The Dejima Mafia

Babak Hodjat has been building AI agents since 1998. He said that in front of a room in San Francisco, sitting next to his brother Siamak for the first time in 25 years.

His argument is narrower than the bubble talk, and more useful. Enterprises are not buying AI because a need has been identified. They are buying because the business side expects productivity in return. The engineering that would deliver that productivity has not been done yet. Until it is, the revenue is running ahead of the value.

Babak co-founded Dejima in 1998. The patent behind it became foundational to Apple's Siri. He went on to co-found Sentient Technologies and now leads AI at Cognizant. Siamak was at Dejima from the start and stayed in the assistant world through Siri, Viv Labs and Gameplanner.