Axios interview: John Roese on Dell's federal AI push
John Roese, Dell's global chief technology officer and chief AI officer, told Axios during a Washington visit Tuesday that the federal government's AI adoption is poised to speed up in part because of success cases in business.
Why it matters: "Nobody in the government wants to be the bleeding-edge, first adopter of a technology — that's pretty risky," he said.
Roese said his message to D.C. is: "Come on in — you're not the first to move. It's early, but you don't have to figure this out by yourself. I can show you with confidence this is actually achievable. How you do it will probably be a bit different; your data will be different."
The big picture: Michael Dell, the company's chair and CEO, told Bruce Mehlman during an event yesterday at the National Press Club that shunning AI tools soon will be like having a phone without WiFi.
Dell Technologies says in new recommendations for Washington that AI "will require substantial and appropriate investment focus to help address chip resourcing and increased compute power, data storage and energy efficiency needs. Public and private sector collaboration provides the optimum basis from which to move forward."
Looking ahead to agentic AI, Roese told us: "Imagine a world where ... the agent that manages your finances talks to the agent at the IRS and your taxes just happen continuously."
"The level of efficiency goes up, the effectiveness goes up, the actual outcomes improve, and the friction of humans having to interact with bad processes and complex environments just disappears. ... Compliance probably goes up, too."
Behind the scenes: Roese said Dell decided it needs to be "Customer Zero," since there's no playbook for transforming an organization using generative AI.
"The only way that we would be able to properly inform the strategy and have any credibility with customers who are also on this journey [was] to be a first and visible aggressive adopter of the technology," he said.
A chief AI officer needs to be "deeply involved in the actual technology evolution that's occurring, and can translate that and understand it is actually a strategic asset to make your company better," Roese said.
"You're literally changing the way work happens in an organization," he added. "If you try to do that bottom-up through consensus building, good luck! It will take you a thousand years to get to a consensus. You have to be top-down. You have to make decisions."
Roese, who holds about 30 patents, said he has "never met a problem that wasn't interesting and worth solving." He said the Dell approach is: "Do it fast; fail forward faster; have a high-risk profile."
"I go into a meeting, I don't even have to tell people, anymore. If we're debating something, they all realize: If we don't make the decision this week, John's going to make the decision. So we get moving, because we don't have time to waste."
Go deeper: Read Dell's new 7-page paper, "A Blueprint for U.S. AI Global Leadership."
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