Author: openjargon

• BNY is adding Google's Gemini 3 to its enterprise AI platform Eliza, the bank said Monday.
• The move focuses on "agentic" AI that supports multi-step financial workflows.
• It comes as Wall Street's AI arms race intensifies among Wall Street banks and investment firms.

The race on Wall Street to deploy AI agents capable of handling end-to-end tasks is intensifying.

On Monday, BNY said it will embed Google Cloud's agentic AI technology — including Google's latest model, Gemini 3 — into the bank's internal AI platform Eliza, named after the wife of bank founder Alexander Hamilton. The upgrade of its technology stack is the latest step the bank — one of New York's oldest operating businesses — is taking to advance its AI ambitions.

By integrating Google Cloud's tech into Eliza — which already draws on multiple large language models — the firm is betting employees will be able to move faster through daily tasks, Sarthak Pattanaik, the bank's chief data and AI officer, told Business Insider. Take the tedious manual work of client onboarding: staff juggle document collection, verify ID and tax forms, locate key details, look up risk information, and log everything into internal systems. He said agentic AI could help orchestrate those steps, break tasks into smaller components, and deliver the required information in a more streamlined flow.

"Eliza, through the agent tech workflow, is able to make the process much more simpler, efficient, and orchestrated, much more seamlessly," Pattanaik said.

Gemini 3, which debuted in mid-November, can interpret text, images, tables, PDFs, and audio together, allowing employees to load mixed financial materials and have the model interpret and synthesize what matters.

BNY's generative AI build-out began accelerating in 2023, and the bank has been keen to position itself as an early adopter of AI. Eliza now supports more than 120 automated tasks. Pattanaik added that nearly the entire firm has completed generative AI and responsible AI training.

In the bank's third-quarter earnings call, BNY CEO Robin Vince told analysts that the bank was leveraging agentic AI to deploy over 100 "digital employees" that are working "side-by-side" with staff on tasks such as payment validations and code repairs.

"We believe our AI opportunity is significant, and we are pursuing it with urgency," said Vince.

Earlier this year, it announced a similar partnership with OpenAI, the maker of the popular consumer-focused large language model ChatGPT. On its website, it says it was "the first major bank to deploy an AI Supercomputer (powered by NVIDIA) to accelerate processing capacity."

Safety protocols

While exciting, its expansion into agentic systems raises questions about how highly regulated institutions like BNY will ensure data privacy. Both BNY and Google emphasized that deploying agentic AI inside a regulated institution requires boundaries around what the technology can see, decide, or escalate.

Pattanaik said deploying agentic AI inside a bank demands strict oversight. He said each agent must pass an internal model-risk review before it goes live and emphasized that the systems are governed by tight access controls that determine what information they are allowed to use.

Once deployed, he added, the team monitors the agent's performance daily and incorporates those results into a continuous feedback loop.

Rohit Bhat, Google Cloud's head of financial services, told Business Insider that Google provides the safety mechanisms that restrict how agents communicate and what data each one can access. Agents have "development kits" and "protocols" to govern their communication with one another, Bhat said.

"The primary purpose of kits and protocols," he added, "is to establish that communication pathway with those boundary conditions of, 'I'm only allowed to talk to this agent for the set of reasons and nothing else.'"

Why Google thinks it can help Wall Street

Major banks are embracing a mix of homegrown and external AI tools. Goldman Sachs has expanded its internal platforms while experimenting with technology from startups like Cognition Labs.

Dealmakers and investors have adopted tools from newer entrants like Hebbia, which offers prompt libraries and deep search. Morgan Stanley has deployed OpenAI technology to assist its financial advisors, while executives at JPMorgan have spoken publicly about the potential for junior employees to manage teams of AI agents.

Bhat said financial firms are becoming an important testing ground for agentic AI because their workflows involve heavy documentation, strict rules, and significant risk management.

Google's pitch is that Gemini can reason through lengthy materials while staying anchored to a firm's internal policies — a prerequisite for deploying agents across custody, markets, or onboarding.

"You need to make sure that whatever these agents are doing is grounded in the business context and in the business specificity," he said. "That requires these models to be able to understand, and then also adhere to, certain policies and the rules," to make sure they meet "the standards that you would want them to."

• My husband and I have been driving cross-country for five years now to spend time with his mom.
• Flying is faster, but driving lets us soak in the scenery and discover new places along the way.
• Each year, we stay with my mother-in-law for a few months, spending time together and slowing down.

For most of our professional lives, my husband Aram and I had to divide our vacation days between our own trips and visiting his family out of state.

But since transitioning to fully remote work in 2020, we've been able to make a trek from Los Angeles to the Detroit suburbs to spend a few months with his mom, Elizabeth, every year.

Driving nearly 2,300 miles is definitely more demanding than a four-hour plane ride, but it has its perks. We can pack as much as we like, play music as loud as we want, and explore places across the country that we might never have visited otherwise.

More importantly, these trips are a chance to spend quality time both as a couple on the road and as a family once we arrive.

It's nice getting to see the country in ways we couldn't on a plane

To make each journey feel fresh, we travel at different times of year and try new routes, including the famed Route 66.

We also switch up how long we stay on the road, depending on our schedules. This fall, we wanted to get to Michigan "fast" so we completed our trip in three days and two nights.

Over the years, we've stayed in dozens of cities, including Las Vegas, Tucson, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Boulder, Breckenridge, St. Louis, and Des Moines.

We've gone to a drive-thru wildlife park in Arizona, attended the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, and even saw Bob Dylan perform lakeside in Dillon, Colorado. That concert was an unplanned bonus — we just happened to be in town at the right time.

Roadside attractions are one of our favorite parts about driving instead of flying. If a billboard catches our eye and we have time, we'll pull over.

That's how we ended up walking through caves in the Ozarks, visiting the Precious Moments Chapel in Missouri, and touring the tiny Illinois town of Casey — home to the world's largest rocking chair and other oversized objects.

Even getting gas can be an adventure. This year, we had a blast fueling up and walking around Iowa 80, the world's largest truck stop.

We have a home away from home with my mother-in-law

Elizabeth lives on her own in a three-bedroom house, so she let Aram and me make the upstairs level into our own space, with the bedrooms doubling as offices.

Once we arrive, we quickly settle into our daily rhythm and routines. Even when we're working, it's nice to have her near. It's especially comforting to my husband, who's always been very close to his mom.

But make no mistake — it's not like she's bored and just waiting around for us. At 84, she has a livelier social life than we do. Her vibrancy, curiosity, and generous spirit draw people in, and her eclectic group of friends is always in the mix.

My husband and I also appreciate being able to take a break from the hustle and bustle of LA and experience a more relaxed vibe in Michigan.

We enjoy exploring Detroit, as the city and its neighboring areas have plenty of fantastic restaurants, historic landmarks, and cultural sites, like the Detroit Institute of Arts. We also like heading up to Northern Michigan for the charming lakeside towns.

Aside from that, Elizabeth and I love our "girl time," whether it's going out for happy hour and live music, watching the latest fashion shows and travel videos on YouTube, or simply running errands.

As a neat freak, I also enjoy helping her organize the pantry, declutter drawers, and edit her closets. It feels good to do a little spring cleaning any time of year, and she appreciates it.

We know life is precious and time is limited, so we savor our moments together

Driving across the country every year to spend several months with my mom-in-law was not the kind of living arrangement my husband and I ever expected to have.

However, as long as we continue working remotely, we'll keep this tradition alive.

As she always reminds us, "life is a gift," and we should strive to "make more memories" whenever we can.

• Tesla says Grok can now add navigation destinations thanks to a new update.
• Elon Musk's chatbot was integrated into Tesla vehicles in the summer.
• Grok has previously been controversial, going on an antisemitic rant on X earlier this year.

If you own a Tesla, your next road trip could be planned by Grok.

Tesla unveiled its 2025 holiday update over the weekend, and the company said Elon Musk's AI chatbot can now add and edit navigation destinations.

A video demonstration uploaded by Tesla showed the AI assistant, which was built by Musk's AI startup xAI, responding to a voice command and adding multiple destinations around San Francisco to the car's infotainment screen. Grok was first integrated into Tesla vehicles in July.

The new feature, which the automaker said would turn Grok into "your personal guide," is the latest sign of the increasingly close integration between Tesla's vehicles and Musk's AI chatbot.

Musk announced that Grok would be coming to Tesla EVs in July, shortly after the AI model went on an antisemitic rant on X in which it praised Adolf Hitler.

Since then, Grok has attracted headlines for insisting that Musk is in better shape than LeBron James and reportedly revealing the home addresses of everyday people.

Tesla and xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Grok is only available on certain Tesla vehicles with sufficiently powerful processors. The chatbot can be set to a range of different personalities, including storyteller, assistant, and "unhinged."

The feature update comes as Tesla looks to turn around its sales slump, with the EV maker likely to post declining annual sales for the second year in a row.

It also comes after investors voted on whether Tesla should invest an undisclosed sum in xAI at the company's annual shareholder meeting last month.

While more shareholders voted in favor than against, a large number abstained. Tesla's board said it would, for now, just examine the "next steps" in light of the abstentions.

• 21 people were injured by pepper spray at London Heathrow Airport on Sunday, police said.
• A woman was robbed of her suitcase in a parking garage elevator.
• Passengers faced chaos as roads were closed and trains stopped serving some terminals.

Travellers faced chaos at London Heathrow Airport on Sunday, where police said some 21 people were apparently injured by pepper spray.

London's Metropolitan Police said they were called to a parking garage at Terminal 3 around 8 a.m. after a number of people were sprayed by a group of men who left the scene.

Armed officers arrived and arrested a man on suspicion of assault within nine minutes of the first report, it added.

"At this stage, it's understood that a woman was robbed of her suitcase by a group of four men, who sprayed a substance believed to be pepper spray in her direction," said Commander Peter Stevens.

He added that it occurred in an elevator, and those directly involved are believed to be known to each other.

21 people were treated by the London Ambulance Service, including a three-year-old child, the police said. Five of them were taken to hospital.

While the terminal remained open, the disruption put many people at risk of missing their flights.

Heathrow is the busiest airport in Europe, serving over 80 million passengers last year.

In an X post, Heathrow Airport advised passengers to allow extra time when travelling to the airport and to check with their airline for any questions.

A highway into Terminals 3 and 2 was closed for about an hour before reopening, according to an X post from National Highways.

It then said it closed it again on the airport's request, "due to the amount of vehicles and pedestrians within the tunnel," but reopened within 30 minutes.

The BBC reported that some passengers were seen getting out of cars and walking down a road with their luggage, towards signs that warned "no pedestrians beyond this point."

There were also delays of 45 minutes approaching the airport, according to National Highways, while Elizabeth Line trains stopped serving the terminals for over an hour.

• Student-loan borrowers are facing major repayment changes.
• Democratic lawmakers said the changes put borrowers at heightened risk of customer service errors.
• Servicing errors can be costly, leading some borrowers to put off saving for their futures.

Changes are coming to student-loan repayment, and Democratic lawmakers are warning that it could lead to costly servicing mistakes for borrowers.

On Sunday night, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, and Chris Van Hollen sent letters, exclusively viewed by Business Insider, to all five federal student-loan servicers regarding their abilities to assist borrowers amid major changes to repayment.

The letters come as servicers are working with the Department of Education to roll out changes signed into law in President Donald Trump's "big beautiful" spending legislation, including creating new repayment plans and borrowing caps. Additionally, collections resumed on defaulted borrowers' student loans after a five-year pause, all while the administration is working to dismantle the Department of Education.

The lawmakers wrote in their letters to the federal servicers that, given the slew of changes, it's imperative that borrowers can receive help from their servicers, along with accurate paperwork processing.

"Student loan servicers' administrative errors have significant financial consequences for borrowers, including delayed rent payments, loss of mortgage eligibility, postponed retirement contributions, and even risk of homelessness," the lawmakers wrote. "Borrowers pay the price for servicers' neglect and incompetence."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wrote in its 2024 annual student-loan report that servicer errors, such as incorrect payment processing and difficulties contacting customer service agents, led to "significant downstream consequences" that caused borrowers to be late on their monthly bills and even put some at risk of homelessness.

With the administration halting the CFPB's work, the lawmakers wrote that borrowers are at a greater risk of being scammed by actors posing as federal servicers, enhancing the need for clear servicer communication. They requested that the servicers answer a series of questions by December 22, including data on call center volume, staffing numbers, and communications to borrowers in delinquency or default.

"As loan repayment due dates and requirements have changed repeatedly for many borrowers under the Trump Administration, borrowers need clear and timely communication from federal student loan servicers," they said.

The consequences of servicer errors

Customer service challenges have plagued student-loan borrowers for years.

Former President Joe Biden's Education Department released a memo in 2023 detailing the errors borrowers have experienced with their servicers. It included incorrect monthly bills, late or no billing statements, mistakenly taking borrowers out of forbearance, and long hold times with customer agents. The mistakes were costly — some borrowers told Business Insider at the time that interest grew on their balances while they attempted to resolve the errors, and they could not afford the incorrect payment amounts.

The challenges persisted into the Trump administration. While Democratic lawmakers said that Trump's attempts to dismantle the Department of Education will harm borrowers due to even less staffing and oversight, the department said it plans to expand the ombudsman's office to ensure borrowers are better equipped to manage their debt.

The department is also soliciting feedback on creating a "common manual" to serve as a centralized place for servicing practices, intended to help the department bolster servicer oversight.

• One of Warren Buffett's key deputies is leaving Berkshire Hathaway.
• Todd Combs, the CEO of Berkshire-owned Geico, is joining JPMorgan to head up a new unit.
• Combs' departure comes after five years as head of Geico.

One of Warren Buffett's top lieutenants is leaving Berkshire Hathaway to join JPMorgan.

Todd Combs, one of Buffett's two investment managers and the CEO of Berkshire-owned Geico, will lead JPMorgan's $10 billion Strategic Investment Group, part of its new Security and Resiliency Initiative.

The initiative is aimed at helping companies to accelerate growth, boost innovation, and bolster manufacturing, particularly in the US.

This is a developing story.

• Gisselle Hernandez founded Glamlite when she was home with her baby.
• She grew up undocumented in New York City and considered becoming a nurse for stability.
• Today, she's a multi-millionaire and working to break family cycles of abuse and poverty.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Gisselle Hernandez, founder of Glamlite. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Five years ago, I was running a cosmetic business that had generated millions in sales. And yet, my bank account only had a few hundred dollars in it. I felt trapped in a relationship with my romantic partner because I didn't think I had the financial or emotional resources to leave.

That's when I realized that, despite building a successful company, trauma from my past was still holding me back. With a friend's help and encouragement, I left my relationship and took control of my company's finances — and it changed my life.

My family didn't teach me to dream big

My daughter and I moved into a beautiful six-bedroom house. The thing I was most excited about was having a closet to hang my clothes in: before that, even with my success, I'd been living out of a suitcase.

For me, the trauma was generational. My mom was an entrepreneur in the Dominican Republic. She was an orphan who ran a farm and a day care center. Eventually, she made enough money to invest in real estate.

When I was a toddler, we moved to the US. We were undocumented, and life was very, very, very difficult. My family never taught me to dream big: They just told me to get a job that paid enough to cover rent and food.

A college assignment helped me revisit my dreams

I dropped out of school in 9th grade and started working as a freelance graphic designer. I loved it, but my family didn't encourage me. I obtained my GED and enrolled in a community college to become a nurse.

One of my classes required me to write an essay about the concept of the glass ceiling. As I wrote about how women are disadvantaged in business and entrepreneurship, I realized I was part of the problem: I was settling for a career that felt safe, rather than the one I wanted. Soon after, I switched my major to business.

My business took off when I started taking care of myself

I graduated with an associate degree, and a few years later, I was a stay-at-home mom in LA. I knew my relationship with my daughter's father wasn't healthy, and I wanted a way out. I thought money would give me that, so I spent $1,900 on a credit card to buy selfie lights, which I sold to makeup influencers. At the time, no one else was doing that, and it took off. I did about $80,000 in the first year.

I used that money to launch my beauty brand. In June 2021, Glamlite achieved more than $2 million in sales in one day, with $1.5 million generated from the website and the remainder from wholesale orders.

My daughter and I are living a life I couldn't imagine

When I first became a multimillionaire, I had the money just sitting in my account. Because of my past, I wanted to save everything.

A wealth advisor explained to me that's not how you grow wealth. She worked with me at a slow pace. First, we put money in a CD account, rather than a savings account. Once I was comfortable with that, we moved on to stocks. I'm still learning as I go.

Today, my daughter chooses whether she wants to ride to school in my pink Mercedes G Wagon, my blue Corvette, or one of my other cars. She's living a life I couldn't imagine at her age — even if the cars are mostly a business tool for when we do influencer marketing shoots.

I always encourage my daughter's dreams. Currently, she wants to create content online, so I purchased the necessary equipment for her. She and I are both in therapy, and we're doing the work to break family cycles of domestic violence. I'm proud of everything I've accomplished, but finding the strength to break free is my greatest success.

• Canada is expanding trade ties with Asia due to stalled US negotiations and Trump's tariffs.
• Recent deals include agreements with Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and ASEAN talks.
• International trade experts said it may not be worth it for Canada to make a new deal with the US.

Canada has had a very busy year.

Within a year, the US's second-largest trading partner has rapidly ramped up efforts to explore new deals with regional powers in Asia, or to revive talks that had been previously put on ice.

As of November, the US has imposed a 35% tariff on all goods from Canada that are not covered by the USMCA. Canadian exports of steel and aluminum to the US also face a 50% duty. The northern neighbor has since matched some of Trump's levies, and Trump has repeatedly threatened to end trade negotiations with Canada.

International trade experts in both Canada and the US told Business Insider that the pivot is spurred by a lack of progress in negotiations with the Trump administration, which has made tariffs a cornerstone of its policy, and doubt about whether a good deal with the current administration is still possible.

Phil Luck, the director of the Economics Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Business Insider that he observed similar efforts to diversify trade during the first Trump administration, and that the current trend is "an indication" of how trade discussions have progressed with the US this year.

"Canada took our extreme turn in our trade relationship with them pretty seriously," said Luck, "because this is a very big change in how the US has sort of traditionally treated Canada, and it has really drawn the ire of the Canadian people as a result."

"So even if there was a somewhat palatable sort of middle ground, our partners also have democracies, and they need to find a solution that's palatable to their population," Luck added.

The diversification push

In September, Ottawa signed a comprehensive free-trade agreement with Indonesia, the first with the Asian Pacific country. Two months later, Canada secured a bilateral investment treaty with the United Arab Emirates that came with an expanded air-services pact. Canada is also fast-tracking a previously stalled trade agreement with India and pushing for a free trade agreement with the entirety of ASEAN by the end of 2026.

A campaign page promoting foreign investment had appeared by August on the Canadian government website, featuring a slogan that reads, "Diversification is a national imperative."

Meredith Lilly, professor of international affairs at Carleton University and a former International Trade Advisor to former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told Business Insider that even though some negotiations with Asian countries have been in the works for a long time, the current government of Canada is touting the efforts that the country is making and accelerating them as a "response to slow and difficult negotiations" with the US.

"It is a very difficult administration to work with at the moment," said Lilly of Trump's team. "But we should have no expectation that these diversification efforts can move quickly — it's a project that we should always be undertaking, and we should be working on it consistently."

There is more that Canada can do, too, Lilly said.

One thing Canada can do more quickly to make up for the US tariffs' impact on the economy is to increase trade relations with countries it already has agreements with. That includes Korea, Japan, and the 12 Pacific Rim countries that are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Lilly said, all of which are highly interested in Canada's natural resources.

According to data from the Canada Energy Regulator, Canadian oil exports outside the US reached a record 525,000 barrels per day in July 2025 and remain elevated throughout the third quarter of 2025.

Canada, while initially expecting a larger hit on the economy due to Trump's tariffs, has also reported surprisingly robust GDP growth. In the third quarter of 2025, the country reported a 2.6% GDP growth rate, according to Statistics Canada, surpassing a previously revised 1.8% projection.

A decline in confidence in the US

Carlo Dade, the Director of International Policy at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, told Business Insider that it may not be worth it to make a deal with the US now, because most Canadian goods are covered by the existing USMCA trade agreement, and because many of Trump's foreign policy moves seem "personal."

"I argue that we shouldn't be trying to get an agreement with the US," said Dade. "If you look at what happened to Malaysia, Vietnam, the UK — if that's a deal, do you want that?"

Malaysia and Vietnam, despite agreeing to remove most tariffs on the US, still ended up with 19% and 20% of tariffs, respectively. The UK, despite having secured a deal with Trump fairly early in the year, is not exempt from a general 10% tariff on most goods and a 25% duty on steel and aluminum.

"No one gets a good deal from Trump. 'The Art of the Deal' says there are winners and there are losers, and the US is going to be the winner," Dade added, referring to Trump's book on dealmaking strategies. "So what you're looking for is not a good deal. You're looking for the least worst deal."

Luck said that even though the US has a lot of leverage over its closest trading partners, he is concerned about the long-term reputational damage the country will suffer among allies.

"Just because you have the biggest stick doesn't mean you have to use it," said Luck. "If you insist on cashing in on all your leverage today, you have a situation where you have the most ability to harm and therefore the most leverage over your closest allies and partners whose trade is most integrated with yours."

• Rahul Kasanagottu, 32, spent 2.5 years upskilling to transition to an AI role at Google.
• He started reading AI and machine learning books during paternity leave to kick off his job pivot.
• He said continuous learning, hands-on projects, and support were key to his transition.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Rahul Kasanagottu, a 32-year-old customer engineer at Google, specialized in AI and machine learning, and based in Austin. His identity and employment have been verified by Business Insider. The following has has been edited for length and clarity.

For a few years, I worked in a customer success role at Google, but when the generative AI train came along, I realized I wanted to get into that.

During pivotal moments in technology, a lot of people go into it with the goal of making money. I think more people should think about getting into AI to help influence how it will be used by others — and that's what I wanted to do.

My daughter was born in April 2023, and the AI boom hit right around then. Google offers generous parental leave, and I figured it would be a good opportunity to spend time with my daughter and start reading books about AI.

Paternity leave definitely helped me start the journey, but it took me about two and a half years, 11 books, and hours of watching videos to land a job on an AI team. I interviewed for around four to five different roles, and six months ago, I transitioned from a senior technical account manager to a Google Cloud customer engineer specialized in AI and machine learning. In this role, I build demos and show customers how to use Google's AI products.

I'm still up-skilling continuously. The product is changing every day. Today I'm working with one kind of customer, but tomorrow I might be working with a totally different customer whose needs are completely different. The learning curve is continuous.

Here are the 11 books and courses that helped me skill up.

Textbooks:

• "AI Engineering" by Chip Huyen
• "Designing Machine Learning Systems" by Chip Huyen

• "Designing Data-Intensive Applications" by Martin Kleppmann
• "Hands-On Large Language Models" by Jay Alammar and Maarten Grootendorst
• "Generative AI on AWS" by Chris Fregly, Shelbee Eigenbrode and Anje Barth
• "Deep Learning" by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, Aaron Courville

Other Books:

• "Competing in the Age of AI" by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani
• "Prediction Machines" by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb
• "Power and Prediction" by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, Avi Goldfarb

• "Genesis" by Henry Kissinger, Craig Mundie, and Eric Schmidt

• "Deep Medicine" by Eric Topol

Courses and YouTube Channels:

• Deep Learning Specialization taught by Andrew Ng
• 3Blue1Brown videos on YouTube about visualizing mathematics and ML fundamentals

Books

The two books I read end-to-end were "Designing Machine Learning Systems" and "Generative AI on AWS." The latter has an accompanying course in deep learning that was very pivotal in my early learning.

The two books by Chip Huyen were my favorite. He explains things in a really approachable way and he opened my understanding of how organizations use and implement AI. At first, it was hard to understand the difference between the research side and the applied side of AI. These books helped me realize my interest lied in applied AI.

"Power and Prediction" was another favorite. It talks about how technology has to scale economically to make a difference. For example, if the electric light bulb still cost thousands of dollars, it wouldn't electrify every house today. The books talks about AI in similar terms.

"Genesis" also stood out. It talks about the future of AI and the challenges it will pose.

Andrew Ng's courses were also really helpful. He is an amazing teacher and the founder of Google Brain.

The culture at Google also helped. Without support of my manager and teammates, I wouldn't have had the time for personal growth. I had to prioritize my job and personal learning while also taking care of a new daughter. My wife also had to sacrifice a lot of hours for me to work on my own stuff.

Solo projects

The books don't typically come with assignments, but the courses come with a lot of hands-on exercises. Over time, I realized that was the missing piece in my résumé. It was getting difficult to convince hiring managers that I could do the job because it required building demos and doing hands-on projects.

I realized I had to do my own projects and the AI tools were incredibly helpful for that.

For other people who want to transition, I would say you need to keep working hard. It takes time for you to connect the dots on complex problems and sometimes you have to read the same thing again and again to nail that concept entirely.

A lot of people who want to get into AI, including me, are in a rush to land an AI job after six months. But a lot of concepts in machine learning take time to internalize. So persistence is necessary.

• Roblox CEO David Baszucki said that a recent attempt to understand all of the latest AI research was "humbling."
• "It is hard to get to a position where you can understand all of those research papers," he said on the "Access" podcast.
• Baszucki, who did the reading while on sabbatical, concluded that AI research in the 3D space was still very early.

New AI research is published at a steady clip, sometimes daily, and often featuring increasingly technical terms and concepts. How do you keep up?

Roblox CEO David Baszucki recognizes the struggle. On the "Access" podcast, the executive was asked about his recent sabbatical, where he'd spent some delving into AI.

"It was very humbling," Baszucki said. "It is hard to get to a position where you can understand all of those research papers."

Baszucki founded Roblox in 2005. In the company's early days, the CEO said that he read "all the research," from physics simulation to rendering technology.

"People were thinking about all of these new ways of doing gaming, and generally I could understand all of it," he said.

Then came the "horizontal wave" of AI research, which Baszucki called "so massive and so fast." From transformers to diffusion and world models, there's "a lot going on," he said.

Over the past few years, AI research has expanded from an academic subject to a national interest. Major tech companies, such as Meta and Microsoft, have developed in-house research labs — and awarded lucrative compensation packages to top AI researchers.

There are signs that AI research is becoming more private. In 2023, Google informed its staff that it would reduce the amount of AI research it published.

"Now it's time to compete and keep knowledge in house," a Google Brain staffer told Business Insider in 2023 of the company's philosophy.

While much of the AI industry is now focused on scaling compute, OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever recently said that research itself was the key to unlocking the tech's future.

"It's back to the age of research again, just with big computers," he said.

As for Roblox, Baszucki's conclusion from his deep dive into the latest research was that it's still "very early in the 3D space."

Baszucki called AI a "very physically unnatural space," fed on human-made text and images.

"We're training AI models on this thing we made up," he said, rather than "on the 3D raw material of the world itself."