Xactly SVP Engineering Kandarp Desai

How AI Happens

Developing AI and generative AI initiatives demands significant investment, and without delivering on customer satisfaction, these costs can be tough to justify. Today, SVP of Engineering and General Manager of Xactly India, Kandarp Desai joins us to discuss Xactly's AI initiatives and why customer satisfaction remains their top priority.
Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to Kandarp and his transition from hardware to software.
• How he became SVP of Engineering and General Manager of Xactly India.
• His move to Bangalore and the expansion of Xactly’s presence in India.
• The rapid modernization of India as a key factor in Xactly’s growth strategy.
• An overview of Xactly’s AI and generative AI initiatives.
• Insight into the development of Xactly’s AI Copilot.
• Four key stakeholders served by the Xactly AI Copilot.
• The Xactly Extend, an enterprise platform for building custom apps.
• Challenges in justifying the ROI of AI initiatives.
• Why customer satisfaction and business outcomes are essential.
• How AI is overhyped in the short term and underhyped in the long term.
• The difficulties in quantifying the value of AI.
• Kandarp’s career advice to AI practitioners, from taking risks to networking.

Quotes:

“[Generative AI] is only useful if it drives higher customer satisfaction. Otherwise, it doesn't matter.” — Kandarp Desai [0:11:36]

“Justifying the ROI of anything is hard – If you can tie any new invention back to its ROI in customer satisfaction, that can drive an easy sell across an organization.” — Kandarp Desai [0:15:35]

“The whole AI trend is overhyped in the short term and underhyped long term. [It’s experienced an] oversell recently, and people are still trying to figure it out.” — Kandarp Desai [0:20:48]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Kandarp Desai on LinkedIn

Xactly

How AI Happens

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