Can Startups Outrun Big Companies in AI? | Shashi Upadhyay, Zendesk | dAIlogues by Stellaris #ai

Welcome to the second episode of dAIlogues by Stellaris Venture Partners, featuring conversations with industry stalwarts who are shaping the future of AI. In this episode, Alok Goyal sits down with Shashi Upadhyay, who has seen AI evolve up close as a founder at Lattice Engines, an AI leader at Google, and now as an executive reinventing ‪@zendesk‬ for the AI era. The conversation reveals a reality that many founders are discovering the hard way. 00:00 Coming up... 01:23 Shashi Upadhyay’s journey 03:09 What has surprised you about the arc of AI? 11:00 Incumbents vs. startups – where does defensibility lie? 15:29 Has AI velocity increased, or are enterprises growing cautious? 20:27 How are you making Zendesk AI-first? 27:18 Running AI and non-AI roadmaps 29:45 Humans + AI more powerful? 33:43 Are customer expectations sky high? 37:14 AI value vs. hype 41:23 India’s advantage in AI 45:04 AI + services opportunity 48:00 Advice to founders Reach Shashi Upadhyay:   / supadhyay   Reach Alok Goyal:   / alok-goyal-536557   Find this episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1dab... Visit www.stellarisvp.com to learn more about how we invest.