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Revolutionizing AI: My Journey from Microsoft to aiXplain

Posted on · by Latif Nathani

A Career Defined by Innovation

As I reflect on my career, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of gratitude towards Microsoft, my employer, for providing the solid foundation for a significant portion of my professional life. My journey with Microsoft was nothing short of a technological odyssey and seeded my drive to push for new frontiers. From the early days of developing the TCP/IP protocol stack for Windows to co-founding leadership roles in groundbreaking projects like Microsoft Systems Management Server and Microsoft Speech Server, I have always been at the forefront of technological innovation. One of my most exciting ventures was co-founding eMemories.com, one of the world’s first online picture-sharing services. This experience, coupled with my role in launching Norton 360, set the stage for redefining cybersecurity. But it didn’t stop there; Leading the eBay India business to $500M GMV and being a founding investor at Sapien, a pioneering Web3 protocol created to tackle the ever-growing challenge of fake news were training grounds for coming to aiXplain.

The Roots of My AI Interest

My fascination with expert systems traces back to my college days, where a class in LISP programming sparked a lifelong interest. This passion was reignited at Microsoft’s Natural Interactive Services Division (NISD), where I contributed to Bill Gates’s vision of Natural User Interface (NUI) including building the Microsoft Speech Server Product alongside my then partner in crime and current Zoom CTO XD Huang. The NUI aim was ambitious: to develop technologies that would enable computers to understand human speech and language, making technology more intuitive and user-friendly. Today, this vision is becoming a reality, thanks to advancements in computing power, data availability, and speech recognition technologies.

AI: A New Frontier

Despite the AI hype, the transformative potential of the transformer architecture and Gen AI is undeniable. We are on the brink of an era that promises to eclipse past technological achievements. As my Microsoft ex-boss, Kai-Fu Lee, said in a recent 60-minute interview, “AI is going to change the world more than electricity”. This conviction led me to reconnect with Hassan Sawaf, a former colleague from eBay, and embrace the vision for aiXplain. aiXplain is not just another AI platform; it’s a revolution. With 43,936 AI agents on a two-sided marketplace offering services from 67 suppliers and covering 83 functions, we are democratizing AI. From large language models to object recognition, speech recognition, and time series forecasting, we offer a diverse range of AI functions. As the innovation cycle matures, aiXplain will become the go-to destination to ideate and deploy AI solutions with confidence, even for those without any AI background at all. We’re proving it every day.

aiXplain Marketplace: The One-Stop-Shop for AI

Thanks to my former employer eBay, I love marketplaces! All of our AI assets are available on a two-sided marketplace, where AI developers and dataset providers can publish their assets for commercial use. This marketplace not only serves as a new revenue channel for AI developers but also as the gateway to a new generation of AI innovators and entrepreneurs. Powered by a rigorous curation and standardization engine, our marketplace ensures that every AI asset is ready for production. This eliminates one of the biggest challenges businesses face when building best-of-breed solutions: interoperability. Anyone using the aiXplain marketplace to deploy their AI solutions can do so with confidence, knowing it’s backed by aiXplain’s certification.

Introducing Bel Esprit: AI for Everyone

Our upcoming personalized AI agent, Bel Esprit, is set to redefine how non-technical users interact with AI. With Bel Esprit, users can describe their goals in plain language and build bespoke solutions using our extensive AI toolkit. I like to think of Bel Esprit as the “Program Manager” directing other AI agents to complete the task.

Stepping into the Role of COO at aiXplain

Joining aiXplain as the COO at this pivotal moment is both an honor and an exciting new challenge. With over three decades of experience in leading innovative projects, I am ready to set and achieve ambitious goals with an incredibly talented team. I believe that the future of AI is not about turning everyone into programmers, but rather empowering them to bring their ideas to life through accessible technology.

The Future Is Here

As we embark on this journey, I am thrilled to be part of a team that is not just pushing boundaries but also reshaping the way the world interacts with AI. The future is here, and it’s incredibly exciting.

Join us at aiXplain as we democratize AI and shape the future of technology. Please reach out if you see an opportunity to collaborate. Thanks!