Fortune 500 Executives and AI Twins Adoption - Notes from Northwestern's GenAI Executive MBA Session
Markus Lampinen
CEO - Prifina; Personal AI || Chairman - Deaglo; Institutional Risk Management || Entrepreneur, Investor
I had the privilege of participating in an engaging session at Northwestern University, where we took a deep dive into the fascinating world of generative AI and its profound implications for how we do business and innovate. Over 50 executives joined the conversation, eager to explore how AI's transformative capabilities can empower not only businesses but also individuals and entire sectors.
Our discussions focused on a fundamental question: how can generative AI reshape value creation in ways that amplify human potential and drive organizational success? The energy in the room was high, as we explored the exciting frontiers of AI, and the possibilities that lie ahead are truly remarkable.
Generative AI: A Rising Tide Across Industries
Professor Mohanbir Sawhney began the day with a powerful observation: "I have never seen a new technology evolve so quickly or make such an immediate impact."?
His words captured the essence of the moment: Generative AI is undeniably at a turning point. With the rise of OpenAI and platforms like ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google Gemini, this technology has rapidly ascended to the top of business leaders’ priorities across the globe.
What makes generative AI particularly striking is not just its ability to reimagine business functions or automate complex processes, but its broader potential. It offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for those enterprises ready to embrace it, adapt to its capabilities, and ultimately thrive in an AI-driven world.?
Leaders who develop a keen understanding of this technology will be uniquely positioned to harness its power, unlocking new avenues for growth—both in terms of innovation and profitability. The stakes are high, but the rewards are enormous.
A Quick Recap: Innovations Unveiled
The discussions covered several practical, real-world applications of generative AI:
1. Generative AI Visualization for Rapid Prototyping
Bharat Vasan presented an exciting vision of how generative AI is reshaping enterprise value through rapid prototyping, especially in the realm of visualization. He showcased how AI-driven tools can allow companies to quickly visualize stories and ideas, offering a clear and immediate boost to innovation.?
The key insight was simple but profound: by shortening the distance between ideation and execution, AI can accelerate business processes in ways we’ve only begun to understand.?
Platforms like the one Bharat is developing at Intangible.ai illustrate this potential vividly, serving as a bridge between creative thinking and real-world implementation. The implications for business are substantial—generative AI isn’t just a tool for efficiency; it’s a catalyst for innovation.
2. Scaling AI for Customer Obsession at Uber
Sameera Poduri , who leads customer obsession AI at Uber, offered a compelling look at how AI is being deployed on a massive scale to achieve unprecedented levels of efficiency and precision.?
Uber’s strategy is evolutionary, focused on gradual experimentation and incremental scaling of AI solutions to manage both reactive and proactive customer interactions. What stands out in Uber’s approach is the balance it strikes—using AI to enhance efficiency while keeping the human experience at the forefront.?
This incremental method underscores a key point: at its best, AI doesn’t replace the human element, it enhances it, ensuring a more seamless and responsive customer experience.
3. AI Transformation at Mars
Deepak Jose offered fascinating insights into how Mars, a leader in consumer products, is leveraging AI across its global operations. From marketing content configuration to inference analytics, Mars is at the forefront of using AI to drive data-informed decisions.?
What’s striking is how generative AI is moving beyond traditional analytics and dashboards, offering deeper, more actionable insights that can fundamentally enhance enterprise capabilities.?
Deepak’s message was clear: AI isn’t just a tool for understanding data—it’s a force for transformation, enabling companies like Mars to navigate complexity with precision and agility.
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4. Adopting and Scaling AI Twins with Prifina
Finally, I had the pleasure of demonstrating how AI Twins can be brought to life in just 20 minutes, using Prifina's unique approach designed to meet people where they are.?
During the session, 53 C-level executives and participants created their own AI twins, each one equipped with some initial personal knowledge, demonstrating how quickly and easily these AI agents can be set up. With Prifina’s technology, personal AI twins can be personalized and tailored to meet individual needs almost immediately.
What’s particularly exciting is the versatility of these AI twins. They’re designed to step into various roles, just as we do. Whether it’s offering professional support in areas like customer service, sales, or engineering, or aiding personal creative processes like writing and ideation, these AI twins adapt effortlessly.?
At Prifina, our vision is to make digital twins a true extension of individual capability, enabling users to seamlessly manage both their professional and personal lives. This isn’t just about using a tool—it’s about having a virtual counterpart that works in your best interest, across every aspect of your life.
Personal AI Twins: Redefining Individual Expertise and Versatility
A central takeaway from the event is that AI’s true potential extends far beyond enterprises. The rise of AI twins, as Prifina envisions them, marks a shift toward individual empowerment. Unlike many AI solutions that focus primarily on enterprise needs, AI twins are designed for personal utility. They act as an extension of an individual’s knowledge and experience, integrating seamlessly into their networks and supporting decision-making in both personal and professional spheres.
During the event’s hands-on demonstration, each executive participant was able to create their own AI twin, equipping it with foundational knowledge in just a few minutes. This exercise highlighted not only how simple it is to get started but also the remarkable flexibility these AI twins offer.
Imagine a world where your AI twin understands your work, interests, and goals, actively supporting your decision-making—whether that’s managing customer service inquiries or brainstorming ideas for your next creative endeavor. Personal AI twins are designed to wear many hats: assisting in your work-related tasks, offering insights for sales strategies, generating personalized content, or simply enhancing personal productivity. What makes them stand out is their adaptability; they are built to operate in diverse contexts, providing precisely the right kind of support when it’s needed.
At Prifina, we’re committed to building AI twins that operate entirely in the service of their owners, with full respect for privacy and control over personal data. Our goal is to amplify human capabilities while ensuring that these AI twins work for the individual’s benefit. It’s a vision of empowerment, one that we believe AI must embrace more broadly in the years ahead.
AI at the Enterprise Level: Practical Steps Forward
The executive series offered business leaders a comprehensive framework for approaching AI adoption, addressing everything from creating an AI-ready organization to optimizing AI for efficiency. One clear message emerged: whether you're at the helm of a technology startup, a consumer products giant, or a customer service platform, the key challenge is how to responsibly and effectively implement AI to drive value.
For enterprises, responsible AI adoption is one of the most important issues. It’s not just about deploying the technology—it’s about doing so with care. From governance structures to ethical considerations, enterprises must take a proactive stance in addressing potential risks as they scale AI across departments and functions. The path forward requires a balanced approach, where innovation and responsibility go hand in hand.
Unlocking Human Potential
The discussions and hands-on demonstrations at Northwestern made one thing clear: while generative AI is poised to transform enterprises, its potential for individuals is equally profound. The idea of digital twins fits seamlessly into this human-centered approach to AI. Prifina’s AI twins aren’t just about advancing technology; they’re about unlocking human potential. By giving individuals the tools to manage their own data and augment their expertise, these AI twins open up new possibilities for how people engage with their work, their networks, and the world around them. It’s a vision of AI that enhances, rather than replaces, human capability.
Conclusions: Who are we building AI for?
With the breakneck speed of AI development, we at Prifina want to see a future where AI represents you - where it is deeply personal and we as individuals have agency over the AIs that we use. To counter the multitude of tools that are coming across every single application that we use in every single enterprise that we interact with.
In the future, AI twins are not only going to help you be competitive, they will be a necessity to be relevant. That future is shaping very fast and we want to make sure anybody can start today learning about these tools as well as building daily habits for how AI can actually work for you in all aspects of your life.?