How can insights from managing a winery help shape the future of AI technology at Intel? Carla Rodríguez bridges both worlds. When I asked Robert Hallock at Intel who I should invite next onto the podcast – his response was instant - Carla Rodríguez, who runs Intel’s client software ecosystem.
“Razor sharp … just so smart, so capable” was his description, so I just had to invite her onto the show. Carla is no ordinary big tech company exec. She served in the Peace Corps in Romania and worked her way through the ranks of Intel, joining in the finance area to become VP of one of the most important and innovative parts of the company.
In between these roles, she has also found time to help run a winery business with her husband, which gives her a unique perspective on the issues facing companies of all sizes.
Her role at Intel is to work closely with the developer ecosystem. With the recent launch of their AI PC program, which utilises the Intel vPro platform powered by Intel Core Pro processors, we’re seeing AI rise to become mainstream and a must-have tool in the workplace, driving innovation and productivity.
In our discussion, Carla explains how running a boutique winery in Oregon’s Willamette Valley with her Husband gives her a unique perspective on the challenges and rewards of running a small business, insights that she brings back to her role at Intel.
You’ll also learn about:
AI: Moving from Niche to Mainstream
AI has now reached a tipping point where it is becoming mainstream and Intel is at the forefront of this revolution with their AI PC platform, integrating CPU, GPU, and the new Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to handle complex AI tasks efficiently.
Empowering Developers with AIPC
Intel's AIPC Developer Program is a crucial initiative aimed at supporting developers in harnessing the power of the NPU. By providing hands-on labs and development kits, Intel is enabling developers to experiment and create groundbreaking applications.
The Immediate Impact on Businesses
For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the benefits of adopting AIPC are immediate. Carla emphasised that the time to invest in AIPC is now, as it offers enhanced productivity, security, and innovative capabilities.
Future of Work: Embracing AI
The future of work will be significantly shaped by AI, with tools that enhance productivity and free up time for more strategic tasks. As Carla pointed out, AI is like having an always-on intern, ready to assist with various tasks, making us more efficient and effective in our roles.
This podcast is sponsored by Intel.
More on Carla
Carla on LinkedIn
Intel AI PC
Thanks for listening to Digitally Curious. Pre-order the book that showcases these episodes at digitallycurious.ai/pre-order
Your Host is Actionable Futurist® Andrew Grill
For more on Andrew - what he speaks about and recent talks, please visit ActionableFuturist.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Digitally Curious, brought to you by Intel
, a podcast to help you navigatethe future of AI and beyond.
Your host is world-renownedfuturist and author of Digitally
Curious, Andrew Grill.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Today's guest is Carla Rodriguez, Vice President
and General Manager of theClient Software Ecosystem at
Intel.
Welcome, Carla.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Thank you.
Thanks for having me, Andrew.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now, when I spoke with your colleague, Robert
Halleck, on a recent episode ofthe podcast about the AIPC, I
asked him who I should invitenext on to the podcast, and this
is what he said.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Easy answer.
I have a colleague, razor sharp.
Her name is Carla Rodriguez andshe's in the software
organization at Intel.
So a lot of the AIPC softwarework that's going on across the
industry she is directlyinvolved with and she's just so
smart, so capable.
I would love to hear herpodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And just like that you're on the show.
Great to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh my goodness, here we are.
Well, you know Robert's tookind, Let me put it that way.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, it's always good when we have someone
recommending another, and it'shappened twice before where the
person they've recommended hasbecome available and it's like
yes.
So I can't wait at the end ofthe show in the quickfire round
to see who you'd like to have onthe podcast and see if we can
have a daisy chain and keepgoing on forever and ever.
You have an impressive careerat Intel spanning over 17 years,
but even more impressive isyour career path towards Intel.
(01:26):
I understand you served in thePeace Corps in Romania, you were
heavily involved in the GirlLeading Our World program
focusing on leadershipempowerment, and you're also
heavily involved in the Latinxcommunity.
I'd love to hear more aboutthis fascinating career journey
from a financial analyst all theway to a VP at Intel.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, yes, my path was a little more windy than others
if you wind it all the way to aVP at Intel.
Yes, yes, my path was a littlemore windy than others If you
wind it all the way back.
I'm originally from Mexico.
I was born and raised in Mexico, so I've got a strong, very
proud Latin heritage.
And then I came to the UnitedStates for undergrad and
graduate school and right afterundergraduate I wanted to do a
(02:07):
little bit more.
I wanted to serve others, andso that led me to Eastern Europe
.
Here in the United States wehave a program called the Peace
Corps.
It was started with PresidentKennedy, I think in the 60s, and
that is sending off usuallyyounger people, but now the
makeup is across all ages and Ihad the pleasure and the honor
(02:30):
to serve in Romania for two anda half years, and so that was
fantastic A lot of opportunitiesto help young women in
leadership capabilities.
I was really there at a perfecttime.
I had a fantastic experienceand, yeah, came back from that
experience, decided to go backto graduate school, refocused on
(02:50):
finance.
It led me to Intel.
Spent 11 years in the financeorganization at Intel Great
foundation for what the companydoes, spent a lot of time in the
manufacturing group, in thedata center group, and then it's
led me in the data center group, and then it's led me to the
client computing group, which iswhere I've been for the last
seven years, and, yes, lots ofgood stories there.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I'd love to hear more about the client computing
group.
What is it that you do and whatare the sort of opportunities
that you have there to promotewhat you're doing at Intel?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So the client computing group is the largest
revenue base at Intel and it isessentially all of the client
devices.
We refer to them as clientdevices, but they're your
laptops, your desktops and a lotof the things that are on the
platform which may not be asobvious to a lot of folks.
There's a lot of connectivitythere's Wi-Fi, there's wireless,
there's Thunderbolt.
There's a lot of connectivitythere's Wi-Fi, there's wireless,
(03:45):
there's Thunderbolt.
There's a lot of othercomponents that go into the
platform so that it all worksseamlessly, and a lot of
experiences that you and I andeveryone out there kind of take
for granted now because it alljust works.
That's all the capability thatthe client computing group
brings to the market.
(04:06):
Within the client computinggroup, my role is around
software enabling, so it isworking with a lot of the
software applications that weuse day in and day out and
making them perform best onIntel devices.
There's a lot of softwaretuning optimizations.
There's a lot of softwaretuning optimizations, feature
(04:30):
offloading lots of good stuffthat we do in partnership with
our talented engineers and inpartnership with the app vendors
that allow us to give everyonea better experience.
Much like right now we'rehaving an experience where we're
talking on a software platformI'm videoing in from the US.
You're in the UK and there's alot of software that's happening
on your system and on my systemand this beautiful experience
(04:52):
we're having.
Oftentimes Intel has played arole in making it happen.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, I know that every part of this journey there's an
Intel product in theresomewhere or between you and me
here in London.
Part of the role, I suppose, isan interface between the Intel
side of the equation and all ofyour external ecosystem, your
app developers, as you said,helping to make things work.
That must be incrediblyenriching to see how developers
(05:16):
are bringing their experiencesto life on the Intel platform.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That's absolutely right, we see a lot of
innovation happening, especiallywith AI becoming a lot more
mainstream.
I should say AI has been out inthe market for many, many years
and different facets, but Ithink it's reached a pivotal
point recently where it becamemainstream.
You know, like parents aretalking about it, grandparents
are talking about it, so it'sbecoming a lot more mainstream.
(05:42):
And you're right, andrew, therehas been a role that Intel has
played throughout that AIjourney and broader industry
enabling journey, and I get thepleasure of interacting with
hundreds of ISVs on a dailybasis and we manage what we call
the portfolio of partners.
Right, it is a portfolio ofpartners across collaboration
(06:06):
applications, securityapplications, what we call
manageability applications.
Many of us work in largecompanies and we're sitting in
all different parts of the world.
Many of us are not sitting inan office every day and our IT
departments are able to log intoour systems remotely Well,
that's a manageabilityapplication that allows that to
(06:26):
happen.
There's also a lot of contentcreation applications.
Right, we've got a lot of thebig players where you're
creating for a living right oryou're designing a bridge Well,
you're using some heavy dutyapplication to do that and we
work with across all of them,right.
It is truly industry enabling,ecosystem enabling to bring that
(06:47):
to the market so that the appsare better, right, and they
should be performing better, sothe user gets a better
experience.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Now, when I spoke with Robert, he introduced a new
concept to me.
You've obviously got the CPU,the computer processing unit.
You've got the GPU, thegraphical processing unit.
You've now got the NPU, theneural processing unit, so the
AI PC, that three componentsthere that really supercharges
what you can do.
That must be really excitingfor developers.
(07:15):
They've now got a new way ofbringing their AI applications
to life.
Talk to me about what thismeans for the developer
community, that they've now gotfaster computing at the edge,
where the power is needed.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
They're so excited.
We have been talking todevelopers, most recently in a
couple of dedicated events AI PCdeveloper program right,
specifically to targetdevelopers who are wanting to
get deeper and smarter on AI PC.
And, to your point, yes, we'vehad CPU, we've had GPU, now we
(07:55):
have NPU, and so the NPU allowsthem to unleash all sorts of
additional features or offloadswithin the applications they
work on, especially for thosesustained workloads right, and
if you're doing certain tasks onthe CPU that may bog that
system down or it may burn up abunch of battery, especially if
(08:20):
you're on the go and you'reworking around everywhere, which
many of us are.
Now you've got an additionalcapability on the NPU to run
certain workloads there.
I'll give you an example.
We worked with a security vendorand one of the things that
usually happens in thebackground that impact the user
experience is that anti-phishingscanning.
(08:42):
Many of us know what a phishingscan is.
Right, they're targeting youremail, they're pretending to be
somebody you know.
Those emails actually lookreally realistic.
I have fallen for many of thosebaits in the past, but that is
something that's constantlyscanning, sending the workload
to the cloud, bringing it backdown, and it's constantly
(09:03):
constantly going.
So this particular securityvendor.
It was able to leverage the MPU.
Their developers were able toleverage the MPU offloading that
email phishing, anti phishing,scanning and they have seen
tremendous improvement.
I want to say it was somethingto the tune of like 300%.
So now you're taking advantageof the local compute, you're not
(09:26):
sending it up to the cloud, soyou're increasing your privacy.
Your latency is getting muchbetter because you're not going
up and down and it's unleashedthat new use case for this
security vendor and it's freedup space on the CPU right.
So now they can do even morethings and they can have more
innovative use cases and theyfreed up that space.
(09:48):
And so we see that exampleplaying out over and over and
over with many of our developers.
We just had a session atMicrosoft Build in mid-May up in
Seattle.
We held a hands-on lab goodold-fashioned hands-on lab.
We put the latest hardware intheir hands so that they could
(10:09):
actually see what the NPU coulddo and we trained them right.
This is what needs to happen.
This is all very late breakingand so many of them are kind of
saying, hey, well, I can't.
You know, not until I get myhands on the hardware will I be
able to know what I can do.
So we're doing just that, right.
We're handing out developerkits to make sure that all the
(10:31):
talented developers out therehave that hardware to test it
themselves and write more andmore unique applications.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
This is a totally unique new capability of God.
So, as you're right, withsecurity software, I always
complain oh, the virus scanningis slowing down my computer.
Do we have to have it there Now?
It's being done in the NPU soit can speed things up.
But does this mean that they'renow and they've got the device
in their hands, as you said, andwe'll talk about your
development enablement in asecond?
(10:58):
But does that mean we might seecompletely out of the box
thinking because now the computeis on the edge, at the desktop,
at the laptop?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Absolutely, and it's playing out right now.
So it's really unleashing newcapabilities, new usages, new
ways of delivering userexperience collaboration,
content creation, creator.
We're seeing usages where thisnew capability, these new
(11:32):
capabilities, across not justthe NPU but the GPU and the CPU,
they still have their rightfulplace on the platform where,
much like right now, we're doinga video, a video conference.
Sometimes we record them.
Sometimes we say something thatwas misstated, let's say, I got
a stat wrong or a date wrong.
Well, typically we would haveto go in and maybe splice in in
post-production and re-record.
(11:55):
Well, there's now capabilitieswhere AI built into that app
will be able to correct thestatement and clone your voice
and smooth out the video, all inseconds.
So it's very impressive.
We're really excited for thatuse case and so it is just
unleashing all sorts ofincredible creativity and all
(12:19):
ultimately done so with thepurpose of making us more
productive, making us safer,giving the users time back to go
off and work on the things thatrequire.
You know your focus onsomething else.
So, yeah, super excited aboutthat one and we'd love to get
(12:40):
that one in your hands because Icould see in your line of work
it being a really useful usecase for you.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So I've worked in startups as well, and the
challenge has always been we'vegot this crazy idea.
If only we had the hardware orthe platform that it could run
on.
It sounds like now you'veopened a brand new capability.
So let's say I'm a developerout there.
I'm doing some really fancy AIapp.
It doesn't quite run in thecloud because of latency.
It's got to run locally.
So developers hearing this, howdo they work with you and what
(13:09):
would your advice be to newdevelopers that want to join
your ecosystem and work withIntel?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
There are really easy ways to reach out to Intel.
We've made it, hopefully, aseasy as possible.
So we have a program called theAIPC Acceleration Program.
You can find it online.
If you type in AIPC, intel'sthe one that shows up at the top
of that search.
So we've made it very easy soyou can join our AI PC
(13:34):
acceleration program.
It also brings you to the AI PCdeveloper program.
So if you're you're a developer, an individual, you can join
the developer program and youwill have access to all of the
software, the frameworks, thetools, the how to guides, a list
of all of the software, theframeworks, the tools, the
how-to guides, a list of all ofthe models that have been
(13:56):
optimized Last count we wereright at 500, if not more,
models that have been optimizedto run best on Intel platforms.
And there is a treasure trove ofthings, and we recently
organized things on the site sothat they're much more developer
friendly.
So AIPC Acceleration Program,aipc Developer Program, are the
(14:18):
two key places that you canreach out to us and we're here
to help.
We're here to help enable,we're here to help unlock and
unleash a lot more creativity inthe ecosystem and, quite
frankly, this is where Intelshines.
This is where Intel does best.
We've been doing this fordecades, and this is one more
(14:39):
milestone in our technologyjourney where Intel will
continue to lead.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So the podcast with Robert, the people that listened
to that and read the LinkedInpost, I think for one of the
very first times we're hearingthis whole concept of an AI PCPC
and as people start to look attheir existing estate they've
got lots of laptops and PCs anddesktops out there and they're
thinking, well, when's the righttime to move to the AIPC?
Because of all thesecapabilities, probably for large
(15:05):
organizations there's a longlead time, but I have a lot of
people that are small to mediumenterprises, that are in senior
leadership listening to thepodcast.
What would you say, say to themabout?
You know when is the right time, what should they be thinking
about in terms of this newcapability and how can they
unlock that productivity fortheir workforce?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Oh, as far as timing I think it was yesterday, right?
This is how much AI PCs areadding value towards SMB small,
medium business, a largeenterprise so I think the time
to go and get an AI PC is now.
We have product in market today, right?
(15:43):
We launched our Intel CoreUltra product for large
enterprise back in January atCES.
Before that, we had launched aproduct in New York for
consumers.
So we've got product, we'reshipping, we're scaling right,
which is more than anyone elsein the ecosystem today.
(16:04):
And in order to take advantageof experiences and these use
cases that I've mentioned, plusmany, many, many more that are
in the industry, you got to havean AI PC.
I recognize there's budgetaryconstraints and there's design
in cycles and validation cycles,and Intel will work with large
(16:24):
enterprises along that route,but the sooner IT departments
and medium-sized businesses gettheir hands on the hardware, the
sooner they're able to bearfruit of all of that new
technology and that extraproductivity and extra security
that's out there.
So, yes, this is where I gointo a little bit of sales mode,
andrew, and I think that thetime to refresh is now and
(16:49):
there's more and more coming andthere's also a component of for
those large enterprises thathave their own in-house
applications.
Right, there's many, manyindustries out there that have
their own kind of homebredapplications.
We're getting, we're getting,you know, we're getting
contacted on that.
How do I take advantage of thison my own in-house app?
(17:13):
And so we do a little bit ofhelp for the internal developers
to say, hey, if you're runningsome sort of company backend for
certain operations, dependingon the vertical, you want to
leverage that local computeacross your fleet.
You've gotten out morecapability.
It'll help reduce cloud costsfor you, et cetera, et cetera,
(17:35):
right, increased security andprivacy super important,
particular in some regions andyou're reducing costs and you're
getting your users a betterexperience.
So you don't want to wait.
You don't want to wait to takeadvantage of those benefits.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I'm just thinking of one way to get people across the
line.
It might be, you know, we'renot ready to refresh the whole
estate of all of our devicesjust yet, but let's get the AIPC
into the power of the smartcookies, those like me that
always are the early adopters.
And actually let's do some A-Btesting.
How more productive are thepeople with an AIPC?
What are the different usecases it unlocks versus those
(18:10):
with legacy equipment?
And maybe that's one way to A-Btest.
And then go wow the group thatwe gave the AIPC to.
They're just finishing tasks alot earlier.
They've got more use cases,they're more efficient, they're
able to go home earlier.
Are you seeing already someexamples where the future of
work and modern work is going tobe massively enabled by having
(18:31):
this capability?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
We are.
We certainly are.
I gave the example of theanti-phishing scanning right.
So, first and foremost,cybersecurity is top of mind,
especially in a large enterprise.
So that is one where it helpsput a lot of IT managers, it
decision makers and some usersat ease.
Hey, this is something I don'tneed to be worrying about.
I don't want to get impacted bya cyber threat.
That's one way.
The second way is examples likeeven content creation
(19:01):
applications, where you'retexting, right, you're
commanding via voice certainthings you want the application
to do, which is saving all thesedifferent clicks.
So oftentimes these heavy dutyusers know exactly where to go
(19:26):
to give the resolution.
They want to add the backgroundblur, to shade, to do certain
things.
But that takes a lot of skillset, right, you're working on
this application for years.
But if you're able to just tellit via a voice prompt, I want
you to move this here.
(19:46):
I want you to shade it.
I want this side of the profileto be a little lighter.
You're saving all those clicks.
This side of the profile to bea little lighter.
You're saving all those clicks.
So you're sort of democratizingthe ability for you know more
of an average user to be able tounlock the capabilities of that
application, so you're makingthat more accessible, right.
(20:07):
So that's one thing.
We're also seeing exampleswhere you know the summarization
of emails or the it starts aPowerPoint presentation for you.
Oftentimes you know we spend somuch time just cleaning things
up on the PowerPoint or gettingit started, where the real
strategy and the real thinkingcomes at the very end, when
(20:28):
you've got an hour before thepresentation.
But if you're able to kind ofwhat I call outsource those
tasks to your local compute, soyou're spending the time on how
do I want to deliver the message, what are the pros and cons of
this particular proposal, how isthis person going to receive
the proposal and what is goingto be my three, four things that
I'm going to build my case.
(20:49):
That's where you want to spendyour brain power, not making
things look a little prettier ornot use the compute.
So lots of different thingsduring the day where an AI PC
will really impact how we work.
And ideally this is going tobecome so pervasive and so
prolific that in two, threeyears, five years, the way we do
(21:14):
our day-to-day it'd be sodifferent, right.
I mean, I think about when Iwent to college many moons ago,
I had to stand in line toregister for my classes.
Right, think of all the time westood in line with a piece of
paper with my five or sixclasses that I was going to take
for the semester, only to findout that half of them were full.
(21:36):
So, right there on the spot, atthe scramble, and then come up
with another class at a terribletime.
All that's out the door, right?
The way that kids atuniversities these days, or
adults at the university thesedays, register for school.
So different, right, we're doingthe same thing with our
day-to-day work.
So long answer, but you canhear a lot of the passion in my
(21:59):
voice, one because I'm Latin,but the other is because you
know these little things add up.
It'll make us more productive.
More productive so that we cango back to doing things that
matter most, whether they're atwork, out of work, with our
families, with our hobbies, withour charities.
You know we want to give peopletime back.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
So I love your passion.
I want to just touch on anotherpassion of yours, and that's
wine.
I've only met two people in mylife that own a winery.
One is my good friend, deborahHumble, who was on the podcast
many, many episodes ago.
She and her partner own awinery in the Hunter Valley.
But I understand you and yourhusband.
Part of your hobby, yourpassion is also owning a winery
as a proud South Australian andSouth Australia, as you'd know,
(22:40):
has four of the most amazingwine growing regions in the
world Tell me more about thepassion that you find in having
a winery in your life.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
It is definitely a passion.
It is a labor of love.
Yes, so we here in the WestCoast of the United States, I'm
in Oregon.
Oregon is a really great winegrowing country.
Specifically, we're in theWillamette Valley, well known
for its Pinot Noir.
(23:09):
So, yes, so my husband and Ihave a small boutique winery.
We've had it for 13, 14 years.
My husband's been in the winebusiness for 20 something years,
primarily on the vineyard side,growing farming, but then
together we started a smallwinery and you know there's
nothing like owning a smallbusiness to really get you to
(23:33):
understand how how hard it is.
First and foremost.
So, for all the small businessowners out there, it is tough.
You are responsible for prettymuch every aspect of the
operation, which is verydifferent from my, my day job,
right?
Somebody else worries about HRissues and IT issues and payroll
issues, so I've come to have ahuge appreciation for some of
(23:56):
those tasks.
But, yeah, wine is great, loveit, love to drink it, love to
make it, love to sell it.
And I've never been toAustralia, but it is on my list
for wine growing regions.
And yeah, we grow Pinot, wegrow Chardonnay, riesling and
then we also grow a kind ofunique varietal for Oregon it's
(24:19):
Albarino.
So, interestingly enough,albarino grows in the northern
part of Spain.
We love Albarino.
It's a great varietal.
We did some research and itturns out the growing conditions
in that part of Spain are verysimilar to the growing
conditions here in Oregon, andso we decided to plant a couple
of acres of Albarino, and we'vebeen making it for the last kind
(24:40):
of three to four years.
So we'll have to have you over,andrew, so we can compare notes
on wine.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So what things have you learned in running a small
business that you can take backinto Intel and make the people
you work with even smarter andappreciate more the small and
medium enterprises that you arealso helping through Intel Great
?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
question the job I took at Intel before the one I
have today.
I took that job preciselybecause it had a lot of
interface with businesses,particularly small businesses,
and I said hey're kind of inPowerPoint mode and so I took
(25:34):
that role specifically because Ihave a passion for it.
And so you know I have thisunique perspective because I do
have a small business and I workin technology and I recognize
that there's so much we can dofrom a technology perspective to
help small businesses If we canautomate a lot of tasks,
(25:56):
particularly with AI mostrecently, and really help them
keep their businesses protected.
A lot of small business owners,they're not as tech savvy.
That's not what they'reconcerned with.
They're concerned with makingsure they've got enough revenue
coming in day in and day out.
They've got payroll challenges.
They've got regulatorychallenges.
They don't have big fancy legaldepartments.
(26:18):
They don't have big fancy ITdepartments.
They're calling theirbrother-in-law for IT help,
right, they're calling theirbuddy to get some HR advice.
And so I love bringing in thesmall business perspective as
we're planning our products, aswe're choosing software
applications to optimize.
Obviously, you know we've got alot of business and large
(26:40):
enterprise, but small, mediumbusiness is a big part of what
we focus on as well and reallydoing a lot of the education.
How do we reach the smallbusiness audience through all of
the wonderful marketingchannels that Intel brings to
bear so that we can educate themin their terms on why this
(27:00):
particular system is best suitedfor their enterprise or their
small business?
I should say yeah.
So there's nothing likecashflow management as a small
business owner to really get youto relate to how they're having
(27:21):
to solve their day-to-dayproblems.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I think you'll uniquely play, straddling both
the large corporate and thesmall and medium world, because
you live it every day.
Often you hear that the CEO,once a week, might go and work
behind the counter, but you'reliving and breathing it.
But just reflecting back on theAI discussion, and in my part
of the world, I do a lot ofpublic speaking and I ask for a
show of hands.
You know who's played withgenerative AI platforms like
(27:43):
chat, gpt everyone's played withit.
I then ask who actually uses itevery day and very few go up.
So I think the challenge isunderstanding the benefit of it.
I liken generative AI to havingan always-on enthusiastic
intern at my disposal.
So now we all have a freeintern and I'm going to
deliberately do a pun here.
We all know about Intel inside.
(28:05):
You've now got intern inside.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I love it.
I love it.
You're absolutely right.
It's a personal assistant thatworks 24-7 and is able to do all
sorts of tasks that perhaps wearen't able to ask our interns,
because their capabilities arethe capabilities they bring, but
I love the intern example.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I'll give you that one for free.
So you must also come across alot of young people.
You work in the Peace Corps andyou work in the Latinx
community.
What would be your advice toyoung people, either at school
or at university, looking tomove into the high-tech industry
?
There's no better time, I think, with AI.
What advice would you give them?
To one temper their enthusiasm,because it's not easy, but also
(28:49):
what's the opportunity andwhere do you see the youth of
today moving into these newareas?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I would really what I appreciate about the technology
industry now being in it for 18years.
It is fast-paced, constantlychanging.
I'm a learner, I love to learn,so if folks are learners or
they want to learn aboutdifferent aspects of technology,
it's a great industry to joinand it's okay to not have a
(29:18):
technology background.
I don't have a technologybackground.
I have a finance background.
I went to the Peace Corps right, I thought I was going to be
working for the Foreign Serviceand here I am the Foreign
Service and here I am, and sothere is so much talent in
technology.
It is a privilege to work withsome of the smartest engineering
(29:39):
minds that we produce globallythat choose to work at a place
like Intel and we sort of takeit for granted.
When you work at a place likeIntel, you walk around and
there's so many smart peoplewith two PhDs and all sorts of
material science, and so it canbe a little intimidating, but I
encourage a lot of young folkslooking at careers.
(29:59):
Come to technology.
You learn fast.
Most folks are very willing totell you to share with you their
knowledge so that you can befluent enough to be effective
and contribute, and there'salways this quest for
improvement.
How can we do things better?
(30:21):
How can we do them faster?
How are we changing andimpacting the lives of every
person on the planet for betterRight?
So I think that that is such acalling and perhaps that is a
bit of my Peace Corps coming outright that the concept of
improving and helping andserving for a greater good while
being in technology, whilehaving to make a paycheck.
(30:43):
So it's been very enriching andI encourage others to join
technology because we need smartminds.
We need the next generation ofsmart minds all over the world
to come and work at places likeIntel and semiconductors.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I love your call to action, the fact that you don't
have to have a technologybackground to be useful.
What you have to be isdigitally curious, and those
listeners out there will knowI'm writing a book called
Digitally Curious and it reallyspeaks to people that aren't
technologists but they're sortof querying what is cloud, what
is edge, what is quantum, whatis AI and what does it mean for
me?
And I think that hunger to staycurious ask questions.
(31:19):
I think those that aretechnically more advanced than
others.
We love explaining things.
I mean, I have a technicalbackground.
I work for IBM.
I now go in front of some ofthe most senior executives that
haven't got a clue about AI ornot haven't got a clue.
They're confused about it andI've got to explain it in a
really engaging, accessible way.
And I love that, because theythen go oh why didn't you say
(31:41):
that in the first place?
It's an always-on intern.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I hadn't thought of it that way, having the ability
to translate in simple termssome very complicated stuff that
it takes to to bring this tolife to the average, or maybe
slightly above average, end user.
Right technology out, it is isa skill, and so, uh great that
you're able to do thattranslation, andrew.
(32:04):
So that's, that's fabulous.
That's my call more of you.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Well, we're almost out of time, but we've reached
the quickfire round when welearn more about our guests.
But I think I know a lot aboutyou already, even over this
short discussion, so let's firesome quick questions at you.
Window or aisle, oh aisle,pinot Noir or Chardonnay?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Oh, I mean, I think I've tipped my hand on that one.
It's Pinot Noir all day.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Your biggest hope for this year and next.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Biggest hope is, professionally, is that we
really, really really help largeenterprises, small businesses
and the average consumer anduser to utilize all of this
capability to give them timeback.
We're all over scheduled.
We're all over scheduled, soput this technology to work for
(32:50):
you so that you can get sometime back to.
We're all over scheduled.
We're all over scheduled, soput this technology to work for
you so that you can get sometime back to go do the things
that are important to you.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I wish that AI could all of my.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Laundry.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Okay, you are now the seventh person to say that I've
had three guests in a row saythat.
So if you're out there, the AIlaundry app is going to go
gangbusters.
What's the app you use most onyour phone?
I use WhatsApp quite a bit.
The best advice you've everreceived Get comfortable being
uncomfortable.
Who should I invite next ontothe podcast?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I would say a colleague of mine that I just
recently started to connect with.
His name is Nuri and he leadsAI marketing for Intel.
So how we're going to reachfolks in the industry and in the
market, to make thoseconnections and to keep it
(33:39):
simple is part of his role, so Iwould invite Nuri Final
quickfire question.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
How do you want to be remembered?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Good person who tried to do some good and who raised
some really good kids.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So I mentioned that I love being digitally curious.
So what three things can ouraudience do this week to get
started on better understandinghow Intel's AI PC program can
help their business and theiremployees be more productive?
Great, question.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
So first one is go into your browser.
If it's a Google browser, great.
Any other browser, fantastic.
Type in AI PC, so that'll takeyou to all things AI PC by Intel
, so you'll find out whatapplications are on there that
you can leverage to go to yourlocal retailer or your local OEM
(34:28):
that you're purchasing an AI PCand test it right, find out
what it can do for you.
Ideally, buy one because you'regoing to be more productive.
And three give me input, right,send me input on any
applications that we may bemissing.
You can do so through that AIPCeleration Program email.
(34:51):
And if there's any apps thatwe're missing that we need to
enable to run best or runlocally, we will put them into
our portfolio and make sure thatwe're delivering for the
applications that matter mostfor your listeners.
So those three things.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Kyle, this has been a fantastic discussion.
I've really enjoyed speakingwith you.
How can we find out more aboutyou and your work?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Oh, go to LinkedIn.
Yeah, LinkedIn gives you alittle snippet of what we do,
what I do, a little bit of mybackground, and then I try to
share what we're up to more thananything.
So that's it.
Thank you so much for your time.
I had a blast.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Thank you for listening to Digitally Curious,
brought to you by Intel.
Andrew's new book, DigitallyCurious, is available to
pre-order at digitallycuriousai.
You can find out more aboutAndrew and how he helps
corporates become more digitallycurious with keynote speeches
and C-suite workshops atdigitallycuriousai.
Until next time, we invite youto stay digitally curious.
Welcome to Digitally Curious, brought to you by Intel
, a podcast to help you navigatethe future of AI and beyond.
Your host is world-renownedfuturist and author of Digitally
Curious, Andrew Grill.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Today's guest is Carla Rodriguez, Vice President
and General Manager of theClient Software Ecosystem at
Intel.
Welcome, Carla.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Thank you.
Thanks for having me, Andrew.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Now, when I spoke with your colleague, Robert
Halleck, on a recent episode ofthe podcast about the AIPC, I
asked him who I should invitenext on to the podcast, and this
is what he said.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Easy answer.
I have a colleague, razor sharp.
Her name is Carla Rodriguez andshe's in the software
organization at Intel.
So a lot of the AIPC softwarework that's going on across the
industry she is directlyinvolved with and she's just so
smart, so capable.
I would love to hear herpodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
And just like that you're on the show.
Great to have you here.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Oh my goodness, here we are.
Well, you know Robert's tookind, Let me put it that way.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, it's always good when we have someone
recommending another, and it'shappened twice before where the
person they've recommended hasbecome available and it's like
yes.
So I can't wait at the end ofthe show in the quickfire round
to see who you'd like to have onthe podcast and see if we can
have a daisy chain and keepgoing on forever and ever.
You have an impressive careerat Intel spanning over 17 years,
but even more impressive isyour career path towards Intel.
(01:26):
I understand you served in thePeace Corps in Romania, you were
heavily involved in the GirlLeading Our World program
focusing on leadershipempowerment, and you're also
heavily involved in the Latinxcommunity.
I'd love to hear more aboutthis fascinating career journey
from a financial analyst all theway to a VP at Intel.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yes, yes, my path was a little more windy than others
if you wind it all the way to aVP at Intel.
Yes, yes, my path was a littlemore windy than others If you
wind it all the way back.
I'm originally from Mexico.
I was born and raised in Mexico, so I've got a strong, very
proud Latin heritage.
And then I came to the UnitedStates for undergrad and
graduate school and right afterundergraduate I wanted to do a
(02:07):
little bit more.
I wanted to serve others, andso that led me to Eastern Europe
.
Here in the United States wehave a program called the Peace
Corps.
It was started with PresidentKennedy, I think in the 60s, and
that is sending off usuallyyounger people, but now the
makeup is across all ages and Ihad the pleasure and the honor
(02:30):
to serve in Romania for two anda half years, and so that was
fantastic A lot of opportunitiesto help young women in
leadership capabilities.
I was really there at a perfecttime.
I had a fantastic experienceand, yeah, came back from that
experience, decided to go backto graduate school, refocused on
(02:50):
finance.
It led me to Intel.
Spent 11 years in the financeorganization at Intel Great
foundation for what the companydoes, spent a lot of time in the
manufacturing group, in thedata center group, and then it's
led me in the data center group, and then it's led me to the
client computing group, which iswhere I've been for the last
seven years, and, yes, lots ofgood stories there.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
I'd love to hear more about the client computing
group.
What is it that you do and whatare the sort of opportunities
that you have there to promotewhat you're doing at Intel?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So the client computing group is the largest
revenue base at Intel and it isessentially all of the client
devices.
We refer to them as clientdevices, but they're your
laptops, your desktops and a lotof the things that are on the
platform which may not be asobvious to a lot of folks.
There's a lot of connectivitythere's Wi-Fi, there's wireless,
there's Thunderbolt.
There's a lot of connectivitythere's Wi-Fi, there's wireless,
(03:45):
there's Thunderbolt.
There's a lot of othercomponents that go into the
platform so that it all worksseamlessly, and a lot of
experiences that you and I andeveryone out there kind of take
for granted now because it alljust works.
That's all the capability thatthe client computing group
brings to the market.
(04:06):
Within the client computinggroup, my role is around
software enabling, so it isworking with a lot of the
software applications that weuse day in and day out and
making them perform best onIntel devices.
There's a lot of softwaretuning optimizations.
There's a lot of softwaretuning optimizations, feature
(04:30):
offloading lots of good stuffthat we do in partnership with
our talented engineers and inpartnership with the app vendors
that allow us to give everyonea better experience.
Much like right now we'rehaving an experience where we're
talking on a software platformI'm videoing in from the US.
You're in the UK and there's alot of software that's happening
on your system and on my systemand this beautiful experience
(04:52):
we're having.
Oftentimes Intel has played arole in making it happen.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Oh, I know that every part of this journey there's an
Intel product in theresomewhere or between you and me
here in London.
Part of the role, I suppose, isan interface between the Intel
side of the equation and all ofyour external ecosystem, your
app developers, as you said,helping to make things work.
That must be incrediblyenriching to see how developers
(05:16):
are bringing their experiencesto life on the Intel platform.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
That's absolutely right, we see a lot of
innovation happening, especiallywith AI becoming a lot more
mainstream.
I should say AI has been out inthe market for many, many years
and different facets, but Ithink it's reached a pivotal
point recently where it becamemainstream.
You know, like parents aretalking about it, grandparents
are talking about it, so it'sbecoming a lot more mainstream.
(05:42):
And you're right, andrew, therehas been a role that Intel has
played throughout that AIjourney and broader industry
enabling journey, and I get thepleasure of interacting with
hundreds of ISVs on a dailybasis and we manage what we call
the portfolio of partners.
Right, it is a portfolio ofpartners across collaboration
(06:06):
applications, securityapplications, what we call
manageability applications.
Many of us work in largecompanies and we're sitting in
all different parts of the world.
Many of us are not sitting inan office every day and our IT
departments are able to log intoour systems remotely Well,
that's a manageabilityapplication that allows that to
(06:26):
happen.
There's also a lot of contentcreation applications.
Right, we've got a lot of thebig players where you're
creating for a living right oryou're designing a bridge Well,
you're using some heavy dutyapplication to do that and we
work with across all of them,right.
It is truly industry enabling,ecosystem enabling to bring that
(06:47):
to the market so that the appsare better, right, and they
should be performing better, sothe user gets a better
experience.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Now, when I spoke with Robert, he introduced a new
concept to me.
You've obviously got the CPU,the computer processing unit.
You've got the GPU, thegraphical processing unit.
You've now got the NPU, theneural processing unit, so the
AI PC, that three componentsthere that really supercharges
what you can do.
That must be really excitingfor developers.
(07:15):
They've now got a new way ofbringing their AI applications
to life.
Talk to me about what thismeans for the developer
community, that they've now gotfaster computing at the edge,
where the power is needed.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
They're so excited.
We have been talking todevelopers, most recently in a
couple of dedicated events AI PCdeveloper program right,
specifically to targetdevelopers who are wanting to
get deeper and smarter on AI PC.
And, to your point, yes, we'vehad CPU, we've had GPU, now we
(07:55):
have NPU, and so the NPU allowsthem to unleash all sorts of
additional features or offloadswithin the applications they
work on, especially for thosesustained workloads right, and
if you're doing certain tasks onthe CPU that may bog that
system down or it may burn up abunch of battery, especially if
(08:20):
you're on the go and you'reworking around everywhere, which
many of us are.
Now you've got an additionalcapability on the NPU to run
certain workloads there.
I'll give you an example.
We worked with a security vendorand one of the things that
usually happens in thebackground that impact the user
experience is that anti-phishingscanning.
(08:42):
Many of us know what a phishingscan is.
Right, they're targeting youremail, they're pretending to be
somebody you know.
Those emails actually lookreally realistic.
I have fallen for many of thosebaits in the past, but that is
something that's constantlyscanning, sending the workload
to the cloud, bringing it backdown, and it's constantly
(09:03):
constantly going.
So this particular securityvendor.
It was able to leverage the MPU.
Their developers were able toleverage the MPU offloading that
email phishing, anti phishing,scanning and they have seen
tremendous improvement.
I want to say it was somethingto the tune of like 300%.
So now you're taking advantageof the local compute, you're not
(09:26):
sending it up to the cloud, soyou're increasing your privacy.
Your latency is getting muchbetter because you're not going
up and down and it's unleashedthat new use case for this
security vendor and it's freedup space on the CPU right.
So now they can do even morethings and they can have more
innovative use cases and theyfreed up that space.
(09:48):
And so we see that exampleplaying out over and over and
over with many of our developers.
We just had a session atMicrosoft Build in mid-May up in
Seattle.
We held a hands-on lab goodold-fashioned hands-on lab.
We put the latest hardware intheir hands so that they could
(10:09):
actually see what the NPU coulddo and we trained them right.
This is what needs to happen.
This is all very late breakingand so many of them are kind of
saying, hey, well, I can't.
You know, not until I get myhands on the hardware will I be
able to know what I can do.
So we're doing just that, right.
We're handing out developerkits to make sure that all the
(10:31):
talented developers out therehave that hardware to test it
themselves and write more andmore unique applications.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
This is a totally unique new capability of God.
So, as you're right, withsecurity software, I always
complain oh, the virus scanningis slowing down my computer.
Do we have to have it there Now?
It's being done in the NPU soit can speed things up.
But does this mean that they'renow and they've got the device
in their hands, as you said, andwe'll talk about your
development enablement in asecond?
(10:58):
But does that mean we might seecompletely out of the box
thinking because now the computeis on the edge, at the desktop,
at the laptop?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
Absolutely, and it's playing out right now.
So it's really unleashing newcapabilities, new usages, new
ways of delivering userexperience collaboration,
content creation, creator.
We're seeing usages where thisnew capability, these new
(11:32):
capabilities, across not justthe NPU but the GPU and the CPU,
they still have their rightfulplace on the platform where,
much like right now, we're doinga video, a video conference.
Sometimes we record them.
Sometimes we say something thatwas misstated, let's say, I got
a stat wrong or a date wrong.
Well, typically we would haveto go in and maybe splice in in
post-production and re-record.
(11:55):
Well, there's now capabilitieswhere AI built into that app
will be able to correct thestatement and clone your voice
and smooth out the video, all inseconds.
So it's very impressive.
We're really excited for thatuse case and so it is just
unleashing all sorts ofincredible creativity and all
(12:19):
ultimately done so with thepurpose of making us more
productive, making us safer,giving the users time back to go
off and work on the things thatrequire.
You know your focus onsomething else.
So, yeah, super excited aboutthat one and we'd love to get
(12:40):
that one in your hands because Icould see in your line of work
it being a really useful usecase for you.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
So I've worked in startups as well, and the
challenge has always been we'vegot this crazy idea.
If only we had the hardware orthe platform that it could run
on.
It sounds like now you'veopened a brand new capability.
So let's say I'm a developerout there.
I'm doing some really fancy AIapp.
It doesn't quite run in thecloud because of latency.
It's got to run locally.
So developers hearing this, howdo they work with you and what
(13:09):
would your advice be to newdevelopers that want to join
your ecosystem and work withIntel?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
There are really easy ways to reach out to Intel.
We've made it, hopefully, aseasy as possible.
So we have a program called theAIPC Acceleration Program.
You can find it online.
If you type in AIPC, intel'sthe one that shows up at the top
of that search.
So we've made it very easy soyou can join our AI PC
(13:34):
acceleration program.
It also brings you to the AI PCdeveloper program.
So if you're you're a developer, an individual, you can join
the developer program and youwill have access to all of the
software, the frameworks, thetools, the how to guides, a list
of all of the software, theframeworks, the tools, the
how-to guides, a list of all ofthe models that have been
(13:56):
optimized Last count we wereright at 500, if not more,
models that have been optimizedto run best on Intel platforms.
And there is a treasure trove ofthings, and we recently
organized things on the site sothat they're much more developer
friendly.
So AIPC Acceleration Program,aipc Developer Program, are the
(14:18):
two key places that you canreach out to us and we're here
to help.
We're here to help enable,we're here to help unlock and
unleash a lot more creativity inthe ecosystem and, quite
frankly, this is where Intelshines.
This is where Intel does best.
We've been doing this fordecades, and this is one more
(14:39):
milestone in our technologyjourney where Intel will
continue to lead.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
So the podcast with Robert, the people that listened
to that and read the LinkedInpost, I think for one of the
very first times we're hearingthis whole concept of an AI PCPC
and as people start to look attheir existing estate they've
got lots of laptops and PCs anddesktops out there and they're
thinking, well, when's the righttime to move to the AIPC?
Because of all thesecapabilities, probably for large
(15:05):
organizations there's a longlead time, but I have a lot of
people that are small to mediumenterprises, that are in senior
leadership listening to thepodcast.
What would you say, say to themabout?
You know when is the right time, what should they be thinking
about in terms of this newcapability and how can they
unlock that productivity fortheir workforce?
Speaker 3 (15:21):
Oh, as far as timing I think it was yesterday, right?
This is how much AI PCs areadding value towards SMB small,
medium business, a largeenterprise so I think the time
to go and get an AI PC is now.
We have product in market today, right?
(15:43):
We launched our Intel CoreUltra product for large
enterprise back in January atCES.
Before that, we had launched aproduct in New York for
consumers.
So we've got product, we'reshipping, we're scaling right,
which is more than anyone elsein the ecosystem today.
(16:04):
And in order to take advantageof experiences and these use
cases that I've mentioned, plusmany, many, many more that are
in the industry, you got to havean AI PC.
I recognize there's budgetaryconstraints and there's design
in cycles and validation cycles,and Intel will work with large
(16:24):
enterprises along that route,but the sooner IT departments
and medium-sized businesses gettheir hands on the hardware, the
sooner they're able to bearfruit of all of that new
technology and that extraproductivity and extra security
that's out there.
So, yes, this is where I gointo a little bit of sales mode,
andrew, and I think that thetime to refresh is now and
(16:49):
there's more and more coming andthere's also a component of for
those large enterprises thathave their own in-house
applications.
Right, there's many, manyindustries out there that have
their own kind of homebredapplications.
We're getting, we're getting,you know, we're getting
contacted on that.
How do I take advantage of thison my own in-house app?
(17:13):
And so we do a little bit ofhelp for the internal developers
to say, hey, if you're runningsome sort of company backend for
certain operations, dependingon the vertical, you want to
leverage that local computeacross your fleet.
You've gotten out morecapability.
It'll help reduce cloud costsfor you, et cetera, et cetera,
(17:35):
right, increased security andprivacy super important,
particular in some regions andyou're reducing costs and you're
getting your users a betterexperience.
So you don't want to wait.
You don't want to wait to takeadvantage of those benefits.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
I'm just thinking of one way to get people across the
line.
It might be, you know, we'renot ready to refresh the whole
estate of all of our devicesjust yet, but let's get the AIPC
into the power of the smartcookies, those like me that
always are the early adopters.
And actually let's do some A-Btesting.
How more productive are thepeople with an AIPC?
What are the different usecases it unlocks versus those
(18:10):
with legacy equipment?
And maybe that's one way to A-Btest.
And then go wow the group thatwe gave the AIPC to.
They're just finishing tasks alot earlier.
They've got more use cases,they're more efficient, they're
able to go home earlier.
Are you seeing already someexamples where the future of
work and modern work is going tobe massively enabled by having
(18:31):
this capability?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
We are.
We certainly are.
I gave the example of theanti-phishing scanning right.
So, first and foremost,cybersecurity is top of mind,
especially in a large enterprise.
So that is one where it helpsput a lot of IT managers, it
decision makers and some usersat ease.
Hey, this is something I don'tneed to be worrying about.
I don't want to get impacted bya cyber threat.
That's one way.
The second way is examples likeeven content creation
(19:01):
applications, where you'retexting, right, you're
commanding via voice certainthings you want the application
to do, which is saving all thesedifferent clicks.
So oftentimes these heavy dutyusers know exactly where to go
(19:26):
to give the resolution.
They want to add the backgroundblur, to shade, to do certain
things.
But that takes a lot of skillset, right, you're working on
this application for years.
But if you're able to just tellit via a voice prompt, I want
you to move this here.
(19:46):
I want you to shade it.
I want this side of the profileto be a little lighter.
You're saving all those clicks.
This side of the profile to bea little lighter.
You're saving all those clicks.
So you're sort of democratizingthe ability for you know more
of an average user to be able tounlock the capabilities of that
application, so you're makingthat more accessible, right.
(20:07):
So that's one thing.
We're also seeing exampleswhere you know the summarization
of emails or the it starts aPowerPoint presentation for you.
Oftentimes you know we spend somuch time just cleaning things
up on the PowerPoint or gettingit started, where the real
strategy and the real thinkingcomes at the very end, when
(20:28):
you've got an hour before thepresentation.
But if you're able to kind ofwhat I call outsource those
tasks to your local compute, soyou're spending the time on how
do I want to deliver the message, what are the pros and cons of
this particular proposal, how isthis person going to receive
the proposal and what is goingto be my three, four things that
I'm going to build my case.
(20:49):
That's where you want to spendyour brain power, not making
things look a little prettier ornot use the compute.
So lots of different thingsduring the day where an AI PC
will really impact how we work.
And ideally this is going tobecome so pervasive and so
prolific that in two, threeyears, five years, the way we do
(21:14):
our day-to-day it'd be sodifferent, right.
I mean, I think about when Iwent to college many moons ago,
I had to stand in line toregister for my classes.
Right, think of all the time westood in line with a piece of
paper with my five or sixclasses that I was going to take
for the semester, only to findout that half of them were full.
(21:36):
So, right there on the spot, atthe scramble, and then come up
with another class at a terribletime.
All that's out the door, right?
The way that kids atuniversities these days, or
adults at the university thesedays, register for school.
So different, right, we're doingthe same thing with our
day-to-day work.
So long answer, but you canhear a lot of the passion in my
(21:59):
voice, one because I'm Latin,but the other is because you
know these little things add up.
It'll make us more productive.
More productive so that we cango back to doing things that
matter most, whether they're atwork, out of work, with our
families, with our hobbies, withour charities.
You know we want to give peopletime back.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
So I love your passion.
I want to just touch on anotherpassion of yours, and that's
wine.
I've only met two people in mylife that own a winery.
One is my good friend, deborahHumble, who was on the podcast
many, many episodes ago.
She and her partner own awinery in the Hunter Valley.
But I understand you and yourhusband.
Part of your hobby, yourpassion is also owning a winery
as a proud South Australian andSouth Australia, as you'd know,
(22:40):
has four of the most amazingwine growing regions in the
world Tell me more about thepassion that you find in having
a winery in your life.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
It is definitely a passion.
It is a labor of love.
Yes, so we here in the WestCoast of the United States, I'm
in Oregon.
Oregon is a really great winegrowing country.
Specifically, we're in theWillamette Valley, well known
for its Pinot Noir.
(23:09):
So, yes, so my husband and Ihave a small boutique winery.
We've had it for 13, 14 years.
My husband's been in the winebusiness for 20 something years,
primarily on the vineyard side,growing farming, but then
together we started a smallwinery and you know there's
nothing like owning a smallbusiness to really get you to
(23:33):
understand how how hard it is.
First and foremost.
So, for all the small businessowners out there, it is tough.
You are responsible for prettymuch every aspect of the
operation, which is verydifferent from my, my day job,
right?
Somebody else worries about HRissues and IT issues and payroll
issues, so I've come to have ahuge appreciation for some of
(23:56):
those tasks.
But, yeah, wine is great, loveit, love to drink it, love to
make it, love to sell it.
And I've never been toAustralia, but it is on my list
for wine growing regions.
And yeah, we grow Pinot, wegrow Chardonnay, riesling and
then we also grow a kind ofunique varietal for Oregon it's
(24:19):
Albarino.
So, interestingly enough,albarino grows in the northern
part of Spain.
We love Albarino.
It's a great varietal.
We did some research and itturns out the growing conditions
in that part of Spain are verysimilar to the growing
conditions here in Oregon, andso we decided to plant a couple
of acres of Albarino, and we'vebeen making it for the last kind
(24:40):
of three to four years.
So we'll have to have you over,andrew, so we can compare notes
on wine.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
So what things have you learned in running a small
business that you can take backinto Intel and make the people
you work with even smarter andappreciate more the small and
medium enterprises that you arealso helping through Intel Great
?
Speaker 3 (25:00):
question the job I took at Intel before the one I
have today.
I took that job preciselybecause it had a lot of
interface with businesses,particularly small businesses,
and I said hey're kind of inPowerPoint mode and so I took
(25:34):
that role specifically because Ihave a passion for it.
And so you know I have thisunique perspective because I do
have a small business and I workin technology and I recognize
that there's so much we can dofrom a technology perspective to
help small businesses If we canautomate a lot of tasks,
(25:56):
particularly with AI mostrecently, and really help them
keep their businesses protected.
A lot of small business owners,they're not as tech savvy.
That's not what they'reconcerned with.
They're concerned with makingsure they've got enough revenue
coming in day in and day out.
They've got payroll challenges.
They've got regulatorychallenges.
They don't have big fancy legaldepartments.
(26:18):
They don't have big fancy ITdepartments.
They're calling theirbrother-in-law for IT help,
right, they're calling theirbuddy to get some HR advice.
And so I love bringing in thesmall business perspective as
we're planning our products, aswe're choosing software
applications to optimize.
Obviously, you know we've got alot of business and large
(26:40):
enterprise, but small, mediumbusiness is a big part of what
we focus on as well and reallydoing a lot of the education.
How do we reach the smallbusiness audience through all of
the wonderful marketingchannels that Intel brings to
bear so that we can educate themin their terms on why this
(27:00):
particular system is best suitedfor their enterprise or their
small business?
I should say yeah.
So there's nothing likecashflow management as a small
business owner to really get youto relate to how they're having
(27:21):
to solve their day-to-dayproblems.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I think you'll uniquely play, straddling both
the large corporate and thesmall and medium world, because
you live it every day.
Often you hear that the CEO,once a week, might go and work
behind the counter, but you'reliving and breathing it.
But just reflecting back on theAI discussion, and in my part
of the world, I do a lot ofpublic speaking and I ask for a
show of hands.
You know who's played withgenerative AI platforms like
(27:43):
chat, gpt everyone's played withit.
I then ask who actually uses itevery day and very few go up.
So I think the challenge isunderstanding the benefit of it.
I liken generative AI to havingan always-on enthusiastic
intern at my disposal.
So now we all have a freeintern and I'm going to
deliberately do a pun here.
We all know about Intel inside.
(28:05):
You've now got intern inside.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I love it.
I love it.
You're absolutely right.
It's a personal assistant thatworks 24-7 and is able to do all
sorts of tasks that perhaps wearen't able to ask our interns,
because their capabilities arethe capabilities they bring, but
I love the intern example.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I'll give you that one for free.
So you must also come across alot of young people.
You work in the Peace Corps andyou work in the Latinx
community.
What would be your advice toyoung people, either at school
or at university, looking tomove into the high-tech industry
?
There's no better time, I think, with AI.
What advice would you give them?
To one temper their enthusiasm,because it's not easy, but also
(28:49):
what's the opportunity andwhere do you see the youth of
today moving into these newareas?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
I would really what I appreciate about the technology
industry now being in it for 18years.
It is fast-paced, constantlychanging.
I'm a learner, I love to learn,so if folks are learners or
they want to learn aboutdifferent aspects of technology,
it's a great industry to joinand it's okay to not have a
(29:18):
technology background.
I don't have a technologybackground.
I have a finance background.
I went to the Peace Corps right, I thought I was going to be
working for the Foreign Serviceand here I am the Foreign
Service and here I am, and sothere is so much talent in
technology.
It is a privilege to work withsome of the smartest engineering
(29:39):
minds that we produce globallythat choose to work at a place
like Intel and we sort of takeit for granted.
When you work at a place likeIntel, you walk around and
there's so many smart peoplewith two PhDs and all sorts of
material science, and so it canbe a little intimidating, but I
encourage a lot of young folkslooking at careers.
(29:59):
Come to technology.
You learn fast.
Most folks are very willing totell you to share with you their
knowledge so that you can befluent enough to be effective
and contribute, and there'salways this quest for
improvement.
How can we do things better?
(30:21):
How can we do them faster?
How are we changing andimpacting the lives of every
person on the planet for betterRight?
So I think that that is such acalling and perhaps that is a
bit of my Peace Corps coming outright that the concept of
improving and helping andserving for a greater good while
being in technology, whilehaving to make a paycheck.
(30:43):
So it's been very enriching andI encourage others to join
technology because we need smartminds.
We need the next generation ofsmart minds all over the world
to come and work at places likeIntel and semiconductors.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
I love your call to action, the fact that you don't
have to have a technologybackground to be useful.
What you have to be isdigitally curious, and those
listeners out there will knowI'm writing a book called
Digitally Curious and it reallyspeaks to people that aren't
technologists but they're sortof querying what is cloud, what
is edge, what is quantum, whatis AI and what does it mean for
me?
And I think that hunger to staycurious ask questions.
(31:19):
I think those that aretechnically more advanced than
others.
We love explaining things.
I mean, I have a technicalbackground.
I work for IBM.
I now go in front of some ofthe most senior executives that
haven't got a clue about AI ornot haven't got a clue.
They're confused about it andI've got to explain it in a
really engaging, accessible way.
And I love that, because theythen go oh why didn't you say
(31:41):
that in the first place?
It's an always-on intern.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
I hadn't thought of it that way, having the ability
to translate in simple termssome very complicated stuff that
it takes to to bring this tolife to the average, or maybe
slightly above average, end user.
Right technology out, it is isa skill, and so, uh great that
you're able to do thattranslation, andrew.
(32:04):
So that's, that's fabulous.
That's my call more of you.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Well, we're almost out of time, but we've reached
the quickfire round when welearn more about our guests.
But I think I know a lot aboutyou already, even over this
short discussion, so let's firesome quick questions at you.
Window or aisle, oh aisle,pinot Noir or Chardonnay?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Oh, I mean, I think I've tipped my hand on that one.
It's Pinot Noir all day.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Your biggest hope for this year and next.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
Biggest hope is, professionally, is that we
really, really really help largeenterprises, small businesses
and the average consumer anduser to utilize all of this
capability to give them timeback.
We're all over scheduled.
We're all over scheduled, soput this technology to work for
(32:50):
you so that you can get sometime back to.
We're all over scheduled.
We're all over scheduled, soput this technology to work for
you so that you can get sometime back to go do the things
that are important to you.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
I wish that AI could all of my.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Laundry.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Okay, you are now the seventh person to say that I've
had three guests in a row saythat.
So if you're out there, the AIlaundry app is going to go
gangbusters.
What's the app you use most onyour phone?
I use WhatsApp quite a bit.
The best advice you've everreceived Get comfortable being
uncomfortable.
Who should I invite next ontothe podcast?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I would say a colleague of mine that I just
recently started to connect with.
His name is Nuri and he leadsAI marketing for Intel.
So how we're going to reachfolks in the industry and in the
market, to make thoseconnections and to keep it
(33:39):
simple is part of his role, so Iwould invite Nuri Final
quickfire question.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
How do you want to be remembered?
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Good person who tried to do some good and who raised
some really good kids.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
So I mentioned that I love being digitally curious.
So what three things can ouraudience do this week to get
started on better understandinghow Intel's AI PC program can
help their business and theiremployees be more productive?
Great, question.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
So first one is go into your browser.
If it's a Google browser, great.
Any other browser, fantastic.
Type in AI PC, so that'll takeyou to all things AI PC by Intel
, so you'll find out whatapplications are on there that
you can leverage to go to yourlocal retailer or your local OEM
(34:28):
that you're purchasing an AI PCand test it right, find out
what it can do for you.
Ideally, buy one because you'regoing to be more productive.
And three give me input, right,send me input on any
applications that we may bemissing.
You can do so through that AIPCeleration Program email.
(34:51):
And if there's any apps thatwe're missing that we need to
enable to run best or runlocally, we will put them into
our portfolio and make sure thatwe're delivering for the
applications that matter mostfor your listeners.
So those three things.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Kyle, this has been a fantastic discussion.
I've really enjoyed speakingwith you.
How can we find out more aboutyou and your work?
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Oh, go to LinkedIn.
Yeah, LinkedIn gives you alittle snippet of what we do,
what I do, a little bit of mybackground, and then I try to
share what we're up to more thananything.
So that's it.
Thank you so much for your time.
I had a blast.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thanks for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Thank you for listening to Digitally Curious,
brought to you by Intel.
Andrew's new book, DigitallyCurious, is available to
pre-order at digitallycuriousai.
You can find out more aboutAndrew and how he helps
corporates become more digitallycurious with keynote speeches
and C-suite workshops atdigitallycuriousai.
Until next time, we invite youto stay digitally curious.
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