AI First, the Overhype and the Last Mile Problem

AI is hot, I mean really hot. Consumer companies like Google and Facebook also love AI, with notable apps like Newsfeed, Messenger, Google Photos, Gmail and Search leveraging machine learning to improve their relevance. As a founder of an emerging AI company in the enterprise space, I've been following these recent moves by the big titans closely because they put us (as well as many other ventures) in an interesting spot. How do we position ourselves and compete in this environment? In this post, I'll share some of my thoughts and experiences around the whole concept of AI-First, the "last mile" problems of AI that many companies ignore, the overhype issue that's facing our industry today (especially as larger players enter the game), and my predictions for when we'll reach mass AI adoption. A few years ago, I wrote about the key tenants of building Predictive-First applications, something that's synonymous to the idea of AI-First, which Google is pushing.