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Austin AI Alliance Monthly Meeting – January
The Austin AI Alliance is an AI consortium dedicated to advancing the capabilities, usage & impact, social responsibility, and inclusiveness of AI technologies and applications by leveraging the unique resources, talent base, and culture of creative innovation in Austin. The Austin AI Alliance is welcoming of all companies and organizations and will help to connect professionals from companies (from startups to global technology leaders), universities, government agencies, professional associations, non-profits, and interest groups—and to elevate all of their respective activities as well as creative collaborative opportunities.
Members and Public, all welcome
Agenda:
5:30 – 6:00 PM | Check-in and Networking
6:00 – 7:00 PM | Innovation Spotlights and Reverse Pitches
7:00 – 8:00 PM | Projects, Collaboration, and Networking
This month, we’re hosting an Innovation Spotlight focused on how AI is reshaping entrepreneurship in an era of constant disruption.
Defining & Measuring the Value of AI-Enriched Data: A Case Study
What do you do when your client promised to use AI to deliver “data quality”, but nobody there had defined the term or its value?
This talk by John Morkes, PhD shows how understanding value is a key driver of success in using AI. Attendees will hear how a Fortune 100 Company’s vague goal for Human Resources data was turned into crisp objectives with relevant metrics, target outcomes, stakeholder and team alignment, measured iterations, and positive results (including tens of millions of dollars in savings).
Specific strategy and research techniques will be discussed, along with some lessons learned.
John Morkes is a user-centered AI strategist and the founder of Neet UX & Strategy, a member of the Austin AI Alliance.
Crisis Is the New Normal: Why the Future Belongs to Entrepreneurs in the Age of AI
AI is not just disrupting industries — it is exposing how individuals, organizations, and institutions behave under pressure. As automation accelerates, trust erodes, and traditional structures fail to keep pace, more people will be forced into entrepreneurial behavior whether they planned for it or not.
In this Innovation Spotlight, Kevin Koym draws on over three decades as an entrepreneur and two decades building innovation ecosystems across more than 20 countries to explore what this moment demands. This session reframes entrepreneurship as a survival skill, not a career path — and unpacks the capabilities required to move quickly, learn continuously, and partner across borders in a world where stability is no longer guaranteed.
You’ll hear why crisis is a sorting mechanism, why pioneers — not empire builders — shape the future, and why care, trust, and social capital are becoming strategic infrastructure in high-performing ecosystems.
This is not a talk about tools. It’s a call to understand who you become when disruption removes the guardrails — and how to build, lead, and collaborate when the future is undecided.
From Gut Feel to Data Real: Reinventing Forecasting with AI
What if your next big cost savings didn’t come from cutting corners—but from predicting them? In this Innovation Spotlight, Frank Mendoza shares how a promotions industry leader used AI to transform manual, error-prone sales forecasting into a precision engine of operational efficiency.
Attendees will discover how leveraging over a decade of historical data, predictive AI—not generative—achieved sub-5% error rates in monthly forecasts, unlocking smarter planning, reduced inventory costs, and real-time decision-making. This isn’t just a tech demo—it’s a blueprint for how AI can drive real business impact in complex, SKU-heavy manufacturing environments.
Whether you’re in supply chain, finance, or AI, this session will challenge how you think about forecasting—and show you what’s possible when AI meets business strategy.
