Llama Lounge has become something of a phenomenon, the place where the hottest AI startups come together with Silicon Valley leaders.  There are large queues to enter, and even a secondary ticket market for those attempting gate crash.

The TalentGenius team was fortunate to demo at last week’s event which included 350+ AI founders, 60+ VCs, and 50+ enterprise AI leaders coming to see 10 early stage AI startups demo their apps.  Jeremiah Owyang, the Llama Lounge leader and organizer, provided a great summary of the event.

The scale and intensity of the event reflects the hunger to understand what is on the cutting edge of AI as how it will manifest in the enterprise.  The market has clearly moved on from AI wonder to pragmatism, with a focus on how best to transform key workflows.

Here is a photo of the venue and attendees to give a sense of scale:

Events like this are electric. Having so many people together in one space, all focused on how AI is changing business at a fundamental level is energizing and inspiring.  We spent hours sharing TalentAgent with VCs, enterprises, and AI experts, and we received an enormous amount of positive feedback and support. 

The major insight for us is while many are applying AI to business processes they’re forgetting the most important ingredient: people.  AI will certainly eat specific skills and portions of workflows, but it will also greatly enhance many other skills.  Think person + machine, and each individual needs to know exactly what skills to focus on, what tools to leverage, and how to raise their game.  In short, during the event we gained clear reinforcement that the enterprise needs to focus on how to make AI work for its workers.  At TalentGenius we are focused on putting AI on the side of talent, to ensure individuals optimize this moment.  

We’re helping AI work for you, and while it's great to see the impact AI is having on enterprises at events like Llama Lounge, it's even greater to be a part of helping AI to work on behalf of enterprise technology workers.