Our Co-Founder & CTO Zara Perumal reflects on her recent speaking tour across community banking and cybersecurity conferences, sharing observations about how different communities approach AI. From those who see it as creative opportunity to those who view it as risk, she argues all perspectives hold value and must be balanced. Drawing on insights from Pruven Capital about the shift from "software as a service" to "services as software," Zara explains how Overwatch Data was built on the principle that AI should be a bicycle for the mind—scaling monotonous work to enable more community connection, better customer care, and greater impact on society's toughest problems.
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The last few weeks have been a blur! From NYC with the FinCyber Femmes to Kansas City with the Community Bankers of Illinois, up to the Dells with the Community Bankers of Wisconsin, then back to Boston for BSides Cambridge! What I really loved was each community was so genuine and dedicated to making an impact. In some cases with community bankers who work tirelessly to provide a mix of innovation and personal touch to make sure their customers know they can always be counted on to be there and pick up the phone. Then to cyber communities who are focused on ways to stop the harm done by evolving scams and cybercrime. I personally loved how in each of these places, the communities were focused on impact and collaboration vs posturing.
What's been interesting to me is seeing how AI can mean so many things to so many different people. Some people see AI as fun, or an opportunity to be creative and be more imaginative than ever before. Some people see it as the risk to their business with the non-malicious insiders who may download malicious AI software, or upload sensitive data. Others see it as an opportunity to take the monotonous chores off their plate "...using AI to wash their dishes, not write their poetry." Others fear transformation as we see how much the world is changing. Others see how it can be used to enable crime directly, ushering in a new era of crime!
I think all are true and perspectives we should take in balance! AI ushers in a new era of opportunity and risk, but I think being familiar with it and understanding what it can do and how it can be fun gives an incredible advantage. I feel like you can read as much theory as you want, but it's so hard to get the intuition without using it! We're in an era where AI's progress surprises those who built it, and a practical tangible understanding of what it can do today is incredibly helpful to understand its possibilities and failure modes.
A few weeks ago, Sudip, one of our investors at Pruven Capital, posted an article about how we see a move towards services as software vs software as a service. This has been top of mind for me the last few weeks and is core to how we built Overwatch Data! To me, if we do it right, AI is a bicycle for the mind. It scales our work on the things we dislike, and enables us to be more creative and try more ideas! But fundamentally, it is used as a way to enable and empower incredible humans—enabling more of the community feel, more care for our customers, more impact on society's toughest problems! Like I've felt the last few weeks across these incredible communities. ♥️
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