Introducing "AUI": Artificial Useful Intelligence, w/ IBM's Chief Scientist Dr. Ruchir Puri
IBM's Chief Scientist introduces AUI (Artificial Useful Intelligence) as alternative to AGI.
Guest
Dr. Ruchir Puri
Chief Scientist, IBM
Dr. Ruchir Puri is IBM’s Chief Scientist. At the time of this conversation, he focused on practical enterprise AI, including trustworthy agents and smaller language models. His work connects research decisions—quality, cost, and reliability—to how organizations can deploy useful systems in everyday operations.
About this conversation
What if we’re all chasing the wrong kind of AI? Dr. Ruchir Puri, Chief Scientist of IBM, argues that Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is overrated—and that we should be focusing instead on AUI: Artificial Useful Intelligence. This is a pragmatic, business-focused approach to AI that emphasizes real-world value, measurable outcomes, and implementable solutions.
In this episode of AI-Curious , we explore what AUI actually looks like in practice. We discuss how to bring AI into your organization (even if you’re just getting started), why IBM is betting big on small language models (SLMs) , and how companies can move beyond hype toward real, trustworthy AI agents that do actual work.
You’ll also hear:
• Why AI usefulness is a function of both quality and cost [00:11:00]
• The “crawl, walk, run” strategy IBM recommends for business adoption [00:14:00]
• Internal IBM examples: HR systems and coding assistants [00:16:00]
• Why SLMs may be a smarter bet than LLMs for many enterprises [00:37:00]
• A breakdown of how agentic systems are evolving to reflect, act, and self-correct [00:41:00]
Whether you’re leading a startup or an enterprise, this conversation will help you reframe how you think about deploying AI—starting not with hype, but with value.
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