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.
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.
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NewsTranscript
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.