Me, Myself, and AI

Prakhar Mehrotra, vice president of machine learning at Walmart, shares his experience and how it prepared him to lead an AI team at a $500B retailer. Tasked with using AI to help with decision-making and enhance the business, Prakhar focuses on the technology that improves store merchandising (pricing, inventory management, financial planning).Before joining Walmart, Prakhar led data scientists and developed stochastic models at Uber and Twitter, where he learned how to move quickly and scale AI. (Fun fact: he even drove for Uber to better understand the driver experience — a perfect example of the role empathy plays in AI.)Hear Prakhar share stories on rallying and educating teams on AI, the relationship of AI and business intelligence, and what it means to make big bets in an enterprise setting. Read the episode transcript here.Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast betweenMIT Sloan Management Reviewand Boston Consulting Group, hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Our engineer is David Lishansky, and coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger. Guest bio: As vice president of machine learning, Prakhar Mehrotra is one of the top executives for AI and machine learning at Walmart and an internationally recognized leader and innovator in the field. He was recently awarded The Franz Edelman Medal by INFORMS for significant contributions in data science and advanced analytics. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and serves as a peer reviewer for top conferences and journals in AI, including the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence conference, the Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, and the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

Slawek Kierner, senior vice president of enterprise data and analytics at Humana, has been immersed in data for as long as he can remember. His fascination with process simulations began on his first PC running MATLAB and Sumulink, and later led him to innovative roles at Procter & Gamble and Nokia. His desire to use data for a noble purpose drove Slawek to Humana, where he leverages AI to solve problems around medication adherence and predict population health outcomes.Tune in to hear Slawek share stories on recreating synthetic individual profiles indistinguishable from real humans (helping physicians better predict patient admissions and behaviors), and how his team created an internal machine learning platform that gives data scientists access to open source capabilities. All the in pursuit of helping human beings live longer, healthier lives. Read the episode transcript here.Read more about our show and follow along at sloanreview.mit.edu/aipodcast.Me, Myself, and AI is Me, Myself, and AI is a collaborative podcast between MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group, hosted by Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh. Its engineer is David Lishansky, and coordinating producers are Allison Ryder and Sophie Rüdinger.Guest bio: Slawek Kierner is Humana’s senior vice president, digital health and analytics. He is responsible for enabling data governance, analytics platforms, data science, and artificial intelligence integration across the enterprise to foster innovative solutions that help Humana’s communities, members, care teams, and employees more easily take actions for better health outcomes.Slawek has previously served as the chief data and analytics officer for the Microsoft Business Applications Group and has led digital marketing operations and information systems for Procter & Gamble’s European business. He also served as a board member and CIO for P&G’s Central Europe division.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.

Why do only 10% of companies succeed with AI? In this series by MIT SMR and BCG, we talk to the leaders who've achieved big wins with AI in their companies and learn how they did it. Hear what gets experts from companies like Walmart, DHL, and others excited to do their jobs every day and what they consider the keys to their success.We encourage you to rate and review our show. Your comments may be used in Me, Myself, and AI materials.We want to know how you feel about Me, Myself, and AI. Please take a short, two-question survey.