Ashish Rajan

What is the most important part of an AI system?

1 week ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

On ✈️ Wifi on a 10hr flight to AWS re:invent

Answering your most pressing questions

What questions do you have about AI? (Drop in comment) 👇🏾

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

Everyone’s talking about how AI is changing everything…
But after 100+ conversations on one of the biggest AI podcasts, here’s the truth no one says 👇🏾

1️⃣ “AI is transforming everything” — is still a hype cycle.
Most companies have budget for AI software but not for a new team member to actually drive implementation.

⸻

2️⃣ The marketing around AI is even more hyped.
Over 95% of AI projects fail — not because of the tech, but because teams skip the basics of integrating AI into real workflows.

⸻

3️⃣ “AI is cheap” — also a hype cycle.
We saw this during the cloud and digital transformation eras. The pattern is repeating.
Ask anyone deploying AI at scale (especially with tools like Claude or custom agents) — the burn rate is real 🔥, and the ROI often isn’t.
The layoffs we’re seeing are partly companies realizing AI at enterprise level is far more expensive than they planned for.

⸻

I’m not an AI skeptic — I’m just calling out the BS.
There are incredible teams (beyond the frontier labs) doing serious work in Agentic AI.
But the gap between hype and execution is massive.

What part of AI feels like hype to you right now? 💭

#AI #Tech #DigitalTransformation #FutureOfWork #Leadership

1 month ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

Happy Diwali 🪔 to everyone celebrating! 🎉

1 month ago | [YT] | 2

Ashish Rajan

My betrayal list 👀💻☕️
→ “No budget for security this year - but we’re buying an AI platform.”
→ “This should only take a sprint”
→ “We’ll add auth later.”
→ Unpatched AI features quietly running in test environments.
→ “Can security approve this by EOD?”
→ That one ‘temporary’ AWS key from 2019 that’s now part of production folklore.
→ Vendors promising “end-to-end visibility.”
→ Compliance teams celebrating green checkmarks on broken controls.
→ Slack going down mid-incident.

What is on yours?? 👇🏾 (this is a safe zone 👀 😅 )

2 months ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

✨ Happy Onam to everyone celebrating!

🌍 “The thing I miss most about home isn’t the big festivals, it’s the little things only people from your town understand.” 👇🏾

Growing up, I never thought much about holidays.
I was the rebel kid, i would skip church events, resist family gatherings, and brush off festivals. To me, it all felt forced.

But now in my 30s, after years of being raised in India, Australia and now growing old in the U.K., my perspective has shifted.

I’ve come to see how much joy these celebrations bring not just my own, but also those of others. I grew up as a Christian surrounded by Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, and so many others religions and cultures.

The beauty of the place was that
everyone had migrated from another town/country brought their own food, traditions, and ways of celebrating
and somehow, we all shared them.

Back then, I didn’t see the point.
Now, I feel grateful for those times and miss it on such days.
Because sometimes it’s not the big moments you long for...
but the tiny cultural details that remind you of where you came from.

And I’ve realized this isn’t just me.
Over the years,
I’ve met people from small towns in America, Ireland, the U.K., India, Australia and beyond.

Almost everyone who’s moved away for better opportunities or another reason shares a similar story:
➡️ There’s always a piece of your hometown you quietly miss.
Whether it’s a local festival.
A dish only your town makes a certain way.
Or even just a phrase that only makes sense back home.

Today, I find myself celebrating festivals like Onam - a 10-day harvest celebration from Kerala where families serve up to 35 dishes on a banana leaf.

As a child, I never valued it.
Today, as I pass food along the table to my loved ones, new friends and old,
it feels like a way to stay connected to my roots while
celebrating the diversity of others around me and
in some ways making this cool for other rebel kids who may not see it the same way today but 1 day will.

✨ Happy Onam to everyone celebrating!

👉🏾 What’s a tradition or little detail from your hometown that still stays with you?

3 months ago | [YT] | 1

Ashish Rajan

Can't believe how many people get this AI Quiz wrong - Do you know 👇🏾

Which OpenAI license would you choose to build custom AI Products?

3 months ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

You’ve just stepped into a tech & AI leadership role.

What’s the most important first move?

Your choice might surprise others - drop your vote!

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

ChatGPT-5 is dropping next month (Aug 2025),
almost 2 years after GPT-4 (Mar 2023).
But GPT-3.5 → GPT-4 took just 4 months 👀
🧠 How often should companies update their AI strategy?

The pace isn't linear, but the disruption is.

Can your AI strategy keeping up?

4 months ago | [YT] | 0

Ashish Rajan

Training for Hacker Summer Camp
by surviving
the European heat wave - join me 😜👇🏾

Black Hat is in 2 weeks though
I’m not sure this counts as prep,
considering there’s zero shade
on the Vegas Strip 😂🌞
Let’s hope the AC holds.

If you’re attending and
want to hang out,
swing by our
Black Hat Coffee Hangout
focused on AI Security.

Comment “AI” for details,
if you would like to
join other practitioners
in Cloud & AI 🤖
(no sales folks this time) 🙏🏾!

#hackersummercamp #ai

5 months ago | [YT] | 0