We discuss the concept of "AI speedrunning," explaining how "fast followers" are often overtaking "first movers" in the artificial intelligence industry. It highlights that companies are now quickly adopting and improving upon new AI breakthroughs rather than solely focusing on original invention. The text cites examples like Apple's market dominance through refinement and Grok's swift impact by leveraging existing platforms and a unique tone, demonstrating that speed to adapt is often more critical than being first. Furthermore, it emphasizes how open-source communities and AI tools are dramatically accelerating R&D cycles, creating a widening gap between organizations that embrace continuous innovation and those that lag. Ultimately, the text argues that success in the AI era hinges on a blend of strategic pioneering and rapid, intelligent adoption, fostering a culture of agility and continuous learning.

The Fastest-Follower Wins: The Age of AI Speedrunning

We discuss how current AI models suffer from a "goldfish memory," as they cannot retain information across different interactions, making them restart from scratch with each new query. This lack of persistent memory hinders long-term user experiences and complex enterprise workflows. The article then introduces MemOS, a new "memory operating system" developed by Chinese researchers, designed to give AI human-like recall by treating memory as a core resource. MemOS utilizes "MemCubes" to store and manage various types of information, enabling continuous learning and personalized responses. Early results show significant improvements in long-term reasoning and efficiency for AI systems using MemOS. Ultimately, the text suggests that incorporating persistent memory is the next major breakthrough in AI, offering benefits like continuous learning, improved compliance, and enhanced personalization for enterprises.

From Goldfish Memory to Elephant Recall: MemOS, Meet AI

We discuss Prompt Declaration Language (PDL), a revolutionary approach to AI infrastructure that addresses the current "black-box" nature of prompt engineering. It argues that traditional methods, relying on unpredictable "magic prompts", are unsustainable and lead to a scalability crisis in enterprise AI. PDL, developed by IBM and open-sourced, utilizes a transparent, YAML-based declarative language to define AI interactions and workflows, transforming opaque prompts into version-controlled, debuggable, and optimizable components. This shift promises to make AI development more akin to traditional software engineering, enabling collaboration, reliability, and improved performance through explicit, reviewable, and testable AI logic. The text emphasizes that embracing such transparent and accountable AI practices is crucial for future innovation and trustworthiness in AI systems.

Bit & Being - PDL is to Prompts as git was to Code

Fresh out of the studio, David Hardoon, Global Head of AI Enablement at Standard Chartered Bank, joins us in a conversation to explore how financial institutions can adopt AI responsibly at scale. He shares his unique journey from academia to government to global banking, reflecting on his fascination with human behavior that originally drew him to artificial intelligence. David explains how his time at Singapore's Monetary Authority shaped the groundbreaking FAIR principles, emphasizing how proper AI governance actually accelerates rather than inhibits innovation. He highlights real-world implementations from autonomous cash reconciliation agents to transaction monitoring systems, showcasing how banks are transforming operations while maintaining strict regulatory compliance. Addressing the biggest misconceptions about AI governance, he emphasizes the importance of integrating AI frameworks into existing structures rather than creating entirely new bureaucracies, while advocating for use-case-based approaches that build essential trust. Closing the conversation, David shares his philosophy that AI success ultimately depends on understanding human behavior and asks the fundamental question every organization should consider: "Why are we doing this?"

"[Question: So what was the biggest misconception for most business leaders usually when it comes to operationalizing AI governance?]
Based on my interactions and conversations, now suddenly they think they have to erect a whole set of new committees, that they have to have these new programs. You almost hear a sigh from the room. Like, oh, we have now this whole additional compliance cost because we have to do all these new things. The reason I see that as a bit of a misconception, because building on everything that was just said earlier, you already have compliance, you already have committees, you already have governance. It's an integration of that because otherwise guess what's gonna happen? We all know that this is the next thing around the corner that's gonna pop up, whatever it's gonna be called. Are you gonna have to set up a whole new committee just because of that? Then the next thing, another one." - David Hardoon

Episode Highlights: 
[00:00] Quote of the Day by David Hardoon #QOTD - "AI governance isn't new bureaucracy."
[00:46] Introduction: David Hardoon from Standard Chartered Bank.
[02:02] How David's AI journey started with human behavior curiosity.
[07:26] Governance accelerates innovation, like traffic rules enable fast driving.
[10:31] FAIR principles in MAS Singapore born from lunches with compliance officers.
[14:23] Don't reinvent governance wheel for AI implementations.
[24:17] Banks already manage risk; apply same discipline to AI.
[28:40] AI adoption problem is trust, not technology.
[34:21] Autonomous AI agents handle cash reconciliation with bank IDs.
[36:00] AI reduces transaction monitoring false positives by 50%.
[39:54] AI requires full supply chain from infrastructure to translators.
[41:52] Organizations must reward intelligent failure in AI innovation.
[44:47] AI hallucination is a feature, not bug for innovation.
[47:35] Measure AI ROI differently for innovation versus implementation teams.
[56:27] Final wisdom: People always ask "why" about AI initiatives.

Profile: David Hardoon, Global Head of AI Enablement, Standard Chartered Bank 
Personal Site: https://davidroihardoon.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrh/

Enabling AI at Scale: Governance as Competitive Advantage with David Hardoon

Join us on this episode as we unpack the rise of GUI-native AI agents, - the screen-savvy digital collaborators rewriting automation rules. We explore how ByteDance’s UI-TARS and other pioneers teach machines to click, type, and adapt like humans, slashing development time and future-proofing workflows. Discover why traditional RPA scripts crumble at the slightest UI tweak, what this shift means for enterprise agility, and how leaders can leverage on-screen AI while navigating trust, governance, and accessibility challenges.

Bit and Being - The Screen Is Alive: The Promise of GUI‑Native AI Agents

What happens when your AI systems stop working in silos and start learning from each other? In this episode, we unpack the revolutionary shift toward cross-agent learning, - where autonomous AI agents share insights, build institutional memory, and turbocharge enterprise intelligence. Join us as we explore real-world applications, uncover hidden inefficiencies in today’s AI strategies, and ask: are your digital teammates as collaborative as your human ones? Whether you're leading AI transformation or just trying to stay ahead of the curve, this is one conversation you won’t want to miss.

Bit & Being - Cross Agent Knowledge Inheritance

Fresh out of the studio, Doug Burger, Technical Fellow and Corporate Vice President at Microsoft Research, joins us to explore Microsoft's bold expansion into Southeast Asia with the recent launch of the Microsoft Research Asia lab in Singapore. From there, Doug shares his accidental journey from academia to leading global research operations, reflecting on how Microsoft Research's open collaboration model empowers over thousands of researchers worldwide to tackle humanity's biggest challenges. Addressing the intersection of three computing paradigms: logic, probability, and quantum, he emphasizes that geographic diversity in research labs enables Microsoft to build AI that works for everyone. Closing the conversation, Doug shares his vision of what great looks like for Microsoft Research with researchers driven by purpose and passion to create breakthroughs that advance both science and society.

"If you're going to be running a very elite research institution, you have to have the best people. To have the best people, you have to trust them and empower them. You can't hire a world expert in some area and then tell them what to do. They know more than you do. They're smarter than you are in their area. So you've got to trust your people. One of our really foundational commitments to our people is: we trust you. We're going to work to empower you. Go do the thing that you need to do. If somebody in the labs wants to spend 5, 10, 15 years working on something they think is really important, they're empowered to do that."

Episode Highlights:
[00:00] Quote of the Day by Doug Burger 
[01:08] Doug Burger's journey from academia to Microsoft Research
[03:07] Launch of Microsoft Research Asia in Singapore: Tapping local talent and culture for inclusive AI development
[04:13] Singapore lab focuses on foundational AI, embodied AI, and healthcare applications
[06:19] AI detecting seizures in children and assessing Parkinson's motor function
[08:24] Embedding Southeast Asian societal norms & values into Foundational AI research
[10:26] Microsoft Research's open collaboration model 
[12:42] Generative AI's rapid pace accelerating technological innovation and research tools
[16:24] Open versus closed source AI models debate and Microsoft's platform approach
[19:35] Multiple scaling dimensions in AI beyond traditional data scaling laws
[26:26] Balancing blue-sky foundational research with application-driven initiatives at scale
[35:26] Research leadership secret: Curiosity across fields enables unexpected connections
[40:04] Microsoft Research's vision: Becoming Bell Labs for AI era
[42:22] Steering AI models for mental health and critical thinking conversations

How Microsoft Research Balances Exploration and Impact Globally with Doug Burger

The article "Cognitive Enterprise: Brain-Inspired AI for Business Advantage," by Dr. Jerry A. Smith, argues for a paradigm shift in enterprise AI from traditional, siloed systems to brain-inspired AI agents powered by knowledge graphs. It explains that, unlike current AI that processes data like "sophisticated spreadsheets," this new approach enables machines to reason with interconnected information through networks of meaning, mimicking how the human brain functions. The author highlights the competitive imperative for businesses to adopt this "neurosymbolic" AI, which combines neural networks' pattern recognition with symbolic reasoning, offering advantages in speed, insight quality, scalability, and transparency. The text further outlines a four-stage roadmap for organizations to transition to a "cognitive enterprise," emphasizing the construction of knowledge graphs, modular agent development, intelligent scaling, and ultimately, enterprise-wide transformation for sustained competitive advantage.

Your Enterprise AI Has No Brain. Here's How to Give It One

OpenAI’s two-front blitz, - GPT-5 at the frontier and GPT-OSS in the wild, could reset your AI roadmap. In this episode, “The Two-Move Checkmate,” we unpack what the pincer means for budgets, data governance, and developer velocity, and contrast it with moves from Meta, Anthropic, Google, and Mistral. Are open weights a strategic gift or a scorched-earth moat? When should you go local vs. cloud? And what becomes the real edge when models commoditize? Smart, fast, and actionable, - tune in.

Bit & Being - The Two-Move Checkmate: Inside OpenAI’s Playbook

In this episode, we dive into Google DeepMind’s groundbreaking Gemini 2.5 “Deep Think”, - the multi-agent AI model reshaping what’s possible in enterprise problem-solving. From achieving gold-medal math scores to delivering 30% gains in code generation, we unpack how parallel reasoning and the “swarm advantage” can transform strategy, R&D, and long-horizon planning. Join us as we compare Deep Think to GPT-4 and Claude, explore its real-world applications, and ask: is the era of the lone genius AI over?

Bit & Being - From Chatbot to Think Tank: The Swarm Advantage and Parallel Reasoning

A weekly podcast dissecting the pulse of business, technology & media in Asia. Hear our host interviewing leading journalists, senior executives, respectable authors & thinkers, entrepreneurs & thought leaders to discuss the most important issues that move and shake the business landscape in the Asia Pacific. The show is originally created and hosted by Bernard Leong.

In-Depth Explorations of Neuroscience-Inspired Architectures Revolutionizing AI.

New tracks tagged #Enterprise AI