Bhushan Kulkarni knows artificial intelligence isn’t just some concept that’s coming, that’s lingering on the horizon of business inclusion.
Kulkarni, CEO and founder of InfoReady Corporation, a software platform for process and automation, knows AI is “not just a big word; it’s already here.”
“We are just touching the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI,” Kulkarni said. “AI is going to change our lives dramatically, even more than how the Internet did it for us.
Kulkarni acknowledged there’s “still a lot of skepticism … rightfully so.
“It’s still evolving,” he said. “(Some) are taking a very proactive approach in terms of how AI can be used both internally to grow organizations as well as what is in it for our customers and taking proactive steps.
“Since we focus in the higher ed ecosystem, which is a land of intellectuals, the last thing they want to think about is artificial intelligence,” he added. “But even higher ed is adapting quite quickly … using AI for things as simple as a fellowship or a scholarship. AI can recommend there are maybe other fellowships or scholarships that you may be interested in.”
Kulkarni, who earned a master’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from West Virginia University in 1987, talked about InfoReady, his career and a variety of other business issues during a recent episode of “CEO Thought Leadership Series on LinkedIn Live,” the discussion series hosted by the National Association for Business Resources.
Produced in conjunction with the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For and Corp! Magazine, the series is hosted by NABR CEO Jennifer Kluge and features business leaders from around the country.
Jennifer Kluge: Tell us about InfoReady.
Bhushan Kulkarni: It’s an enterprise-level decision platform that’s used by most major universities. And what began as an experiment in Ann Arbor, collaborating with the great University of Michigan, has really captured the imagination of the market, to a point where we have over 65% market share at the national level of colleges and universities. Most major universities are using it for making competitive decisions of all kinds.
Kluge: Give us a feel for the average business person. What can we expect in the next five years ahead of what technology is going to be capable of doing.
Kulkarni: A whole lot. If you go to ChatGPT and ask a very simple question like, “Give me a battle card for all in any competitors out there.” And it nicely organizes pages and pages of information in a tabular format and gives you that information in a matter of seconds, which would have taken me or someone on my team hours and hours and days.
It’s just tip of the iceberg. When you look at the auto industry, since we are in here in Michigan, in the early- to mid-1980s, robots started arriving on the assembly line. And today if you go on the assembly line, all the work is done by robots.
You can now look at AI replacing some of those jobs, some of the functions that we do, how we get to the finish line is going to change quite a bit because of AI. It’s going to move at a pace that is going to be mind-boggling in the next two, three, five years.
Kluge: As a mega entrepreneur, why so many businesses? Why dabble in multiple businesses as you have? You’ve started a couple; walk us through the thought process on that.
Kulkarni: I like your terminology of mega entrepreneur because a lot of times when people call me serial entrepreneur, I come to the definition of that means I’m still trying to figure out who I want to be when I grow up.
I’m not really always looking for starting a new business, but it so happens that the idea gets presented to you and the ideas entrepreneur in me always looks for how to fill those gaps. You know, better, efficient, faster, in a cheaper way and so on.
A good example: It started just as a project with University of Michigan trying to make competitive decisions by using tools cobbled together from email, Excel, Google Docs, Dropbox and all that. And the first use case they had in deciding whom to give a certain type of limited submission grants.
It was very interesting that the large public university using technology for and solving the problem with tools cobbled together what light bulb went off and I started asking other universities and they were all doing the same thing, using tools cobbled together. We were able to create a replicable solution that was then applicable at other colleges and universities.
Kluge: You have multiple businesses. The world is changing very quickly and they’re fast-growing. Where did your success come from, and what leadership qualities and leadership traits did you use in a fast-growing, fast-paced environment?
Kulkarni: It’s not rocket science, but to me, the mission has to be very clear in your head so that you can articulate it to your shareholders, your team and your entire ecosystem in terms of who we are, for the leader needs to also define who we are not.
And help the team create laser focus, execution steps and so on that, and it’s very important for most of the startups because what happens you know, the startup founders start with an idea and then take it to the market. And, if you are just in love with your idea because you think that’s the best thing that you have come up with, everything can go wrong.
Kluge: Were there any monumental moments in your career where you had something really big happen?
Kulkarni: It was kind of a realization over, over a period of time that really helped me quite a bit, because when I started building GDI Infotech, it is a services and solutions consulting company. So the kind of work GDI does, whether it’s in digital transformation initiatives, cloud migration initiatives or cybersecurity initiatives, IT they work for a higher kind of initiatives, InfoReady, for example.
Kluge: Based on your knowledge of technology, what advice would you give to other business leaders and executives, other CEOs out there related to what they should be focusing on in technology and what risks they’re having currently?
Kulkarni: There are a lot of mistakes I made. So there’s a lot to learn from those mistakes. And one of the chief recommendation that I have, which I learned hard way, is always invest in technology. And even if it may sound like overkill, invest in technology proactively.
And well before you think you need it, because that will make your life much, much easier.
Kluge: There are so many tech threats out there right now. It’s scary for a lot of people. And there’s even countries fighting each other. Give us a feel for what we as leaders need to be concerned about as it relates to these threats.
Kulkarni: The number one threat, believe it or not, for looking at everything going on in the world, is cyber security and part of the challenge is individuals and small and medium sized companies that don’t have a right cyber posture are the ones that are getting attacked at the monumental level.
They’re coming at us from variety of different ways. Most of the times it’s not so much technology, but the lack of awareness and lack of understanding on some of the basic things that each human being or each company should be doing well.
