Speaker 1: Hey everyone, it's Robert and Joe here. Today we've got
Speaker 1: something a little bit different to share with you. It
Speaker 1: is a new season of the Smart Talks with IBM
Speaker 1: podcast series.
Speaker 2: Today we are witnessed to one of those rare moments
Speaker 2: in history, the rise of an innovative technology with the
Speaker 2: potential to radically transform business and society forever. The technology,
Speaker 2: of course, is artificial intelligence, and it's the central focus
Speaker 2: for this new season of Smart Talks with IBM.
Speaker 1: Join hosts from your favorite Pushkin podcasts as they talk
Speaker 1: with industry experts and leaders to explore how businesses can
Speaker 1: integrate AI into their workflows and help drive real change
Speaker 1: in this new era of AI. And of course, host
Speaker 1: Malcolm Gladwell will be there to guide you through the
Speaker 1: season and throw in his two cents as well.
Speaker 2: Look out for new episodes of Smart Talks with IBM
Speaker 2: every other week on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. And learn more at IBM
Speaker 2: dot com, slash smart Talks, Pushkin.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast
Speaker 3: from Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio and IBM. I'm Malcolm Glamwell. This
Speaker 3: season We're continuing our conversations with new creators visionaries who
Speaker 3: are creatively applying technology and business to drive change, but
Speaker 3: with a focus on the transformative power of artificial intelligence
Speaker 3: and what it means to leverage AI as a game
Speaker 3: changing multiplier for your business. On this special bonus episode
Speaker 3: of Smart Talks, Tim Harford, host of the pushkin podcast
Speaker 3: Cautionary Tales, sat down for a conversation with two leaders
Speaker 3: forging new ways of working together encouraging collaboration to better
Speaker 3: serve clients. Shriney Vawsan bent To Karajan is the director
Speaker 3: of Global Partner Business, supervising Azure Data and AI as
Speaker 3: well as Azure OpenAI at Microsoft. He's a leading thinker
Speaker 3: behind digital transformation, business growth, and strategic innovation. And Chris
Speaker 3: maguire is General Manager of the Global Microsoft Partnership for
Speaker 3: IBM Consulting. He is responsible for driving IBM Consulting strategic
Speaker 3: alignment and collaboration with Microsoft, bringing clients the technologies they
Speaker 3: need with a focus on hybrid, cloud and AI. They
Speaker 3: talked to Tim about the efforts of IBM and Microsoft
Speaker 3: in the generative AI space. We're just at the beginning
Speaker 3: of understanding what generative AI can create for customers, businesses,
Speaker 3: and the broader world. This collaboration forward model will expand
Speaker 3: the impact of AI, allowing innovation to thrive. Let's dive in.
Speaker 4: Chris Sheeney, welcome both of you. Thank you so much
Speaker 4: for joining me. Tell me a little bit about your roles. Scheney,
Speaker 4: maybe you first just tell me a little bit about
Speaker 4: what you do at Microsoft.
Speaker 5: So I have about twenty seven years of experience in
Speaker 5: the tech and consulting services industry, and in these twenty
Speaker 5: seven years, I've had the privilege of leading the charge
Speaker 5: and driving digital transformation, business growth, and strategic innovation for clients.
Speaker 5: And in my current role as at Microsoft, I managed
Speaker 5: the strategic partnership with IBM. I helped craft strategic questions
Speaker 5: that align IBM's potential impact with Microsoft and did any
Speaker 5: value proposition.
Speaker 4: So, Chris, we've heard Suny runs the Microsoft half of
Speaker 4: the partnership with IBM. Presumably you're on the other half
Speaker 4: of that partnership.
Speaker 6: Correct, correct, Yeah, about three years ago we decided to
Speaker 6: really go big with Microsoft as far as the chief partnership.
Speaker 4: So Microsoft and IBM are these giant names in technology,
Speaker 4: very well known for decades So why is it so
Speaker 4: important to have collaboration as well as competition in the
Speaker 4: enterprise generative AI space.
Speaker 6: It goes back to, you know, client first, their needs
Speaker 6: have to be above everybody else's and if we're not
Speaker 6: meeting their needs, then we're not responsibly doing our job.
Speaker 6: And we have a platform. On the IBM tech side,
Speaker 6: Microsoft is a platform and we in the middle as
Speaker 6: IBM consulting have the expertise to properly design and take
Speaker 6: the best interest of the client to heart and implement
Speaker 6: and help them get to whatever outcomes they're trying to
Speaker 6: get to, utilizing genera of AI to make better use
Speaker 6: of data and the investment they've made, and to properly scale.
Speaker 6: I mean, Microsoft has a unique approach to GENDERAI. They're
Speaker 6: doing desktop up so they have a great user base
Speaker 6: globally with all of their office products and other solutions
Speaker 6: that most people use in the world today, so making
Speaker 6: genera of AI available to them is fantastic. And then us,
Speaker 6: you know, we have a platform down approach at IBM,
Speaker 6: and if we do things right together, we'll meet in
Speaker 6: the middle and jointly help solve those clients problems.
Speaker 4: So just want to understand what this looks like we're
Speaker 4: starting to discover that these AI systems actually it's possible
Speaker 4: to build lots and lots of different ones. There are
Speaker 4: different varieties that have different strengths, different weaknesses. So from
Speaker 4: the point of view of a customer when they approach you,
Speaker 4: when you say, well, we've got this ecosystem, you've got
Speaker 4: access to various models. How what does that look like?
Speaker 4: Is it like an app store or is it something
Speaker 4: a bit different.
Speaker 5: Certain models are good for certain use cases. Now I
Speaker 5: think you might have heard that earlier. We used to
Speaker 5: hear about large language models LM's. Now the smaller language
Speaker 5: model also are becoming popular because it can do certain
Speaker 5: things very effectively. It just trained on certain domains and
Speaker 5: also respond faster.
Speaker 4: So a small language model is basically just we're going
Speaker 4: to train you on I know, the manuals for all
Speaker 4: our technical products, so you really understand if people have
Speaker 4: a problem with our product.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it could be for example, trained specifically for healthcare
Speaker 5: domain right, things like that, or it could also be
Speaker 5: trained for certain user profiles, right for the typical work
Speaker 5: that they do, for example in a call center or
Speaker 5: in a hospital. How the certain things can be done faster.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: The advantage of small language models is that it makes
Speaker 5: it possible to run on smaller missines so that you
Speaker 5: don't need large service and things like that.
Speaker 4: So what I'm hearing is that people are coming to
Speaker 4: you while they're coming to IBM and basically going, hey,
Speaker 4: we've heard about all this cool AI stuff and what
Speaker 4: do we do? Because of course that's that's where your
Speaker 4: starting point is because the technology is so new the In.
Speaker 5: Fact, in fact, IBM did a hackaton Global Hackaton, and
Speaker 5: this was the first of its kind that they did
Speaker 5: where they actually brought in the client teams also okay,
Speaker 5: so they said that, okay, let us see how we
Speaker 5: can actually ideate with the clients to solve their problems, right,
Speaker 5: and they came up with quick innovative use cases and
Speaker 5: some of these actually translated into projects that the implemented.
Speaker 4: Can you think of an example one of these projects
Speaker 4: that sticks in your mind?
Speaker 5: Yeah, So there's a client wintershell where IBM actually co
Speaker 5: created a knowledge extraction too to help the field engineers
Speaker 5: to retrieve relevant insights from the vast knowledge baser. So
Speaker 5: winter Shall is an energy company and as part of
Speaker 5: the innovation effort, Edminterschal. They also did identified eighty new
Speaker 5: AI use cases chrise.
Speaker 4: If a corporate leader were to come to you and say, look,
Speaker 4: I'm sure Jeni AI is going to shake up my industry.
Speaker 4: It's going to be a competitive threat and show there
Speaker 4: are loads of opportunities as well, but I don't know
Speaker 4: how to start thinking about it. What's the basic advance
Speaker 4: that you'd give them to orient themselves and the questions
Speaker 4: that they should be asking themselves.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, obviously it's our ability to get with
Speaker 6: a client and bring the relevant partners to the table,
Speaker 6: uh to discuss the outcome that the client is trying
Speaker 6: to achieve and then design a solution because I mean, obviously,
Speaker 6: if you're you know, you want to make sure your
Speaker 6: your your money is well spent. And given that in
Speaker 6: the world of software everything has moved to a consumption
Speaker 6: model and you're only paying for what you use, you
Speaker 6: want to make sure you're getting the most efficient use
Speaker 6: out of those platforms. And you know, we at IBM
Speaker 6: Consulting have become extreme experts on advising clients how to
Speaker 6: do that. And you know, it's it's a great story
Speaker 6: now when we walk in together because over decades and decades,
Speaker 6: IBM and Microsoft have been there at the table as
Speaker 6: a trusted technology advisor and service provider.
Speaker 4: The theme of this season of Smart Talks is new
Speaker 4: Creators and that's you guys. Yeah, your new creators. So
Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you both, maybe start with Chris,
Speaker 4: what do you see as the most creative part of
Speaker 4: what you do?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 6: I think it's it goes back to the ecosystem, but
Speaker 6: you know it's the age old saying two heads better
Speaker 6: than one, three heads better than two, on and on,
Speaker 6: and also that you know, what we like to say
Speaker 6: is the way we're doing origosmus one plus one equals three,
Speaker 6: especially when it comes to Microsoft.
Speaker 4: You know, generative AI is never were very good at maths,
Speaker 4: were they so? Okay exactly, but they're creative so that's great.
Speaker 6: So it really is about solving clients real problems and
Speaker 6: using the very best of the technology that's available today
Speaker 6: to do that as fast as possible and get them
Speaker 6: to a place where they're actually monetizing as fast as
Speaker 6: they can. It is really important that we take our
Speaker 6: part in this whole AI revolution very seriously and be
Speaker 6: very very responsible, and we take that job very seriously,
Speaker 6: and Microsoft is a very strong partner with us when
Speaker 6: we go into clients together.
Speaker 4: Shoney, what's creative about what you do?
Speaker 5: Yeah? So when I started my career, I was a
Speaker 5: software developer, so problem solving was one of the core
Speaker 5: competency that I had to work on. And that problem
Speaker 5: solving mindset, along with the industry knowledge that I gained
Speaker 5: over the years, helped me identify the market trends, the
Speaker 5: consumer behavior, the disruptive technologies has helped me come up
Speaker 5: with some creative ideas and solutions as part of my job.
Speaker 4: Chris Sheeney, thank you both very much.
Speaker 3: What an insightful conversation with Chris and Schreeney shedding light
Speaker 3: on the efforts of IBM and Microsoft. Technologies like AI
Speaker 3: are complex and often difficult to scale without help. A
Speaker 3: partner eco system approach is crucial in the world of AI.
Speaker 3: By bringing together diverse expertise, collaboration can cater to a
Speaker 3: variety of industries, providing specialized solutions for unique challenges. As
Speaker 3: strategic partners, IBM and Microsoft aimed to guide enterprises through
Speaker 3: these challenges responsibly. Looking ahead. The possibilities opened by an
Speaker 3: ecosystem approach to AI are endless, from the integration of
Speaker 3: the tech into everyday devices in our pockets all the
Speaker 3: way to its increased adoption in highly regulated, intricate industries.
Speaker 3: A huge thank you is due to Chris and Trainey
Speaker 3: for sharing their expertise and insights. Smart Talks with IBM
Speaker 3: is produced by Matt Romano, Joey Fishground and Jacob Goldstein
Speaker 3: were edited by Lydia Jane Kott. Our engineers are Sarah
Speaker 3: Bugaier and Ben Tolliday. Theme song by Gramoscope. Special thanks
Speaker 3: to Andy Kelly, Kathy Callahan and the eight Bar and
Speaker 3: IBM teams, as well as the Pushkin marketing team. Smart
Speaker 3: Talks with IBM is a production of Pushkin Industries and
Speaker 3: Ruby Studio at iHeartMedia. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen
Speaker 3: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 3: to podcasts. I'm Malcolm Glabwell. This is a paid advertisement
Speaker 3: from IBM.