Wow ! So, I was expecting this to be more of the same on the lines of LTW25 but this event couldn’t have been more different & scored higher in my book….
From the chic venue to the layout, to the food options , to the great coffee , the Instagram friendly chill zones and the very cool Lego challenges and the most vital ingredient of all - the super insightful sessions!
I will need a four page essay to round up the takeaways today but will attempt to do this here & keep it as short as I can …
- The clear disconnect with the ‘change the world order’ messaging from the big AI names & what the investors are looking for & funding (and not funding )
- Gotta love the British sense of realism & voicing out how the sexy changes being talked about by the big guns fail to translate into real pilots or use cases for majority of the enterprises on the ground & 88% pilots haven’t scaled to projects..
- SAAS now seems to be a bad word for most investors
- Michael Axelgaard of AI Seed definitively stating that they are no longer interested in funding GenAI startups specifically ‼️
- Neil Lawrence with his sobering reminder of how we ought to consider the atomic human factor for strategic decision making & thinking in AI + the human factor disconnect at the moment
- How GenAI provides us with an Analog Human & a full light year speed multiplier for information… necessitating a rethink of org structures to mirror these changes
- An emerging theme of investors agreeing that there is hesitation in investment due to macro issues like energy deficit for AI & the buzz on limitations of reasoning models…
- Great advise by Edward Keelan on keeping hold of the trust factor with clients, the domain expertise & data ownership as moats to stay differentiated along with a refreshing acceptance that no one knows where this space is headed.. everyone is trying to make predictions & are watching the big players eradicate use-cases for product startups on almost a daily basis shifting ground
- More around how U.K. matches the US & exceeds Europe with regards early stage startups but struggles when it comes to the % of startups that actually manage to scale … need for a more relaxed regulatory framework & policy recommendations being made by experts to help fix this
- Lots more great advise from investors and an absolutely smashing session by Albert Azis-Clauson 🦚 on a very handy Startup Playbook
I seemed to be the front bencher who asked questions at every session (I was never a front bencher in school so this is new 😬🙈).. but managed to validate Synaptyx AI ‘s vision & roadmap & differentiation over and over & came away very satisfied & confident about our little journey so far & future prospects...🤞💪 So good that I’m changing plans to get there again tomorrow 💖