0:00

Hey everyone, it's Robert and Joe here. Today

0:02

we've got something a little bit different to share with

0:04

you. It is a new season of the Smart

0:06

Talks with IBM podcast series.

0:09

Today we are witnessed to one of those rare moments

0:11

in history, the rise of an innovative technology

0:14

with the potential to radically transform business

0:16

and society forever. The technology,

0:18

of course, is artificial intelligence, and

0:21

it's the central focus for this new season

0:23

of Smart Talks with IBM.

0:25

Join hosts from your favorite Pushkin podcasts

0:27

as they talk with industry experts and leaders

0:30

to explore how businesses can integrate

0:32

AI into their workflows and help

0:34

drive real change in this new era of AI.

0:37

And of course, host Malcolm Gladwell will

0:39

be there to guide you through the season and throw in his

0:41

two cents as well.

0:43

Look out for new episodes of Smart Talks

0:45

with IBM every other week on the

0:47

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

0:49

wherever you get your podcasts. And

0:51

learn more at IBM dot

0:53

com, slash smart Talks,

1:01

Pushkin.

1:07

Hello, Hello, Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM,

1:09

a podcast from Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio

1:13

and IBM. I'm Malcolm Glamwell.

1:15

This season We're continuing our conversations

1:18

with new creators visionaries

1:20

who are creatively applying technology

1:22

and business to drive change, but

1:24

with a focus on the transformative power

1:26

of artificial intelligence and what

1:28

it means to leverage AI as a

1:31

game changing multiplier for your

1:33

business. On this special

1:35

bonus episode of Smart Talks, Tim

1:37

Harford, host of the pushkin podcast Cautionary

1:40

Tales, sat down for a conversation

1:42

with two leaders forging new ways

1:44

of working together encouraging

1:47

collaboration to better serve clients.

1:50

Shriney Vawsan bent To Karajan is

1:52

the director of Global Partner Business, supervising

1:55

Azure Data and AI as well as Azure

1:58

OpenAI at Microsoft. He's

2:00

a leading thinker behind digital

2:02

transformation, business growth,

2:05

and strategic innovation. And

2:07

Chris maguire is General Manager

2:09

of the Global Microsoft Partnership

2:11

for IBM Consulting. He is responsible

2:14

for driving IBM Consulting strategic

2:16

alignment and collaboration with Microsoft,

2:19

bringing clients the technologies they need

2:22

with a focus on hybrid, cloud and AI.

2:25

They talked to Tim about the efforts of IBM

2:27

and Microsoft in the generative

2:30

AI space. We're just at

2:32

the beginning of understanding what generative

2:34

AI can create for customers, businesses,

2:38

and the broader world. This collaboration

2:40

forward model will expand the impact

2:42

of AI, allowing innovation to

2:45

thrive. Let's dive in.

2:49

Chris Sheeney, welcome both

2:51

of you. Thank you so much for joining me. Tell

2:54

me a little bit about your roles. Scheney,

2:56

maybe you first just tell me a little bit about

2:58

what you do at Microsoft.

3:00

So I have about twenty seven years of experience

3:02

in the tech and consulting services

3:04

industry, and in these

3:06

twenty seven years, I've had the privilege of leading

3:09

the charge and driving digital transformation,

3:11

business growth, and strategic innovation

3:14

for clients. And in

3:16

my current role as at

3:19

Microsoft, I managed the strategic partnership

3:21

with IBM. I helped craft strategic

3:23

questions that align IBM's potential

3:26

impact with Microsoft and did any value

3:28

proposition.

3:29

So, Chris, we've heard Suny

3:32

runs the Microsoft half of the partnership

3:34

with IBM. Presumably you're on the other half

3:36

of that partnership.

3:38

Correct, correct, Yeah, about three

3:40

years ago we decided to

3:43

really go big with Microsoft

3:45

as far as the chief partnership.

3:47

So Microsoft and IBM are

3:49

these giant names in technology,

3:52

very well known for decades

3:55

So why is it so important to have

3:57

collaboration as well as competition in the

4:00

enterprise generative AI space.

4:02

It goes back to, you know, client

4:05

first, their needs have to be above

4:07

everybody else's and if we're not meeting their needs,

4:10

then we're not responsibly doing our job.

4:12

And we have a platform. On

4:15

the IBM tech side, Microsoft is

4:17

a platform and we in the middle as IBM

4:19

consulting have the expertise to

4:22

properly design and take

4:24

the best interest of the client to heart and

4:26

implement and help them get to whatever

4:29

outcomes they're trying to get to, utilizing

4:31

genera of AI to make better use

4:33

of data and the investment

4:35

they've made, and to properly scale. I

4:38

mean, Microsoft has a

4:40

unique approach to GENDERAI. They're doing desktop

4:42

up so they have a great

4:45

user base globally with all of their

4:47

office products and other solutions

4:49

that most people use in the world today,

4:52

so making genera of AI available to them

4:54

is fantastic. And then us,

4:56

you know, we have a platform down approach

4:58

at IBM, and if we do things right

5:00

together, we'll meet in the middle and jointly

5:03

help solve those clients problems.

5:06

So just want to understand what this looks like we're starting

5:08

to discover that these AI systems

5:11

actually it's possible to build lots and lots of different ones.

5:13

There are different varieties that have different

5:16

strengths, different weaknesses. So

5:19

from the point of view of a customer when

5:23

they approach you, when you say, well, we've got this ecosystem, you've

5:25

got access to various models. How what does that look like?

5:27

Is it like an app store or is it something a bit different.

5:30

Certain models are good for certain use

5:33

cases. Now I think you might have heard

5:35

that earlier. We used to hear

5:37

about large language models LM's.

5:40

Now the smaller language model also

5:42

are becoming popular because it can do certain

5:45

things very effectively. It just trained

5:47

on certain domains and also

5:49

respond faster.

5:50

So a small language model is basically just we're going

5:53

to train you on I know, the

5:55

manuals for all our technical products, so you

5:57

really understand if people have a problem with our

5:59

product.

6:00

Yeah, it could be for example, trained

6:03

specifically for healthcare domain

6:05

right, things like that, or

6:08

it could also be trained for certain

6:11

user profiles, right for the

6:13

typical work that they do, for example

6:15

in a call center or in a hospital.

6:19

How the certain things can be

6:21

done faster.

6:22

Right.

6:23

The advantage of small language models

6:26

is that it makes it possible to run on smaller

6:29

missines so that you don't need large service and things

6:31

like that.

6:32

So what I'm hearing is that

6:34

people are coming to you while they're coming to IBM

6:37

and basically going, hey,

6:39

we've heard about all this cool AI

6:41

stuff and what do we do? Because of course that's

6:44

that's where your starting point is because the technology

6:46

is so new the In.

6:48

Fact, in fact, IBM did a hackaton

6:50

Global Hackaton, and this was

6:53

the first of its kind that

6:55

they did where they actually brought

6:57

in the client teams also okay,

6:59

so they said that, okay, let us see how

7:02

we can actually ideate with the clients

7:04

to solve their problems, right, and

7:06

they came up with quick innovative use

7:09

cases and some of these actually

7:11

translated into projects that the implemented.

7:14

Can you think of an example one of these projects

7:16

that sticks in your mind?

7:18

Yeah, So there's a client wintershell

7:21

where IBM actually co created

7:23

a knowledge extraction too to

7:26

help the field engineers to retrieve

7:28

relevant insights from the vast knowledge

7:30

baser. So winter Shall is an energy

7:33

company and as part

7:35

of the innovation effort, Edminterschal.

7:38

They also did identified eighty

7:40

new AI use cases chrise.

7:43

If a corporate leader were to come to you

7:45

and say, look, I'm sure

7:47

Jeni AI is going to shake

7:50

up my industry. It's

7:52

going to be a competitive threat and show

7:54

there are loads of opportunities as well, but

7:56

I don't know how to start thinking about it. What's

7:59

the basic advance that you'd give

8:01

them to orient themselves and the questions

8:04

that they should be asking themselves.

8:06

Well, I mean, obviously it's our ability

8:08

to get with a client and

8:10

bring the relevant partners

8:12

to the table, uh to discuss the

8:14

outcome that the client is trying to achieve

8:17

and then design a solution because

8:20

I mean, obviously, if you're you know, you want to

8:22

make sure your your your money is well spent.

8:24

And given that in the world of software everything

8:27

has moved to a consumption model and you're

8:29

only paying for what you use, you want to

8:31

make sure you're getting the most efficient use out of

8:33

those platforms. And you know, we at IBM

8:36

Consulting have become extreme

8:38

experts on advising clients how to

8:40

do that. And you know, it's it's a great

8:42

story now when we walk in together

8:45

because over decades and decades,

8:47

IBM and Microsoft have been there

8:49

at the table as a trusted technology

8:52

advisor and service provider.

8:56

The theme of this season of Smart

8:58

Talks is new Creators and

9:02

that's you guys. Yeah, your

9:05

new creators. So I wanted to ask you both,

9:07

maybe start with Chris, what do you see

9:09

as the most creative part of what

9:13

you do?

9:15

Well?

9:15

I think it's it goes back to the ecosystem,

9:17

but you know it's the age old saying

9:20

two heads better than one, three heads better than two,

9:22

on and on, and also that you know,

9:24

what we like to say is the way we're doing origosmus

9:27

one plus one equals three, especially

9:29

when it comes to Microsoft.

9:30

You know, generative AI is never were very good at maths,

9:33

were they so? Okay

9:35

exactly, but they're creative so that's great.

9:37

So it really is about

9:41

solving clients real

9:43

problems and using the very best of the

9:45

technology that's available today to do

9:48

that as fast as possible and get them

9:50

to a place where they're actually monetizing

9:53

as fast as they can. It is really important

9:55

that we take our part in this

9:57

whole AI revolution very seriously

9:59

and be very very responsible, and we take

10:01

that job very seriously, and Microsoft

10:04

is a very strong partner with us

10:06

when we go into clients together.

10:08

Shoney, what's creative about what you do?

10:11

Yeah? So when I started my

10:13

career, I was a software developer, so

10:16

problem solving was one of the core competency

10:19

that I had to work on. And

10:22

that problem solving mindset, along

10:24

with the industry knowledge that I

10:26

gained over the years, helped me identify

10:29

the market trends, the consumer

10:31

behavior, the disruptive

10:33

technologies has helped me come up with some creative

10:36

ideas and solutions as part of my job.

10:39

Chris Sheeney, thank you both very much.

10:46

What an insightful conversation with Chris

10:48

and Schreeney shedding light on the

10:50

efforts of IBM and Microsoft.

10:53

Technologies like AI are complex

10:56

and often difficult to scale without

10:58

help. A partner eco system approach

11:01

is crucial in the world of AI. By

11:03

bringing together diverse expertise, collaboration

11:06

can cater to a variety of industries,

11:09

providing specialized solutions for

11:11

unique challenges. As strategic

11:13

partners, IBM and Microsoft aimed

11:15

to guide enterprises through these

11:17

challenges responsibly. Looking

11:20

ahead. The possibilities opened by

11:22

an ecosystem approach to AI are

11:25

endless, from the integration

11:27

of the tech into everyday devices in

11:29

our pockets all the way to its increased

11:31

adoption in highly regulated,

11:33

intricate industries. A

11:36

huge thank you is due to Chris and

11:38

Trainey for sharing their expertise

11:40

and insights. Smart

11:43

Talks with IBM is produced by Matt

11:45

Romano, Joey Fishground and

11:48

Jacob Goldstein were edited

11:50

by Lydia Jane Kott. Our engineers

11:52

are Sarah Bugaier and Ben Tolliday.

11:55

Theme song by Gramoscope. Special thanks

11:57

to Andy Kelly, Kathy Callahan

12:00

and the eight Bar and IBM teams,

12:02

as well as the Pushkin marketing team.

12:05

Smart Talks with IBM is a production of

12:07

Pushkin Industries and Ruby Studio at

12:09

iHeartMedia. To find more Pushkin

12:11

podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio

12:13

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

12:16

you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm

12:19

Glabwell. This is a paid

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advertisement from IBM.