Karan Girotra, Professor of Operations, Technology and Information Management at Cornell University explains that recent advances in AI, particularly in processing language and visuals, will unlock new potential to automate cognitive tasks involving text, speech, images and video.
Karan’s journey is a study in adaptability: from engineering to entrepreneurship to academia, he emphasized that success doesn’t follow a master plan. Instead, he advised, it’s about working hard at the best opportunities in front of you, while allowing a portion of your time for conscious experimentation.
The conversation then turned to today’s AI revolution. Karan explained that we’re witnessing the rise of a new “general purpose technology” — a breakthrough on the scale of the steam engine or electricity. Thanks to advances in large-scale pre-training, computers can now work with language and visuals almost as easily as numbers, opening up massive new possibilities.
He broke down AI’s impact across four levels: personal productivity, business processes, business models, and the wider economy. The key insight? We’re only at the start. Much like the early days of the internet or smartphones, real economic transformation will take time. Yet for those willing to work hard and experiment wisely, the opportunities ahead are immense.
Karan left listeners with a powerful reminder: “There’s no substitute for hard work. You can make your own luck by working hard at the opportunities you have, while keeping an open mind to new ones.”