Latest news with #MarcusWeldon
Newsweek
11 hours ago
- Business
- Newsweek
AI Impact Summit 2025: Editors Recap 5 Main Takeaways of Event
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. There is no doubt that artificial intelligence is going to impact every industry worldwide. During Newsweek's AI Impact Summit in Sonoma, California, leaders from various businesses gathered to better understand AI use cases and the best ways to implement, govern and scale AI tools. Day three of the summit had the shortest programming, but it offered some of the most important insights gathered from the entire event. To close out, Newsweek's Editorial Director of Nexus Gabriel Snyder and contributing editor Marcus Weldon shared the five main takeaways they learned from the panels and discussions over the last three days. AI Puts a Premium on Curiosity and Automates the Mundane "So one example for this one was our entertainment panel and how the filmmakers are using AI to automate the mundane development process and create more quickly," Snyder said. Weldon also added that in the health care panels, conversations explored how drug discovery and clinicians can explore pathways to come up with new treatment plans. Sonoma, CA - Newsweek's Marcus Weldon and Gabriel Snyder present their top five takeaways from the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. Sonoma, CA - Newsweek's Marcus Weldon and Gabriel Snyder present their top five takeaways from the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. NICK OTTO AI Has to Humanize Health Care and Personalize Engagement in General "Not only were many of the health care panelists talking about how ambient scribes and other AI tools were letting doctors be with their patients and bringing back the human touch into health care. But we also heard that from the representatives from Denver and Charlotte and how they're using AI to make city services more humanized," Snyder said. "And I think that's really interesting balance. When we think of AI, we think of it as a machine. It obviously is, but it's often by doing those mundane tasks and that we talked about first, it's opening up more space and energy for things that are uniquely human. And I think that's a really critical thing to keep in mind with all of these applications." Instacart's Daniel Danker spoke during his panel Tuesday about personalizing the shopping experience to take the cognitive load off users to start planning not only shopping lists but meal plans. In a Wednesday panel, Sears KAIros CEO Srini Kandala said call centers using AI agents have better access to materials to provide better recommendations for customers. AI Has the Power to Democratize Expertise and Also Value Unique Human Expertise "So there's a danger in that democratizing expertise, that it means that everyone will think of themselves as an equivalent expert," Weldon said. "I think it raises the foundational level." He said the average level of knowledge is going up by interaction with these systems and, on top of that, the unique human creativity remains because we understand the world in a certain way that can't be replicated by machines. Synder added that the "critical ingredient" for problem solving is always going to be the human expertise, saying – "there is no substitute for that." Sonoma, CA - Newsweek's Marcus Weldon and Gabriel Snyder present their top five takeaways from the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. This marked the end... Sonoma, CA - Newsweek's Marcus Weldon and Gabriel Snyder present their top five takeaways from the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. This marked the end of the 2025 Summit. More NICK OTTO AI Adoption Should Focus on the End-to-end Value Created; Efficiency and Cost Savings Are Byproducts Snyder said this theme came up several times during the summit, including in the return on investment discussion that morning. "I think the thing that I really learned here was the importance of always thinking about the accuracy of and the measurement of these tools, that these are not investments that you set and forget, that there is an active element of making sure that they're doing what you're expecting, that you're catching the things that it shouldn't be doing and that that element is as important as whatever you're doing on the front end to build," he said. Weldon added that most people agree that efficiency and cost savings will happen, but shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be about value creation. In the panel with Oklahoma CTO Rob Teel and Banjamin Maxim, the chief innovation officer at Michigan State University Federal Credit Union, the panelists stressed the importance of focusing on the "why" we are doing something and then executing "how" in order to drive efficiencies. Responsible AI Is About Transparency and Privacy But Also Continuous Validation and Verification Weldon said transparency means many things when dealing with AI tools: It means disclosing what the data is based on, announcing the presence of AI, protecting privacy and continuous validation and verification. "For everything we generate, we need to validate," he said. "So this idea of constantly testing, evaluating, verifying that the answer is valid, which is a form of transparency, and then bounding that for each personalized context." Sonoma, CA - Michigan State University Federal Credit Union CIO Benjamin Maxim and State of Oklahoma CTO Rob Teel speak with Newsweek contributor Chuck Martin in the "Navigating the Regulatory Maze: Enhancing AI Governance, Privacy... Sonoma, CA - Michigan State University Federal Credit Union CIO Benjamin Maxim and State of Oklahoma CTO Rob Teel speak with Newsweek contributor Chuck Martin in the "Navigating the Regulatory Maze: Enhancing AI Governance, Privacy and Cybersecurity" panel during the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Wednesday, June 25, 2025. More NICK OTTO Earlier that morning, there were three panel discussions about how to measure return on investment, measure success and ensure regulatory compliance. Dr. Girish N. Nadkarni of Mount Sinai highlighted how AI can boost both patient and clinician experience in health systems – increasing returns for follow-up care for patients and decreasing burnout that will lead to greater employee retention. With these great improvements to operations, Nadkarni did note that there should be measures for ROI and safety and ethical standards. "I truly believe we are going to get to a point in health care where AI is going to become a part of the care team and not using AI will open up liability," he said. "I think there is something to be said about the health system that wants to use AI in a safe, effective, ethical and responsible manner." Sachi Desai from Climate talked about using automation to help farmers with crop growth, while Maxim and Teel shared how they are each working with partners in both the public and private sectors to innovate and comply with necessary regulations. Newsweek will host the New Destinations Summit in London on July 3 and the Women's Global Impact Forum at the office in New York City on August 5. To learn more about Newsweek's upcoming programming, visit the Events page here.
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
AI Impact Summit 2025: Google Cloud COO Says AI Puts a Premium on Curiosity
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The first day of Newsweek's AI Impact Summit brought together 130 experts and industry leaders to discuss how organizations can implement, scale and govern AI. The overarching goal of these discussions was to demonstrate the value of AI and the practical impact AI tools have on organizations across industries. Newsweek Contributing Editor Marcus Weldon opened the summit with a presentation about what he has learned from Newsweek's AI interview series. He explained how the conversations about AI seem to be exclusively on one side of the extreme – it's either going to save humanity or end it. "The whole goal of the series is to find rational value," he said. "We're not skeptical, but we're not overly optimistic." Sonoma, CA - Cognizant Chief Technology Officer of AI Babak Hodjat shares a demo of Cognizant's AI product during the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. Sonoma, CA - Cognizant Chief Technology Officer of AI Babak Hodjat shares a demo of Cognizant's AI product during the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. NICK OTTO/NICK OTTO Babak Hodjat, Cognizant's chief technology officer of AI, also gave a presentation on the company's use of agentic AI. Cognizant, the sponsor of the event, also had demonstrations of its multi-agent AI both on and off stage that enabled attendees to build a custom system to take home. At the first panel, leaders from Toyota Motor North America, Scahill Law Group and Google Cloud discussed AI use cases at their respective companies. They all explained that AI tools help boost efficiency and productivity by handling more routine tasks, thereby freeing up time for employees to focus on more meaningful, strategic work. Sonoma, CA. - Raj Pai, Melody Ayeli and Vikram Kooblall speak with Marcus Weldon during the "Two Worlds of AI: To Buy Or Build" panel during the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn... Sonoma, CA. - Raj Pai, Melody Ayeli and Vikram Kooblall speak with Marcus Weldon during the "Two Worlds of AI: To Buy Or Build" panel during the AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. More NICK OTTO/NICK OTTO While AI has many benefits, Melody Ayeli, the senior director of enterprise AI at Toyota Motor North America, said that they are not rushing into AI implementation without proper regulations and testing. "We're a company that's very conservative because we put safety and quality first, and so that extends to AI," she said. "Anything that we put in the car is rigorously tested, and as you know, [AI] is not always correct, so there's a lot of work to be done to make sure that it's accurate and for us, it's very serious." In addition to human speakers, there was also a sidewalk delivery robot from Serve Robotics at the "AI in Motion: Designing for Driving the Future" panel. Both speakers from Designworks, a BMW Company, and Serve Robotics spoke about how they are using AI to design the best products. Sonoma, CA - Serve Robotics Co-founder MJ Chun and DesignWorks Director of Strategy and Partnering Paul Ferraiolo speak with Newsweek Contributor Chuck Martin during the "AI in Motion: Designing for Driving the Future" panel at... Sonoma, CA - Serve Robotics Co-founder MJ Chun and DesignWorks Director of Strategy and Partnering Paul Ferraiolo speak with Newsweek Contributor Chuck Martin during the "AI in Motion: Designing for Driving the Future" panel at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. More NICK OTTO/NICK OTTO During each of their one-on-one conversations, leaders from Zoom, and Kaiser Permanente all shared how their organizations are using AI to continue to innovate and improve the experience for all stakeholders. All of the speakers emphasized how listening to the wants and challenges of customers, users, clinicians and patients is the most important place to start when deciding if and how to implement AI. Sonoma, CA - Zoom Chief Technology Officer Xuedong Huang speaks during a 1:1 panel conversation in Newsweek's AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. Sonoma, CA - Zoom Chief Technology Officer Xuedong Huang speaks during a 1:1 panel conversation in Newsweek's AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. NICK OTTO/NICK OTTO Google COO Francis deSouza told Newsweek's Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham that "every part of a company is going to be touched by AI," so executives need a strategy. "A successful employee in any company will be viable in every function, plus AI," he said. "And so companies need to create sort of skilling programs and training to make sure that their employees are comfortable with what's out there. It will also place a premium on skills like curiosity [and] willingness to experiment, because things change so quickly that we need a workforce that is willing to be curious about what's out there. It also plays a premium on making sure that employees are responsible about how AI can be used." Sonoma, CA - Google Cloud COO Francis deSouza speaks with Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham during "The New Era of AI" panel in Newsweek's AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday,... Sonoma, CA - Google Cloud COO Francis deSouza speaks with Newsweek Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham during "The New Era of AI" panel in Newsweek's AI Impact Summit at Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa on Monday, June 23, 2025. More NICK OTTO/NICK OTTO To read more about the live coverage of day one and to follow along for the rest of the summit, check out Newsweek's AI Impact Summit live blog. Live coverage will resume on Tuesday at 9:00 am PST.
Newsweek
18-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
AI Impact Summit 2025: Newsweek Explores the Future of New Tech with Industry Leaders
Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The rapid evolution and implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) across all industries has led to significant advancements in areas such as health care, software development and media. But with these innovations come a new set of challenges for businesses to navigate as they enter the new frontier of tech and automation. While the application of AI might look different across industries, all businesses are grappling with similar questions about AI implementation, ethics and regulation. That is why Newsweek is bringing together diverse leaders from various industries to talk about the state of artificial intelligence at the AI Impact Summit in Sonoma, California, from June 23 to 25. "As the momentum surrounding artificial intelligence picks up, Newsweek is thrilled to gather some of the greatest producers and users of the technology to showcase the real impacts AI solutions are making in business across industries," Newsweek's SVP of Events Megan Knapp said. The three-day summit, which is sponsored by Cognizant and Google Cloud, will include various panels hosted by Newsweek Contributing Editor for AI and President Emeritus of Bell Labs Marcus Weldon, Editorial Director Newsweek Nexus Gabriel Snyder and Newsweek contributor Chuck Martin. AI Impact Summit AI Impact Summit Newsweek Illustration These panels will explore topics around AI implementation, ethical deployment, workforce adaptation, measurement of success and regulatory compliance, as well as the role of AI in areas like health care, filmmaking and city infrastructure. Representatives from major law firms, health systems, city governments and companies like Ancestry, Toyota, Tonal, The Zuckerberg Initiative, Zoom, the Hospital for Special Surgery and Instacart will share insights on panels and one-on-one discussions. Newsweek's Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Cunningham will also lead a discussion with the COO of Google Cloud, the president of The Weather Company and the chief digital and technology officer at Pfizer. There will also be opportunities for attendees to engage with each other during roundtable discussions hosted by partners from Navigate Corp, Google Cloud and Scahill Law Group. These breakouts allow people from different industries to share knowledge and explore topics like building vs. buying AI tools, AI experimentation, AI beyond chatbots and using AI to challenge business orthodoxies. Various networking breaks, AI demonstrations and other group activities will also take place throughout the summit to allow attendees to connect. Through these discussions, attendees will gain actionable strategies for integrating AI, enhance decision-making processes and be inspired to continue driving innovation. Attendees include leaders from ABBY, Advent Health, Bayer, the American Psychological Association, BlackRock, the city of San Antonio, Conde Nast, the U.S. Department of Transportation, Gilead Sciences, New York University, Octopus Energy, Prudential, Salesforce, Sephora, the Television Academy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, UMass Chan Medical School and Wells Fargo. This event comes after the announcement of Newsweek's AI Impact Award winners. The 38 winners came from a dozen industries, including arts and media, retail, finance, marketing, health, sustainability, engineering and education. The awards recognize innovative AI solutions that address critical problems across various business sectors. Companies were judged by a diverse panel of cross-industry leaders based on the practical impact of their AI tools. Information about the summit, including the full schedule and panel descriptions, can be found here. To register for the summit, follow this link here.
