AI’s Imperative: Adapting or Perishing
Industry leaders at the Mind the Tech NY conference emphasized a stark reality: businesses, from burgeoning startups to established giants, must embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) to survive. This pivotal message, delivered during a Microsoft roundtable, highlighted the urgent need for companies to integrate AI capabilities into their core operations.
Alon Haimovich, Israel Country GM at Microsoft, opened the event by stating, “We had to change our market approach.” He elaborated on Microsoft’s strategy to support startups, which includes collaborative product development, globalization assistance, sales acceleration, and co-marketing.
“We had to change our market approach.”
Haimovich noted that Israel is a rapidly growing hub within Microsoft’s global startup ecosystem, with 7,000 startups currently, 2,000 of which have already integrated AI. He expressed a commitment to strengthening the high-tech sector by fostering connections between entrepreneurs, investors, and global technology companies.
Nir Alfandary, High-Tech & Digital Native Partnership Director at Microsoft and initiator of the event, underscored the importance of strategic investment in deep-tech solutions, focusing on rapid adoption and revenue growth. He cited Cursor.ai as an example of this, which reached $100 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2024—a growth of 9,900% from 2023.
Guy Franklin, founder and partner at Israeli Mapped in NY, shared his experience of growing his company from 56 to 400 companies, noting the opportune timing of the collaboration with Microsoft, especially with support from the New York City AI Capital Initiative. Many companies are relocating to New York and incorporating AI capabilities.
Adi Hofstein, SVP & Global Digital Growth Leader at Genpact, detailed his company’s transformation, emphasizing the crucial shift toward AI for competitiveness. Starting with invoice processing, Genpact partnered with Microsoft to develop a Copilot-based product. This enabled them to process 15 million invoices annually and significantly lower client costs. Hofstein underlined the transformative nature of this change leading to workforce reduction along with increased revenue.
“We realized that if we didn’t adapt, we wouldn’t survive. This is the biggest transformation in our company’s history.”
Adi Hod, co-founder and CEO of Velotix, highlighted the need for constant adaptation to disruptive technologies. Gili Lichtman Kurtz from Hyro.AI focused on integrating AI in the healthcare sector. Daniel Frankenstein of Joule VC cautioned about distinguishing genuine AI applications from superficial ones. Yair Adato, founder and CEO of Bria.AI, emphasized the accelerated rate of technological shifts.
Eric Rosenfeld of Sixth Street Growth offered a financial perspective, noting that companies’ staying power often hinges on their data and AI capabilities, as buyers prioritize outcomes over underlying technology.
