New Co-CEO Of Brand Engagement Network Talks Future Of AI

Benzinga

Paul Chang, co-CEO of Brand Engagement Network, Inc., or BEN, was recently a guest on Benzinga's All-Access.  BEN is a provider of conversational AI technology and human-like AI avatars. The company delivers highly personalized AI engagement with a focus on industries where there may be a large workforce gap and an opportunity to transform how consumers engage with networks, providers, and brands. Chang was recently named co-CEO and spoke with Benzinga about his exciting vision for the company.

Transcript

00:00Paul, welcome to the show, man.

00:06How's it going?

00:07Hey, Zenaid.

00:08I'm doing well.

00:09Thanks for having me again.

00:10It's been like a month or so since you were named co-CEO.

00:13How's that going for you?

00:15Yeah, it's been it's been good.

00:17I would say, you know, we've made some significant progress with market validation, and I think

00:24that was one of the key focuses of, you know, where we needed to, you know, drive understanding

00:30of our technology and get our customers to sign up.

00:33All right.

00:34Well, for the folks at home that might not be familiar, give us a quick, brief overview.

00:37What is it that your company does?

00:38Well, Ben AI is a full stack, pure play generative AI company.

00:44So the company and the technology has been around for five years.

00:49And we develop our front end middleware and back end, which includes our language model.

00:57And that allows us to optimize the experience for the users.

01:01And I think we will be talking about, you know, one of those cool technologies that

01:06we've been working on that's going to make our customers utilize the technology and AI

01:15for their benefit and their customers benefit.

01:17Now, is that something that, you know, is already kind of public knowledge?

01:21Are you going to release that later on?

01:22Or where are we in the process of letting the users know what it is exactly that you've

01:26been kind of working on?

01:28Yeah.

01:29So let's say we're still at early stages, but we have some, you know, beta customers

01:33that are testing the technology with us.

01:36And so we feel confident that it can be deployed to scale very quickly in the near future here.

01:47So there's so many companies now that kind of have the buzzword AI, obviously, for y'all,

01:51it's not a buzzword.

01:52It is truly something that you are working on.

01:54Every single day is a core part of what you're doing as well.

01:58What do you think kind of separates you from your competitors that are kind of in this

02:01space as well to help companies with AI, whether it's to filter data, whether it's to communicate

02:05with consumers and bring down costs?

02:07So many different ways to use AI here.

02:09Right.

02:10And, you know, I think for most companies, they're traditional, say, machine learning

02:14AI companies.

02:16You know, they've been doing the work on the data and doing analytics and such, which,

02:20you know, obviously we still need.

02:21Right.

02:22It's very important.

02:23Then there are sort of the new entrants who call themselves Gen AI companies, but they're

02:27just a thin veneer on top of, let's say, chat GPT.

02:32And so they're very limited in what they can do, what they can control.

02:38And therein lies the challenges of, you know, protecting the data, the privacy aspect.

02:47And then, of course, you know, perhaps utilizing more power, processing power and energy than

02:55necessary.

02:56Now, you have so much power that you just mentioned about.

03:00Are you concerned that the AI models are so power hungry that we might have an issue in

03:06moving forward with this?

03:07I mean, it's kind of like how Bitcoin, right, and the machines there for the mining that

03:10we saw such a huge surge in power and expenses there.

03:13Are you expecting something similar when it comes to the AI models?

03:16Yeah.

03:17I mean, it seems that way.

03:19And there's a fair amount of concern in the industry.

03:22Right.

03:23I sat in a dinner event where everyone was talking about, wow, you know, we need these,

03:28you know, GPUs to power our large language models and to, you know, power the GPUs or

03:34house the GPUs.

03:35And we need to build more data centers.

03:37And if we have more data centers, well, it needs electricity.

03:41So then, you know, we need to build more power plants to feed the data center.

03:45So, you know, I just thought that whole, you know, thought was like going out of control.

03:52Where we differentiate ourselves is our ability to build specific AI solutions to solve specific

04:00problems.

04:01And in that scenario, you don't need such large language model.

04:05Right.

04:06And I was just kind of thinking about, you know, what analogy can I use to help, you

04:10know, everyday people understand.

04:13So we're not asking our AI to go read all the books in the Library of Congress.

04:19We are asking it to read one book that has the answer and provide a response from that

04:25one book.

04:26So in order to do that, well, you can use the, you know, already existing processing

04:31power CPUs versus needing to have GPUs so that you do, you know, parallel processing.

04:38And I'm not saying GPUs are bad.

04:40I mean, we certainly still use them, especially in training.

04:44But to deploy a solution, especially a lightweight solution that perhaps works on your phone,

04:50then we think a GPU based processing solution makes more sense.

04:55So it seems like it's a bit more targeted instead of just casting the net wide and saying,

04:59hey, go grab everything.

05:00It's like, hey, this is the one book that we're focused on.

05:02Let's get as much information from that one thing and be experts at it than we possibly

05:05can be.

05:07Technology is always changing.

05:08We've always heard that term, but I feel like AI now every single day is changing as well.

05:13How is your team kind of keeping up with the vast technology changes that are happening

05:18in the AI space to make sure that you always have the competitive edge that you're hoping

05:22to keep?

05:24Yes, absolutely.

05:25And it is changing on a daily basis almost, right?

05:29So not only do we have a team of developers that are constantly looking for clever ways

05:36to not just develop, but also deploy AI technology.

05:42We have relationships with universities where we have access to PhD students who are looking

05:50at sort of the next generation of AI technology, whether that's computer vision or voice synthesis

05:56or other technology that is going to help drive efficiency, as well as making it more

06:02engaging for the consumers to use the technology.

06:06Paul, before I let you go, anything else that you wanted to kind of talk about?

06:09I know you'll have earnings coming up here in a month or so.

06:12So there's certain things I can ask because you'll report on it.

06:15But any other topics or conversations you were hoping to have today that I didn't get

06:18a chance to bring up?

06:19Yeah.

06:20I just want to sort of highlight that there are actually many different ways to solve

06:25a problem.

06:27It doesn't have to be just one way.

06:29Obviously, you know, ChatGPT did everyone a huge favor by becoming a very popular topic

06:36that everyone knows and everyone talks about.

06:39But there are perhaps a better, more targeted way to deploy AI technology, especially for

06:44businesses, right?

06:46Most businesses, you know, either you're in the health care space or you sell insurance

06:50or cars, you're very narrowly focused, but you need depth of knowledge.

06:55And that's where AI technology that we are working on enables that type of knowledge

07:01and expertise to be brought on to engage their customers.

07:06All right, Paul.

07:07Well, hey, look, I look forward to kind of reading the transcript of your earnings and

07:11hearing the conversations.

07:12And hopefully you and I can have another one to digest everything that your company has

07:15been doing so far.

07:16Yep.

07:17Look forward to it, Zane.

07:18Absolutely.

07:19Thank you so much.

07:20That is Paul Chang, who is the co-CEO of Brand Engagement Network.

07:24Ticker on the NASDAQ is BNAI.

07:25Paul, thanks again.

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