Gradient Institute

Supporting Gradient Institute’s mission to build safety, ethics, accountability and transparency into AI systems: developing new algorithms, training organisations operating AI systems and providing technical guidance for AI policy development.

Principal AI Specialist

Honest AI

In an era where technology evolves unprecedentedly fast, staying educated and appreciating ethical boundaries is more crucial than ever. I desire to bring you "Honest AI" to make sense of the complex world of artificial intelligence, ethics, and the future of work. Understand what’s genuine—honest!— vs. the hype. 

Honest AI is a publication that includes short essays, blog posts, a podcast and a newsletter. 

By subscribing to Human Override (the weekly Honest AI newsletter), you become part of a movement towards responsible innovation and ethical awareness in the digital age.

Founder

Archimedes

The most exclusive members club for LinkedIn thought leaders.

Member

The Ethics of AI: Facts, Fictions and Forecasts

Author

Around

Interim Head of Data & Finance Analytics

Advisor, data science

ARK Venture Studio

Scope opportunities for addressing AI Risk and contributing to the Complex AI Risk Think Tank. AI is a great technology. The risk management industry has the historic opportunity to play a pivotal role in enabling its safe adoption.

Head of Opportunity Scoping

Tesla

Data Science, Tesla Insurance

FUTURELY

Advisor, Product Management and Strategy

Genade Inc.

Genade was a nice learning experience :)

We built digital products to help insurance agents, brokers, wholesalers to automate customer acquisition, lead qualification tasks, and the quoting process. Some examples were interactive web apps that run prospects' fact-finding, qualify leads, pre-populate ACORD forms, and organize information in a super simple CRM. Insurance agents and brokers who used our tools saw a significant increase in time savings and could manage twice as many customers.

We were honored to win the support of:
• 2018 - 19 NYU 300K Entrepreneurs Challenge (Semi-finalist)
• 2019 NYU Summer Launchpad
• 2019 NYU Summer Sprint
• Ignite Fellowship Beta

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic introduced team and sales dynamics that made our quest difficult to drive forward.

Genade's story ended in December 2020. Many challenges in the world of insurance agents' productivity, lead management, and customer acquisition remain unsolved, and we failed to create a sustainable platform for running an insurance agency on autopilot.

Founder & CEO

Miranda srl - Miranda Bot

Co-Founder, Advisor

AI can be both technically brilliant and used to build a deeply human future.

I've built AI systems from the ground up, written "The Ethics of AI," and advised hundreds of leaders navigating this transformation. I've learned most teams get lost chasing shiny tech while forgetting the humans who actually use it.

I see everywhere this pattern:

- AI projects that sound impressive but fail in practice
- Teams paralyzed by ethical concerns
- Leaders afraid they're falling behind
- Products that work on paper but frustrate real users

My focus is simple: helping you build or use AI that actually serves people. That works for you, and not against you.

Not AI for AI's sake. Not algorithms that impress other engineers. AI that solves real problems and creates genuine value.

I work with founders and leaders who want to:

☑ Build products users actually love
☑ Navigate ethical challenges with confidence
☑ Create sustainable competitive advantages
☑ Sleep well knowing their AI makes the world better

If you're tired of AI hype and want practical guidance on building technology that matters, let's connect.

Join 12,000 people for daily posts on ethical AI, entrepreneurship, future of work. And weekly drops on honest, practical ways to live with AI 
👉 https://honestai.substack.com/s/human-override

Alberto Chierici

Most people hyping the latest AI tool haven't built anything beyond a 30-minute demo.

Josh did the opposite. Product-focused CTO with 25 years of coding experience:

He went all-in, spending 3 months using AI to write every line of code for a new product (attention! Not a toy project.) as a real test of what happens when you actually commit.

The product shipped. It worked. He felt productive.

Then he needed to make a simple change and couldn't confidently modify his own code.

"Who owns that product, Josh? You or Claude Code?" Bob Galen asked him.

The answer: Claude Code owned it. Josh had become a passenger in his own product development.

This is the intellectual honesty the AI conversation needs. Not another breathless demo. Not another "look what I built in 10 minutes" post. An actual engineer doing the hard work of understanding what happens when delegation replaces comprehension.

His November deep-dive article shares what he learned the hard way, five principles that aren't sexy or revolutionary, but are real, sustainable, and work beyond the honeymoon phase:

1️⃣ Own the architecture
2️⃣ Make the hard decisions
3️⃣ Maintain the context
4️⃣ Understand the why
5️⃣ Take responsibility when it breaks

That's how you actually integrate this technology without eroding the skills that make you valuable.

Josh's story matters because he had the courage to admit what happened when he delegated too much. And more importantly, he documented exactly how to avoid making the same mistake.

Read his full story: https://lnkd.in/e7ZE7VgB

His November article with the complete breakdown: https://lnkd.in/ekC38xD4

Do you still understand what you're building when you use the AI sidekicks?

♻ Share for expanding the wisdom.

📩 I explore honest observations about staying human while everything 
turns synthetic on my free newsletter. Get your Human Override: https://lnkd.in/eCuGB-SJ
➕ Following Dr. Alberto Chierici for more like this.

Dr. Alberto Chierici

3x Founder | AI Specialist (for real) | Making AI work for people, not against them.

Leaders Drive AI ROI & Adoption | Future-Proof Your Career & Organization – AWARE™ ➠ ACHIEVE™ ➠ ARISE™ (see About) | Training ➠ Upskilling ➠ AI Leadership | Executive Coach | Ex-Deloitte

Leaders: Find your First 1 Million Dollars in AI ROI.

I’ve led
• $6B+ ERP change leadership as a management consultant
• Clients served include Walmart, Seagate, 3M, Dupont, Daimler, Labcorp, Grupo Modelo & More
• Senior leaders coached in clarity, presence & strategic judgment
• Enterprise-wide implementation of future use-cases and workflows

As your Fractional Chief AI Officer for SMBs, I help:
→ Assess your AI “now” , 30-180 Day ROI Roadmap with proposed POC
→ Drive adoption of current GenAI (Copilot/ChatGPT) tools 
→ Prioritize and implement your use cases using agents & Automation
→ Increase your Revenue Per Employee, Capital Efficiency & Enterprise Valuation 
→ Build an AI first company: change management, champions & community

AWARE™ - Adopt AI, Accelerate ROI
Foundations | Teams | Pro
From readiness to measurable ROI in 30–180 days.

SMBs using AI see an average 41% increase in revenue - entrepreneur.com 

CAIOs can be budgeted as CAPEX (with AI tools) and not affect Effect EBITDA

Book a working session 
https://calendly.com/meanderingsapien/thereisnospoon

Cheers - Raja

Raja Sampathi

Become the Hunter, not the Hunted 

In 2026, AI prompting and fluency are table stakes.

The benefits are impossible to ignore:
→ 91% of SMBs using AI say it boosts revenue (Salesforce)
→ Smaller firms see higher returns than large enterprises (Wharton)
→ 85% of small business owners report higher efficiency and productivity (Goldman)

Join this statistic, not the one AI obsolescence 

If you’re new to AI and want a real productivity boost - 
enroll your team in 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄™ 𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 workshop:

✔️ Future-proof your career with an AI-ready mindset
✔️ Lead AI conversations with clarity and confidence
✔️ Learn 3-5 AI workflows that save hours every week

Pilot price: $3,000 - expires after the next 3 clients.

Helping your team become AI Fluent is a holiday gift they’ll never forget. 

DM me 'AWARE' for full details.

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

PS: Do you think AI is still a passing fad ala Blockchain ?

Fractional Chief AI Officer | Creator of AWARE™ Driving AI ROI, Adoption & Revenue Per Employee | Ex-Deloitte

Your million-dollar AI ROI is one lunch away.

Take your top performer to lunch.

Hit record. Ask:
What do you actually do?
What do you do exceptionally well?
What’s frustrating or slow?
Where can this be improved?

Upload that audio to ChatGPT.
Ask for 5 high-impact use cases you can act on this week.

That’s it. Those are use cases.
The best ones are already inside your business.

If you want this done across your whole team
That's exactly what 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄™ 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 delivers.

→ Master the tools you already have to get real work done faster
→ Drive ROI beyond productivity - innovation + new revenue
→ Overcome resistance and lead org-wide change with confidence

Pilot price: $4,500 - expires after the next 3 clients.

In 2026, you’ll define your competition, not be defined by them.

DM me 'AWARE' for full details.

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

𝐏𝐒: You are that AI Enthusiast Employee & Future Champion, you should be inviting your boss for for this lunch 

𝐏𝐏𝐒: I’m having lunch with this guy next week. He's an AI Champion,  what should I ask him?

You have $1 Million waiting in your AI Copilot vault.

Let’s do the math.
(Not because I’m Indian)

Assume a company of 100 employees.

Average salary: $100K.
Loaded hourly cost: ~$48/hr.

Now take a very conservative productivity gain:

5 hours saved per employee per month.
(Not 40. Not 20. Just 5. Stay humble.)

5 hours × 100 people = 500 hours/month
= 6,000 hours/year

6,000 hours × $48 = $288,000/year
reclaimed back into the business.

No extra hiring.
No reorg.
No new strategy deck.

𝐉𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜 𝐀𝐈 𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲.

Say you invest $30K in AI tools + training.
That’s roughly 800% ROI.

And that’s the floor.
Once your people actually use AI well,
you’re looking at $1M–$2M+ annual lift on the same $30K spend.

(IBM Report, 2025: 66% of enterprises see significant productivity gains from AI.)

This is Part 1: Math.
Part 2: Myth drops next.

PS: Share your AI ROI success story

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

li_at

JSESSIONID

AI can automate about 57% of current US work hours - McKinsey 
That should excite you. And scare you.

This is not a job loss story.
It’s a workflow redesign story.
And most leaders are playing defense.

Here’s the excitement:
→ If you redesign workflows (not just tasks), you can unlock serious value
→ AI fluency demand is up 7x in two years
→ By 2030, the US could unlock $𝟐.𝟗𝐓 𝐢𝐧 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞, if leaders prepare people and redesign work

Here’s the fear:
→ Digital and information work gets hit first
→ “Wait and see” becomes “too late” fast
→ Most skills still matter, but how you use them changes

3 Things you need to take away for 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 
→ AI Fluency is next key communication skill
→ AI Adoption needs to leadership led, Delegating to IT = 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑙𝑢𝑟𝑒 

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 
→ Work becomes a partnership: people, agents, robots - all powered by AI.

The winners will not be the most technical.
They’ll be the fastest to redesign work around humans plus machines.

What is your plan?

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Adoption | AI Leadership

𝐏𝐒: Have a 4th Takeaway for us? 
(see report in the comments)

Today is the forced closing of the company you led for 15 years.

It wasn’t a competitor that took you out.
It was a machine that made you extinct.

You ignored it. Called it a fad.
Then you panic-bought a few Copilot licenses and sent a memo:

“We’re an AI-first company.”

Nothing changed.
Because you delegated it like a software rollout.

Meanwhile, the world changed anyway.

Your AI-fluent employees brought you real proposals.
Clear use cases. Cycle-time cuts. A plan.
You sent them to IT.

They left.
And your best operators followed them out the door.

Two quarters later you missed forecast. Twice.
RFPs started asking for AI policy, turnaround time, and proof of adoption.
Your answers sounded like hope.

Your best products got commoditized.

Your competitor shipped, tested, and iterated before you finished breakfast.
Their cost of output dropped. Yours stayed human.

Then the final meeting.

Investors lost faith.
Not because you were lazy.
Because you were late.

Tomorrow you’re golfing with your buddies after a “retirement” you didn’t choose.
No war stories. Just resignation.

A machine took you out.
It wasn’t even a fair fight.

I don’t want this to be real for any CEO in 2026.

So let this stay fiction.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you what to do.

ChatGPT helped keep your gluten-allergy kid safe on your Rome vacation.
(could have saved his life)
Six months later, it not only saved your company, but is making it Thrive. 

What started as vacation planning became a business turning point.

You got curious about this AI thing and opened ChatGPT to plan Rome for your family: 

Your son has a gluten allergy, so it mapped safe places to eat in pasta paradise.
It even helped you find non-touristy fashion stores for your daughter, and it didn’t break the bank.

You came back knowing this was the future.

You bought ChatGPT Pro for your small business.
Not as a tool. As a new way of working.

You showed your team how you used it. In public. 

Then you hired a trainer who automated the mundane stuff
and gave every team member 8 hours back every week.

Those hours became innovation.

--> Sales cut cycle time in half.
--> Marketing output doubled with the same headcount.
--> Product tested ideas before building, and launched into demand.

Old customers paid more. New customers waitlisted.

You needed more capacity, so you used AI agents without adding overhead.
Revenue per employee doubled. Your ROI looked like a hockey stick.

The best part?
What used to be 12-hour grind days became nights with dinner and your family.

You weren’t just on the right side of history.
You wrote history.

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

You’ve Spent Millions on AI
And the only ones seeing ROI are Nvidia and Oracle.

While your dollars cool chips in a West Texas data farm,
your board is asking:
Where’s the AI ROI?

All fingers point to you.
Not because it’s your fault.
But because it’s your responsibility.

AI adoption is not a tech problem.
It’s a change management problem.
More accurately, it’s a leadership problem.

I’ve led multi-million-dollar platform deployments as a management consultant.
AI is different.

It learns. It evolves.
And it scares people. Quietly.

So your biggest risk is not the model.
It’s the humans avoiding it.

Adoption does not happen with licenses and memos.
It happens when you (leaders) learn in public and make new behavior normal.

Want to lead the change, not ready yet ? 
There is a playbook you can grab from my Featured section 

Ready now to define the future? 
Send a DM, let’s explore how a 30 day audit can help your company. 

End 2025 as a future ready leader

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

𝐏𝐒: Are you in the camp that thinks AI cannot/does not think?

AI is not a software installation.
It’s a cultural transformation.

You can’t send a memo saying “We’re an AI-first company now”
and expect productivity to show up on Monday.

AI is not something you install.
It’s something you adopt.

ROI doesn’t come from tools.
It comes from how people actually use them -
in the tiny moments, in the daily work.

This is culture change.
And Mastery is when culture change becomes behavior.

⸻

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐧𝐞

This isn’t a sprint.
And it’s not a multi-year grind.
It’s High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).

Short, focused, consistent bursts.

Not “inspiration speeches.”
𝐍𝐨𝐭 50-page playbooks no one reads.

Just: 
→ Show your team how you use AI.
→ Share the micro-wins.
→ Share the confusion.
→ Share the adjustments.

Demonstrative leadership → drives adoption.

Your team learns by watching you.
Not hearing you.

⸻

Training = Guidance, Not Content

Every company has a graveyard of training videos no one has opened.

AI enablement cannot be “watch this module.”

It must be:
→ Context
→ Hands-on support
→ Shared best practices
→ Building internal champions
→ Protecting critical thinking
(Not outsourcing judgment to AI - ever.)

⸻

Cheers  - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

PS: still thinking if AI is the future?

Myths are for bedtime stories.
Let’s dispel the AI productivity ones.

𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝟏 - AI Should NOT be Used just for Productivity Hacks 

I once led an ERP implementation where the sponsor kept saying: 
“We’ll start with the low-hanging fruit.”

But AI actually does have low-hanging fruit. And it’s immediate.

They buy back time. 
Time → becomes problem solving. 
Problem solving → becomes value.

With AI, the low-hanging fruit is the meal.

Your time saved is fuel for the innovation you seek.

(ERP implementations have no low hanging fruit, the sponsor got let go)

𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝟐 - You Need 47 AI Tools to See Results
Move over Fast & Furious, there are more AI tools being released than Vin Diesel sequels.

Here’s the truth: You don’t need a tool zoo. You need one or two tools - and fluency.

Your Copilot alone - used well - can unlock millions in value. 
(See post from Yesterday in comments)

𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡 𝟑 (my Favorite) - “AI is a Fad, We Can Wait and See”

AI adoption is not a tech race. It’s a behavioral race.

Your competition knows, believes that and is scaling accordingly.

Those who start learning now will think differently, work differently, and lead differently - long before the “wait and see” crowd even realizes the gap has formed.

By the time most leaders notice the shift, they’ll already be on the wrong side of it.

Don’t think like Blackberry when the iPhone was launched.

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

PS: Part 3: Mastery drops tomorrow

PPS - Which AI myth riles you the most?

AI will give you answers. It won’t carry the consequences.
That part is still your job.

AI does not care about your people, your culture, or your business outcomes. 
It will respond with confidence either way - 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎 𝑌𝑒𝑠 𝑀𝑎𝑛

Your tool to stay ahead - Strategic Empathy 

It is just not being nice
→ It is signal detection
→ It is reading fear, resistance, politics, and fatigue
→ Then making decisions people can actually follow

In the age of AI, your edge is not speed. The machine wins speed. 

Your edge is clarity under pressure. 
It is staying steady when the room is anxious. 

𝐈𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐈 𝐚𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞, 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲.

Do you have a plan to stay ahead, or do you just have tools?

Cheers - Raja Sampathi
AI Leadership | AI Adoption

2026 is the year of AI ROI - We are looking at a floor ROI of 600% on our trainings, you need to plan now in the last month of 2025 to get there

I knew immediately after meeting Shana Burg that I want to work with on AI enablement , she gets It! 

Book your workshops now to use your 2025 budgets and we will deliver it post vacation , we've priced it right at $3-4.5K  for instant/ speedy approval

Founder & Principal | Shana Burg Digital | AI Literacy & Training l Inclusive Education

To be AI successful in 2026 , you need to sow the seeds in 2025.

The majority of companies say they want to begin the transition to become “AI-first” in the next few years. But what does this actually mean?

AI-first companies don’t bolt AI onto old systems.

They redesign how work happens—processes, tools, and team habits—based on what AI can do today and what’s coming next.

As my colleague Raja Sampathi shared with me:

“A 100-person team with an average loaded cost of $100K only needs a 10% productivity lift to unlock $1M in value annually.”

We met at an Austin AI Alliance event, ran out of time, and ended up continuing the conversation on Zoom a few days later.

We’re both obsessed with one question:

How do we help leaders make the leap to deeply integrate AI?

Done well, the payoff includes:

⭐️ Better work–life balance

⭐️ Higher revenue per employee

⭐️ Stronger enterprise valuation

Raja and I are collaborating. This is for you if:

✔️ You’re already using Copilot, but need help identifying use cases and streamlining workflows across teams

✔️ You want to boost productivity without adding more meetings or more tools

✔️ You’re considering an organization-wide AI transformation and want a practical starting point

Raja has 19+ years in management consulting and executive coaching, helping senior leaders navigate transformation across industries.

I’m an educator, corporate trainer, and certified AI trainer who loves working with beginners and AI-curious teams.

If you want your teams ready for an AI-first future, book a call with us and let’s map out your first wins.

Want to find out more? Set up a call here: https://lnkd.in/g7TNJRCx

Hot Take - You don't ask Michelangelo what kind of chisel he used to sculpt David  
Your systems matter more than your GenAI tool to get you the ROI you are seeking

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