?

[00:02:03 – 00:04:09] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Right. Young, but I think we’re very, you know, a lot of ambition, driving pain. So I’ll tell you quickly about, you know so Alltius, is a Gen AI platform for enterprises to build AI assistance. And, you know, the reason I’ll talk a little bit about why I started Alltius in the very first place. As someone who has been working in AI for the last, probably, 25 years now, of course, I’ve been fascinated by what AI could do. And as someone who has worked closely in this area, developing, you know, some similar research in this area, I’ve seen how this technology has progressed. But really in the last 3, 4 years, some things that I thought were magical very early on in my journey started becoming real. I do think about something like what ChatGPT can do today. It’s almost magical. And as I was doing that research, you know, this, like, starting all these predates, start GPT, but I was really sort of surprised by how powerful these techno these methodologies and technologies were. And the idea was, you know, as an educator, I was seeing how these technologies are developing and was instrumental in developing them. But I was also worried about how slowly that you like, we as human beings learn. So the idea was how do we marry the the fast paced AI technology with how human beings learn, and do things. And that was really the genesis of what you said. I thought we really have to bring both of these together for humans to be relevant. And even before by where before I actually knew what we’ll do at Altice, I said, this is a problem that we need to solve of how do we augment human intelligence with artificial intelligence. And over the years, I think we have, you know the company has evolved. The problems that we are solving have evolved, and it has actually narrowed down on saying, how do we now make enterprises enabled with generative AI? But that’s sort of the origin story of where we started out.

[00:04:11 – 00:04:26] Nitin Bajaj

That’s really cool. I remember the first I don’t know if it qualifies as a demo, but, you know, we were kind of looking at this pre chat GPT. Right. Looking at how Alltius can do these amazing things of answering questions as you throw it to them.

[00:04:27 – 00:04:27] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So

[00:04:27 – 00:04:31] Nitin Bajaj

III remember that was, like, over just over 2 years ago, I think.

[00:04:31 – 00:04:50] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Like, it was, like, 2 years ago. So it’s it’s been fascinating, you know, I think to build in that space. And I would say people would say this is, like, overnight these things are happening, but I’ve been doing this for the last 20 years. So Yep. Yeah. It’s it’s an overnight phenomena that’s taken 20 years to manifest. Exactly.

[00:04:52 – 00:04:59] Nitin Bajaj

Now tell us about the size and scale of the operations, but also what’s coming next.

[00:04:59 – 00:06:59] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Right. So we are 26 people strong. You know, we’re growing very rapidly. I think we at the beginning of last year, I was just having this discussion with my team. Beginning of, 2023, we were 4 people. 2 cofounders and 2 other people working with us. Since then, we have grown to 26 people, and I I’m very conservative in how I wanna grow the team. You know? So we’ve come a long way from there. But interestingly, we have both started working with some very large enterprises. So we work with, you know, big insurance companies, banks, Fintech companies. Companies, some of them are publicly listed. So, it’s really heartening that they have given us this responsibility. Some of the customer that we are working with, we are in front of their customers, millions of their customers Mhmm. Trying to answer problems with them, trying to, you know 1 of the things that we do is customer support, automated customer support. So So we are in front of millions of their customers. So it’s really being very humbling to see the trust that our partners have placed in us. Given that there is, of course, we are very small as a company, but also the technology is not very mature. But they have placed their trust, which is, very, very important. We don’t take that lightly. I would say in terms of scale, you know, we are probably growing the number of queries that people have, 2 or 3 x month on month. A couple of months back, we crossed about a 1000000 queries. You know, so going from, like, a few 100 queries a month to now a 1000000 query millions of queries every month, it’s been really phenomenal. Just in the the last 6, 7 months, we have sort of seen that growth. I would say we have touched lights of millions of customers. So, you know, the idea is how do we go from millions to billions of customers in the next I I was gonna say couple of months, but maybe I’ll be a little bit more humble and say a couple of years.

[00:07:00 – 00:07:30] Nitin Bajaj

Go easy on the team. Yeah. But Yeah. This is fascinating. Congratulations again on all the successes. And this is still very, very early days. We already talking 1, 000, 000. So tens of millions, 100 of millions, and then soon enough a few billions. So really looking forward to that. Now let’s let’s take a step back and, you know, if you if I ask you to share the 1 big challenge. Right? This is all amazing things moving at a really fast clip.

[00:07:30 – 00:07:30] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Right.

[00:07:30 – 00:07:32] Nitin Bajaj

What’s the 1 big challenge you’re facing?

[00:07:33 – 00:09:49] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So the so, you know, I’ll talk a little bit about the challenge that I’m facing, but I also want to talk a little bit about the challenge that we will face in society in the near future. So, you know, for us, building in this space, the biggest challenge is everyone is building this space. Right? There is no company out there that’s not doing a GNA related project. Right? Especially if you think of all the tech companies there, they have they’re doing something in the JNI space. So what that does is it creates a lot of noise, and a lot of confusion in the minds of our customers. So I would say something like ChargeGPT has really helped us because it has, you know, brought all this visibility, to our potential customers. Things that we would have to educate them about. So that’s really helped us in that front. But at the same time, there is all this noise from everyone who is trying to build in this market and sell in this market. And that has caused a lot of confusion, and I think that’s particular about not only generative AI but also with AI. Most people when they are buying AI, they don’t really know what they’re buying because they don’t know what AI is, what AI does. So, so I think that is the biggest challenge for us is how do we differentiate from everyone else out there in the market. And, of course, sometimes the proof is in the pudding, so we actually have to deploy for them to see the benefit of what we can do. That but that, I would say, is the number 1 problem. And I think this sort of secondary problem with that is because of all this noise, people get their hands burned. And that’s something that I’m worried about is, you know, if there are enough bad actors trying to sell not so good AI solutions, then people will be skeptical about using them in the future. So I do see the value, and I do see the promise. And I don’t see that lightly, you know. I would if you have asked this question 5, 10 years ago, maybe my answer would have been very different. But we are definitely at an inflection point, and how far this technology has come. But we do also need to temper it with realistic expectation in terms of what can be done and what cannot be done. So I would say that sort of is my first sort of problem to, that I think about every day.

[00:09:49 – 00:10:05] Nitin Bajaj

In the bigger scheme of things, I think it’s still a good problem to have because as you said, with child gpt came this general awareness, that transformation, the paradigm shift, that it became it wasn’t, should we do this? It’s when should we do this? Exactly.

[00:10:06 – 00:10:59] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I do wanna talk about, you know, the societal problem that I lead it to earlier. I think technology is moving at such a fast pace that we’re not able to understand what the impact on the society will be. Mhmm. And I think there are few people who are trying to really, you know, take a deep look at Mhmm. What social structures need to be in place. How should we how should this technology get integrated in this society? I think everyone is busy building, and we are sort of, also guilty of that. But really thinking what what happens to society when AI becomes pervasive. How do we actually, like, realize the vision that I had, which is AI augmenting human beings and not replacing human beings. Right? So I think we need to think closely about that also, or it’s gonna become a problem in the next couple of years.

[00:11:00 – 00:11:37] Nitin Bajaj

True. And I think what gives you that unfair advantage is that you’ve been in this domain for 25 years way before, all of this became cool and sexy. So you have that temperament. You have that long view to say this was always supposed to happen. How do we take that measured and mature approach to Nitin? Not just to raise more capital, build a company, get famous, all of those things, but truly in a way that it uplifts the community and the human race. Right. I’m glad you’re you’re thinking about it as you’re growing at a crazy fast clip. So kudos to you.

[00:11:37 – 00:12:51] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Yep. And then, you know, I’ll just point to that that it’s actually in the name. It’s Altice. So, you know, it’s a, double l, which is a misspelling of Altice, which means higher. And the idea was how do we uplift everyone using AI. Mhmm. So, you know, from the very genesis of the company, that was what we were driving striving towards. And I think the other thing that has helped me a lot is the training that I’ve received. So I was trained as a computer scientist, and then I went to grad school where I was trained as an economist. So thinking they’re putting both hats on and taking not only in terms of what can the technology do and how can we make it better, but then what are the implications of this? Right? Of course, I think that helps me to think of business problems and apply them to solve business problem, but, also gives me a very grounded perspective in thinking about how should we, you know, how should technology be, a force of good in the society and not just good for its own sake. I I don’t have so much time, you know, between sales calls. I don’t have so much time to think about, how to, you know, solve that problem. But eventually, in the future, I I will have to take a stab at that.

[00:12:52 – 00:13:31] Nitin Bajaj

You know, the fact that you’re taking time off to even think about it. You may not have a solution which may need a lot more work and effort, but being there to even think about it, be an evangelist and make other people think about it with you. That’s where that’s where that foundation is laid. So we don’t forget about it. We may not be able to put enough resources into it just today, but there is at least thought, there is planning, there is a will. And and there is, things happen. So, again, really glad you’re you’re already thinking about these things and have been for several years. And I know you will turn it around and bring that into action.

[00:13:32 – 00:13:34] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Hopefully hopefully, sometime soon.

[00:13:35 – 00:13:41] Nitin Bajaj

Now let’s talk about the 1 most exciting opportunity that, you have in front of you.

[00:13:42 – 00:15:24] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So, you know, I think the, what I think is very interesting about generative AI, And this is the step change from what existed before. A lot of times you get asked what’s new. The ability to synthesize vast vast amounts of information is what is really fundamentally new about generative AI. I can give it many different types of documents, different datasets, and it can pull the right pieces together to give you a coherent summary or coherent, answer to a question. I think that is that level of intelligence, if you can call it that, is new, in the society. And I think that really is what is sparring a lot of what we do is we are trying to go after, financials, like, domains which have a ton of information. This information keeps changing rapidly. So it’s very difficult for someone to know all of that information all at once. Right? And that’s why we think that that augmentation works very well. And so the biggest opportunity that we are chasing right now is how to bring generative AI to the financial services market. And we are we are working with comp banking, banks. We are working with insurance companies, Fintech companies where underlying information is changing very, very rapidly, but we need to make decisions based on them. And how can we synthesize all of that information very quickly and make it available to human beings to make these decisions? So I think that’s really the biggest opportunity that I see in front of us. But, you know, I think, fundamentally, I think everything that we know is gonna change with AI. So the sky is the limit in terms of what can be done here.

[00:15:25 – 00:15:28] Nitin Bajaj

Scary, but I love scary. So Yeah. We’re going on a whole

[00:15:28 – 00:15:39] Vibhanshu Abhishek

different adventure. And I think I think it’s happening. Right? There’s no way we can prevent it. Now the team is out of the bottle. So yes. We should we should learn to embrace it and see what’s the best we can do with it.

[00:15:39 – 00:15:52] Nitin Bajaj

Exactly. So we are the the fun part is we as a human race are all going into this adventure and good things are going to come out of it. There’ll be some things that are unknown, but we’ll figure it out as a group as it Yeah.

[00:15:52 – 00:15:54] Vibhanshu Abhishek

And, you know, I’m an optimist, so I would say

[00:15:54 – 00:15:55] Nitin Bajaj

Same here.

[00:15:55 – 00:16:17] Vibhanshu Abhishek

It’s it’s for the good. I think, in general, human beings are good, and I think, a lot of good will come out of this. If it’s not in the hands, I think that’s the idea that if we put in the hands of many people, then they’ll figure out a way for making it the force of God, as opposed to when it goes in the hands of few people, then you’re, like, they’re controlling it and you’re dependent on them to use it. Exactly.

[00:16:18 – 00:16:47] Nitin Bajaj

Now as we talk about the future, I wanna pause and reflect and take a look in the rear view mirror. Mhmm. Your, mirror specifically. I would love for you to share 2 moments in your life, in your career, where in 1 something did not work out as you had expected. It was a failure, became a lesson. And another 1 where it became a success beyond what you had imagined.

[00:16:49 – 00:18:38] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So, you know, then I like to answer this question a little bit differently. I, saw this 1 and so as an academic, you learn to embrace failure. You’re failing every day. And I’ll I’ll tell you how this manifest in life of an academic or a researcher. Right? You write a research paper. You send it out. The reviewers said this paper is, you know, lack of a better term crap. Now this is this is all that’s strong in the paper, and you learn from that. I think, you know, being an academic is a exercise in humility. But they are very, very smart people who are at the top of the field, and they’re offering your advice in terms of how to make this research more impactful. The idea not sort of show you down, but really how to make this research more impactful. And so I would say, as a person, I really embrace failure. And that so I don’t have any, like, 1 specific big failure instance in mind because I have so many, and so many of them have been, instrumental in moving me forward. For example, 1 of my most cited paper is a paper that I could never publish because of multiple reasons, but that still remains to be, I think, my favorite paper and my 1 of my most technical papers. It’s been used by many people in the industry. You know, companies are, like, Facebook and Google have used that paper for advertising attribution. But, I would say I sort of look at failure as a way to learn, and I think if you’re not if I’m personally not failing enough, I’m not learning fast enough. Right? So that’s how I think about failure. So, you know, I’ve had so many failures in life that I don’t have, like, 1 particular failure that I can talk about. That’s been the biggest. I love that.

[00:18:40 – 00:18:54] Nitin Bajaj

What about the other experience where something you know, I I also want you to brag a little bit. So what was something that you thought will be will work out, will be good, but it became a super hit?

[00:18:57 – 00:20:55] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So I I think a few different things. Right? Like, some of my papers have really they start when I was working on these papers, you know, it takes long time to publish these papers. Sometimes 3 to 4 years to publish these papers. And by the time you’re done with them, they’re like, okay. You just, you know it’s a tick box. Right? So I think 1 of the people that I worked on was this paper on marketplaces. Mhmm. And this term was not even coined back then. Right? So you think about Amazon Marketplace, for example. When I started working on this topic, the term was not very popular. People just didn’t understand in academia, and these are, like, very economists and top business school professors. They did not really understand what is new about this, phenomena. And, you know, I sort of somehow wrote the paper. Does my job market paper struggle through it. Took me quite some time to publish that paper. But then this whole thing blew up. Right? Like, of course, marketplaces are very, very pervasive all over the world. They make a ton of money. And that paper now is 1 of my most cited papers that probably has 8, 900 citations. But back when I was working on it, you know, at some point, I’m like, why am I even doing this? I I can do so many better things, but I I think that also teaches you to be persistent and, you know, to stick to what you think is the right thing to do. And I think that has come around in a in a right way. And it’s not Yeah. I would say, there are many, like, you know, academically, there are many instance of something like this happening. But probably starting up a company after getting tenure is, the most difficult thing I have done in my life. Right? Like, of everything, like, I think about hard overall, but starting a company is probably the most difficult thing to have and the the most difficult journey to embark upon.

[00:20:56 – 00:21:22] Nitin Bajaj

It is unique. I will say. Yeah. The the tenor track typically tends to be the mindset that, okay, I’m set. I’m going this way. And then the entrepreneurial track is typically going the opposite way where you’re on a complete adventure. Don’t know what tomorrow is gonna look like. And so to have both of those in 1 person is is unique. So congratulations on being successful.

[00:21:22 – 00:21:25] Vibhanshu Abhishek

I I don’t know if you’ll find out after a couple of years. Right? If it is

[00:21:25 – 00:21:26] Nitin Bajaj

the right

[00:21:26 – 00:21:36] Vibhanshu Abhishek

1 or not, but, I think there’s commonality between the 2. I was talking to 1 of my, colleagues couple of days back. I think what academia teaches you is persistence.

[00:21:37 – 00:21:37] Nitin Bajaj

Yep. And

[00:21:37 – 00:22:28] Vibhanshu Abhishek

I think that’s also something that I feel is very important, in in being an entrepreneur. More than anything else, persistence is important. Of course, I think the pace is very different in academia versus as it takes 2, 3 years to publish a paper. Whereas, you know, the world is very different in entrepreneurship in 2, 3 years. Like, maybe you are dead as a company, Maybe you have, you know, really gone gone 100 x in 2 years. So in the pain, the the pace is very, very different. I think that is what attracted me to entrepreneurship. Like, I’ve always worked with companies because I was excited by the pace and the impact that I could have. But, I think that the common thread for me has been this persistent that, you know, you learn in academia, which I’m bringing to play as I’m start, like, as I’m running all this.

[00:22:29 – 00:22:33] Nitin Bajaj

It’s amazing. Bringing 2 worlds together. Magic happens.

[00:22:34 – 00:22:34] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Yeah. Hopefully.

[00:22:34 – 00:22:49] Nitin Bajaj

Before we jump on to my favorite part of the show, I wanna ask you, what do you do for fun? I mean, you live in a fun world. You have academia on 1 side. You have on the other side, and then everything in between, which is And I

[00:22:49 – 00:24:02] Vibhanshu Abhishek

live in Southern California. Right? So it’s just really the best places to live. You know, I think, unfortunately, I they’re just between, you know, even though I’m focused entirely on Alltius right now, it’s difficult to find time to have fun. In fact, it’s gotten to a stage where in my EMA meetings, in, Yeah. In my EMA meetings with my team, they’re worried about how am I balancing things and how is my mental health doing. Right. So, but yeah. I like I love to spend time with my kids at the beach if I can do that. I think we live in a very blessed part of the country. Mhmm. So taking time out to do that, I think that’s sort of my way of recharging my batteries and going back. I do really you know, I’m kind of a workaholic, so I do love what I do, and I get a lot of energy from my team. So, you know, I think there are differences. So I think I get energy from my kids, and I get energy from my team. And so that is what really pushes me to do more and more every day. But, yeah, I think I need to start slotting in some breaks, here and there.

[00:24:03 – 00:24:05] Nitin Bajaj

I’m sure people around you won’t mind that.

[00:24:05 – 00:24:13] Vibhanshu Abhishek

So Yes. Definitely, my family will not mind that. But I think also, you know, some of the folks who are at Alltius would not mind that.

[00:24:14 – 00:24:21] Nitin Bajaj

Alright. Now onto the 1 line life lessons. I’d love for you to share some of yours with us.

[00:24:22 – 00:26:22] Vibhanshu Abhishek

You know, I think the biggest 1 for me would be, persistence is the most important skill anyone needs to have. You know, if you can overcome anything with persistence. So I think that’s 1 1 life lesson that I have learned, and I think I really follow that lesson. 2nd, I would say is being fearless, is very, very important. Being fearless and embracing uncertainty, I think I would I would say, would be another important life lesson. 3rd would be just be good to people around you. I think there’s no point being an asshole. I think just being nice to people around you comes back in very good ways. Then I had all of these written, but I sort of had to take a sneak peek peek. A lot of these are things I really believe in, so it’s not like I need to write them down. I would say humility is a big virtue. Given no. And I I think, again, going back to what you said, I’m in a very unique position. I’ve worked with some really, really smart people. Some of them are Nobel Prize Laureate. Some of them are CXOs of, you know, Fortune 10 companies. There’s always someone smarter than you. There’s always someone who can work harder than you. There’s someone always someone who’s, more well network than you. So I think be humble. Just put your head down and work, and I think that’s very, very important. And the last 1 I would say is, I’m just reading now. Yeah. I think I said this earlier, but if you’re not failing enough, you’re not learning fast enough. Right? So I think failure, I would say, is very important as a step to learning, new things, learning about yourself, learning about new technologies, or just how the world works. Thank you. I don’t know I don’t know if they’re as crisp as you wanted them to be in a 1 liner,

[00:26:23 – 00:26:24] Nitin Bajaj

but These are perfect.

[00:26:24 – 00:26:24] Vibhanshu Abhishek

You know,

[00:26:24 – 00:27:07] Nitin Bajaj

it’s all about the the lessons we learn as we go through the journey. And and then in turn, these lessons come back and shape us and define us and keep us on track or keep us in the right direction. So, yeah, they they’re not meant to be perfect. They’re just meant to be a reflection of who you are and who you want to be as you continue on the path you wanna go on. So thank you for sharing those. Thank you for sharing your journey. Congratulations again on all of the success so far. And I know these are the baby steps that are coming through, that are going to define the much bigger success that is that is coming soon.

[00:27:07 – 00:27:08] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Absolutely. Yes, Ross.

[00:27:09 – 00:27:35] Nitin Bajaj

No. I know. I know with you at the helm, things will happen. I’ve seen them just in the last 2 years, how you have transformed as a not just as an entrepreneur, but also as a business. So I have no doubts. It’s not a if, it’s a when. And the event will be pretty soon. So I’m good. Thanks again for being here, for sharing your story. And, congratulations and kudos for what’s coming next.

[00:27:36 – 00:27:41] Vibhanshu Abhishek

Thanks for having me here. It was wonderful talking to you. Take care.