"It's not typical that one of a company's founders steps into the chief AI officer (CAIO) role, but that's exactly what Nick Ganju has done at Zocdoc, an online platform for booking medical appointments. As companies increasingly create the CAIO role, they're typically tapping internal product directors, vice presidents of data analytics, or outside hires. Zocdoc, however, sees a range of benefits in having a core leader in the position-in particular, the signaling of AI as the company's strategic focus."
"'I did shift 100% to wondering what we could do at Zocdoc with AI, and I sort of corralled a team to start working on this stuff and started making it a major strategic focus for Zocdoc,' said Ganju, who officially stepped into the CAIO role in July 2023. 'As a founder, you have a little bit more political capital to be like, 'Hey guys, this is important. We need to go do this.'"
Nick Ganju moved from chief technology officer to chief AI officer at Zocdoc to make AI a strategic company priority. He began studying neural networks and mathematical foundations in 2018, viewing the technology as promising but not yet business-ready. The arrival of ChatGPT and large language models in 2022 shifted the assessment, prompting a full focus on AI opportunities. Ganju organized a team, prioritized AI initiatives, and leveraged founder political capital to push adoption. Zocdoc chose a founder CAIO to signal seriousness, concentrate authority, and use founder credibility to accelerate organizational alignment around AI.
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