Babak Hodjat on building smarter, more helpful AI

For our fourth episode of Working Smarter we’re
talking to Babak Hodjat, the chief technology officer for AI
research at Cognizant. If you’ve ever used Apple’s smart
assistant Siri, then you’re almost certainly familiar with his
work.


Hodjat has been doing AI research for nearly four decades, and if
there’s one thread that runs through his career, it’s how to make
working with digital agents feel as natural or effortless as
working with a colleague. At Cognizant—an IT services and
consulting firm—Hodjat’s team puts this work into practice by
helping other companies integrate AI tools into their workflows.


Hear Hodjat discuss why it’s still so hard for machines to
understand exactly what we want them to do, the problems he’s
helping his customers solve, and how the latest generation of
workplace assistants can help us make better decisions and
improve the way we do our jobs.


Show notes:


Learn more about Cognizant's Advanced AI Lab

Links to Hodjat’s research

The Perceptive Assistant that Learns (PAL)

The Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes (CALO)



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Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is
changing the way we work and get stuff done.


You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or wherever you
get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews,
visit workingsmarter.ai


This show would not be possible without the talented team at
Cosmic Standard, namely: our producers Samiah Adams and Aja
Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer
Eliza Smith. Special thanks to Benjy Baptiste for production
assistance, our marketing and PR consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and
our illustrators, Fanny Luor and Justin Tran. Our theme song was
created by Doug Stuart. Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew
Braga.


Thanks for listening!