Cluep CEO Karan Walia on the importance of AI: ‘People don't appreciate right now that they are already a cybo

When the Apple iPhone came out, it felt like someone handed you a bit of Star Trek. Karan Walia got a hold of one when he was 19 and became obsessed with the idea of an AI assistant that would run on your smartphone and do useful digital tasks for you. He tried to raise venture capital, but had trouble landing meetings, let alone money. So, he teamed up with his younger brother Sobi Walia and teen programming whiz Anton Mamonov to start Cluep in 2012 and fund his dream once he had enough capital and resources.

Karan and his teenage partners ended up making a breakthrough by writing a novel AI algorithm that can serve ads based on what people publicly say and how they feel on social media. "Let's say you post on Twitter 'I don't know what to eat for lunch today', our patented neural network will detect that you're feeling hopeful towards the word lunch and then show you an ad from McDonald's. Or let's say you take a picture with your friends and share it on social media, our convolutional neural network will auto detect that you're wearing Adidas running shoes and then show you an ad from Nike," says Karan.

According to Karan, "Machines are now starting to be built to think for themselves creatively and unpredictably. Recent advancements in computing, processing, algorithms, storage and hardware have allowed us to partially replicate and mimic our biological processes. For example, when you're composing an email in your Google Gmail app and get auto word suggestions to help you complete your email. That's their natural language understanding engine at work. The thing that people don't appreciate right now is that they are already a cyborg. If you leave your phone behind, it feels like you're missing a part of your body. We're already kind of merged with our phone and laptops and their apps, all of which are starting to leverage AI to help you get things done."

Fast forward to today, Cluep's patented AI technology is now used by thousands of brands which include Amazon, Microsoft, Spotify, BMW, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Red Bull, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and McDonald's.