IAM1296 – Scientist Runs a Hyper-Personalised Cognitive Learning Program

Title: Transcript - Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:11:50 GMT

Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:11:50 GMT, Duration: [00:16:44.46]

[00:00:00.00] - Peter Voss

But, really, the fundamentally, the approach is not just using big data, statistical systems where kind of, you know, you're just a number, you're just a statistic, but but using this, so the quality of data is important for us, not the quantity.

[00:00:16.19] - Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, start ups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Partners values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

[00:00:43.70] - Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I am CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Peter Voss of iGo dot ai. That's a I g o dot a I. Peter, it's great to have you on the show.

[00:00:55.50] - Peter Voss

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:56.60] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Super excited to have you on and hear about all the awesome things that you're doing and and the impact that you're having. And before we do that, I wanted to read a little bit more about Peter so you can hear about some of those awesome things. And Peter is a pioneer in AI who coined the term artificial general intelligence and the CEO and chief scientist at Aigo dot ai. And for the past fifteen years, Voss and his team at Aigo have been perfecting an industry disruptive, highly intelligent, and hyper personalized chatbot with a brain for large enterprise customers. Peter, love to hear all the awesome work that you're doing, the innovation that you're having. Are you ready to speak to the IMCO community?

[00:01:34.00] - Peter Voss

Yes. Absolutely.

[00:01:35.00] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's make it happen then. So to kinda kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more on how you guys started, what I like to call your CEO story.

[00:01:43.50] - Peter Voss

Yes. Certainly. Let me go back a little bit from when I started, my first business. I I started out electronics engineer, started a company to provide, specialized electronic equipment to industry. And then I fell in love with programming, and my company turned very rapidly into a software company. And I developed an ERP, comprehensive ERP software package, and the company grew very nicely from from the garage to four hundred people. And we did an IPO. So that that was super exciting. Love to do that again. So, yeah, that was my really my my first business experience, you know, which was quite intense. And when I exited that company, I I had sort of enough time on my hands to say, alright. What big project do I wanna tackle? And what occurred to me is that software really isn't very smart. In fact, you know, software is quite dumb. If the programmer didn't think of some particular situation, it'll just give you an error message or crash. You know, there's no common sense. There's no reasoning. There's no learning. So how can we solve that? So I took off five years to study intelligence, to to really deeply understand what is intelligence, what makes human intelligence so special, how do children learn, what do IQ tests measure, you know, to truly deeply understand, understand intelligence. And, of course, I I studied the work that had been done in the field of AI. And the combination of that was that I came up with a design for sort of, a thinking machine, you know, that that would be able to think and learn and reason the way humans do. And so in two thousand one, I then launched my first, AI company. And for several years, we were just in r and d mode, basically, building various prototypes, exploring different designs, based on my the the the theories that I've developed. And in two thousand eight, we then, launched fully commercially in the call center space, basically automating call center calls intelligently or at least more intelligently than others. You know? Typically, when when I talk to people about, they say, oh, yeah. I hate it when I call into a company and I talk to a robot and, you know, it's just a terrible experience or even press press three for sales, you know, and four for you know, that kind of thing. So we we managed to, develop a system that actually gives a much, much better experience. I ended up, also exiting that company, selling that company, and, then basically went back to another round of development to to to really focus on increasing the IQ of the system substantially, because we're still, you know, a long way from human level intelligence. So, we spent another few years in development cycle. And then two years ago, we launched commercially with Aigo dot ai. And this, we're offering a a chatbot with a brain as opposed to all of the the other chatbots out there that don't have a brain.

[00:04:51.10] - Gresham Harkless

Yes. Yes. And as we know, you know, having a brain is definitely, you know, something that's insanely important. But I I appreciate you telling your story and and the process that you went through and even how you went through and took that time to study intelligence. I think we see all the awesome things that you've been able to create and build. And often, what I love about, you know, hearing stories is you don't hear the behind the scenes. You don't hear the five years that you took in looking at and studying intelligence in order to build that second company. And then, of course, I'm sure that helps influence the work that you're doing today.

[00:05:20.10] - Peter Voss

Yes. Absolutely. You know, once one is successful, it always seems sort of instantaneous. But, you know, often there are many, many years of efforts and struggling and, failures and and so on, you know, that sort of just get lost in the story. You know, having a company, obviously, one can start a company with a goal to just be successful at having a company, and and and that's fine. But, you know, for for me, I've I've always wanted to have something that I'm personally really, you know, totally engaged with that is really important to me because a lot of my business life is my life. You know? I, and and I enjoy it. I love it. And that's the way I like to run a company is to really have a mission that I believe in, which, you know, makes it easier to also attract partners and staff that that enjoy what they're doing, and it's not just a job.

[00:06:18.50] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more, hear a little bit more on how, the company works, how you're making that impact, and how, it it helps to to have that brain, you know, with the the clients that you're working with.

[00:06:30.60] - Peter Voss

Yes. So, you know, one of the examples I can give one of our, big clients is one eight hundred Flowers. And, you know, they their top their o the owners of the company basically came to us later. Actually heard a podcast where I spoke about, you know, a chatbot with a brain and and how how we can, really provide intelligent, hyper personalized, conversation. And they've had this idea for they they incredibly in innovative, the company. And, they had this idea of, you know, five, six years ago, how can they provide, sort of a concierge, a hyper personalized concierge service to their customers. You know, they go back when we started the business. We were a little sharp. We knew all of our customers. We knew what kind of things they liked, who they bought gifts for, what the occasions were, and and and so on. And they want to try and have that kind of customer service, that personalized service. And they they, tried to do this with, you know, some of the sort of leading, technology companies to implement a chat a chatbot, basically, that would be, you know, concierge assistant. And, they just couldn't get it to work. They, you know, threw a lot of money at it. And the reason for that is that, current chatbots use a very simple really a flowchart type thing. You know? You ask this question, and then you expect an answer to that, and then you go down a decision. You either ask this question or some other question. And, really, that's not very satisfying, to to a person. And it's, you know, it's one size fits all, and you have to you force down this this path of conversation. So, with our technology, there really is a cognitive engine that understands, that listens to you, understands what what understands the meaning of what you're trying to achieve, and it also learns your preferences. So if you say, you know, I want to buy a birthday I wanna buy some chocolate for as a birthday gift for for for my niece, Amy. The system will now learn that you have a niece called Amy and that she has a birthday coming up and she likes chocolate. And all of that information is potentially available, later on in the conversation. If you if you call call back a a day later, say, oh, I need to change the order, You know? She really doesn't like white chocolate or whatever. You know? So you have you have that deep understanding, learning, and reasoning, which enables, you know, a a much, much better experience and, obviously, you know, customer loyalty. And, you know, you don't have to wait for an agent. There's no wait time to talk to Aigo. So there are just tremendous advantages in having having that. And, you know, it's really fantastic to see how we are working with large companies to do this deep integration, of course, with their back end system, you know, to that, that that our, our, you know, AIGO can can basically have all that all the relevant information available.

[00:09:34.20] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And so I want to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both, but you might have already touched on this. What do you feel is your, your secret sauce?

[00:09:45.79] - Peter Voss

From a from a technical point of view, there's something very clear. And, you you know, you mentioned in the introduction that I coined the term artificial general intelligence, actually together with two other people in two thousand and one. And the sort of the secret sauce of why we can do what we can do technically is that our approach is fundamentally different from what everybody else is doing. Now our approach is basically to spend, you know, tens of millions of dollars and many, many years to develop this cognitive engine that has the knowledge already on how to hold a conversation, how to greet somebody, what the relationship is between people, and, you know, and has a certain amount of common sense knowledge on how to handle different situations. And that really puts us in a in a completely different realm, and and gives us the ability to do things that we can't. Now there are, you know, deeper technical secrets as well that we have secret sauce. But, really, the fundamentally, the approach is not just using big data statistical systems where kind of, you know, you're just a number. You're just a statistic. But but using this, so the quality of data is important for us, not the quantity.

[00:11:02.29] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I I love that, and I and I appreciate you breaking that down so much. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanna just switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:11:17.70] - Peter Voss

Well, I'm constantly looking at ways of, becoming more effective and efficient. You know, I I think I I don't I don't have a sort of a a particular, you know, book that I can point to. I've I've read many different books and sort of picked up different things from different books. But I think, the biggest help for me over the years has been having a good partner in business, you know, a a a cofounder or somebody who comes comes into the company who really feels like an owner. You know? They may not they, you know, they may have, you know, 05:10, twenty percent of the of of the company, or they may have fifty percent of the company. But, really having being able to, you know, it's lonely at the top, basically. And being able to to have a trusted partner in the business who also is totally dedicated to the success of the company and who obviously have comp has competence in an important area, you know, whether that's, you know, sales, marketing, or technical. And And and, of course, it can be more than one one partner. But, you know, having one or two partners in the business, I think, is just extremely helpful, you know, to to to run a business.

[00:12:34.20] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So there's a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. You might have already touched on this, but I usually say it might be something you would tell your favorite client. Or if you hacked into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:12:49.29] - Peter Voss

Yeah. And the time machine sort of the advice I give young younger people, that, you know, are interested in becoming entrepreneurs is I think that we're looking back, the biggest mistake I think I've made is that I started my first company at twenty five. I should have started ten years earlier.

[00:13:07.89] - Gresham Harkless

There you go.

[00:13:08.89] - Peter Voss

You know, if you, yeah, I actually started work at at at sixteen, but, you know, I worked for various companies and obviously learned learned a lot. But it's so different running your own company and the kind of things you learn. There's nothing like actually doing it. You know? And, of course, you could be doing it part time while you're studying or, you know, while you have a job. But starting your own company, or being being a partner in a start up, early on just, you know, teaches you, and and there's nothing like actually doing it. So that would be my one piece of advice if if that's kind of the career path you want to take, you know, of of, being a top entrepreneur. I think the sooner you start and get experience, the better. You know, management is is is is is hard and just, you know, learning how to make decisions and how to to deal with with people, different people, you know, of course, customers, vendors, You know?

[00:14:06.50] - Gresham Harkless

Absolutely appreciate that. And and I want to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on the show. So, Peter, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:14:17.60] - Peter Voss

I'm responsible for the success of the company. I'm responsible for the the people who work with the company, and I'm responsible for, you know, customer satisfaction. I'm responsible for finances, ultimately. That's what I see as CEO. And and and, of course, to have the vision, the leadership, the vision has to come from from the CEO. I I think the character of the company is is very much influenced by the, you know, the character of the CEO on on how passionate they are about it, how much of a vision they have or not. And, yeah. And so it's it's both a responsibility and I think the vision and leadership and character.

[00:15:01.70] - Gresham Harkless

Just definitely appreciate that definition. And I, of course, I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and, of course, how best people can get a hold of you and find about all the awesome things you and team are working on.

[00:15:16.79] - Peter Voss

Yeah. The easiest way to get a hold of me is through the website, I go dot a I. There and, actually, a number of articles that I've I've written that are both linked on the website, but also they're on medium dot com. So you can find me Peter Voss. And I'm on, you know, LinkedIn, Twitter, and and so on. Or you could just email me, peter at I go dot a I. Always happy to talk to people who are interested in bringing in more intelligence to the world.

[00:15:46.39] - Gresham Harkless

Yes. Absolutely. There's there's definitely, a a place for more and more intelligence in so many different aspects. I definitely appreciate you for doing that. We will have the links and information in the show notes as well too so that everybody can follow-up with you. But thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest

[00:16:00.10] - Peter Voss

of the day. Yes. Thank you. This was, it was a pleasure. Thank you.

[00:16:04.10] - Intro

Thank you for listening to the I am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue sixteen Media. Tune in next time and visit us at I m c e o dot c o. I am CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five star rating. This has been the I am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless junior. Thank you for listening.