Kamran Khan: We couldn't have been a topic of discussion if we didn't have the AI discussion, right? So...

(CATALYST INTRO MUSIC) 

Clinton Bonner: Welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. Catalyst is an ongoing discussion for digital leaders dissatisfied with the status quo, and yet optimistic about what's possible through smart technology and great people. Today we're sitting down with Kamran Khan of CareAR, who is focused on transformation services through augmented reality, AI, and what happens when these technologies become accessible to all. As the VP of Alliances at CareAR, a Xerox company, Kamran focuses on storytelling and sharing vivid examples of how AR is being applied in bold ways, and how tech platforms make the use of AR a much lighter lift than ever before. We're also going to discuss the evolution and the importance of partnerships at the enterprise and how they've evolved. We're going to touch on all of that and more on this episode of Catalyst, so let's welcome to the studio, for the very first time, Kamran Khan. Kamran, how you doing today? 

Kamran: Great. Thank you very much, Clinton. It's great to be on, and glad to be talking again. 

Clinton: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for, you know, saying hello on LinkedIn a couple of months ago, now, and saying hey, this seems interesting. And we had some reasons to chat. You were with NTT Data a few years ago, and you took on the role at CareAR and very, very much focused on augmented reality, and then of course, the partnerships and the partnership ecosystem. So when you made that leap, when you went from NTT Data over to CareAR, and into this world that's very much focused on augmented reality, what was the main attraction for you and why did you make the leap? 

Kamran: So when I was at NTT Data, I wouldn't say I've gone too far from that, but it's been a learning journey. If I think about what I was doing, so I was responsible for the workplace and CX practice for the UK and I. And especially, if you think around Covid, right bang in the middle of all of the transformation happening, right? All of a sudden people are not really worried about plumbing. They were talking about experience. What is my customer experience? Realized the importance of the context in which these conversations and business drivers are happening, and also the hyper-personalization. Not just as me as a consumer, but me as an employee. What is my function in an organization? Am I front line? Am I working in a critical function in a manufacturing plant? And the expectations of the organization of what I have to do is a big dependence on what I'm getting back. 

Clinton: Mm. 

Kamran: In terms of personalization in technology. So one of the things at CareAR that really drew me to it was around the focus on delivering precise and contextual knowledge. That was a big problem that we found, right? You have all of this complexity and the jobs going up, skills going down, and nobody having enough time to train. How can we get knowledge democratized? And CareAR was really a good place of, starting from augmented reality, using it to share knowledge in more intuitive ways, but then also witnessing how, from an employee perspective, getting that knowledge in the right hands at the right time, critical components, was really key. And again, being part of a startup, coming from a big company, working in the procedures there, but then jumping straight in into a startup, and really feeling a bit more inspired in how I can help drive in the front seat. Didn't go too far, obviously. We're talking. We're still partners, from CareAR perspective, with NTT, NTT Data, key partnerships around P5G and driving a lot of that transformation. So I wouldn't say I moved that far, but technically I didn't move at all. I was sitting in the same place even three years ago. (Laughs) In this whole post-Covid working from home. So yeah, I would say it's been a transition. Still speaking to a lot of the same guys, same customers, but really bringing that concept of hyper-personalization of knowledge, access and how we drive service experiences to life, I think, has been really rewarding, as we go through that. 

Clinton: Yeah, I love that. And the key word being there is typically access, right? When technologies get democratized, when things get simpler, let's call it for the average bear... It's like, okay, you didn't have to be some hyper-specialist. Most technologies start that way, right? They start super niche. And they start very much like, one-off use cases. And then it's like, oh, actually this is more of a platform. The other aspect I really want to make sure we hit on today, too, which I think would be very valuable for the audience is, your point of view on partnerships. Now you just took over... Or, they really created the role, where it's VP of Partnerships, now, at CareAR. So, let's say in the last 10 or 15 years, how has the partnership ecosystem in general changed? And then, how would you say it's a major focus now at CareAR? 

Kamran: We always said partnerships in the technology industry, but really it meant a lot of different things. And I think it's coming down to how people are going to market, right? What was value at the end of it, that people looked at it? Now, in the past, I've been in a vendor world, SI world, been on a few different scales of that. And everywhere that I saw partnerships, that was one dimension of a lot of the go to market, which meant there was sometimes a lot of conflict. And let's be honest, right? There were sellers trying to sell direct. There were partners you were trying to sell into the same thing. Well, there's always that conflict, right? And... From an end customer, and I sat in that seat for a bit as well. It's disingenuous. They think, well, you're trying to flog some technology to me, but you're coming from different angles. But what I need is an outcome. I can see how you can work together, but there's no intent. And I think from a CareAR perspective... Look, we've been through similar journeys, right? We started off as a startup, but we're part of Xerox. Again, great story there. But what we saw was, to make an impact, it's this adage, right? If you have to go fast, you go alone. If you have to go far, you go together, right? So, obviously, as a startup, we had our own industry specialist going into the market and trying to get an understanding of what we're trying to do in the market. But also... And that's more important, what is the market expecting of us? Right? Where do we need to evolve? That was important. That we still have that, we still have the ability to capture the customer demand, and et cetera. But, to make the change, we've earlier, very early realized, actually, if we have to make that impact, the large-scale use cases that you mentioned, Clinton, right>.  

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: So when we've proven the point, yes, it's useful, but to really get an ROI, you need to get, to drive more use cases, get some higher adoption. That's where you really... Technology companies like us really come undone, because we... Change management. Talking about integration. Thinking about life cycle and enterprise. Loves the concept, but they... Can they really adopt the technology wholeheartedly and trust that it's going to work? Trust that it's going to give them the value and demonstrate it's giving you value? Right? Again, we can't do that ourselves. Similarly, when you think about technology, we can't be an island on our own. 

Clinton: Right. 

Kamran: So we have to work with other players out there, in terms of where the system and content sits. In terms of how you evaluate these experiences. How are you exposing those analytics? Working together is more important nowadays. I'm a product of the industry and where we are today, in a sense, as well, at least the role. Whereas the free money and expansion was based on number of heads you're adding, that's gone away. Now, how many use cases? What have you delivered? Where's the ROI? When the rubber's really hitting the road, it's more important to make sure we have the services elements there, but also, other technology alliances, to make sure what we're giving to the end customer is an outcome. We're not just handing them a toolkit to say, hey, you go figure it out, right? That's never going to go anywhere. So that's where technology alliances and services alliances, from a CareAR perspective, is core. Which means, we will engage the market, but we need to make sure we demonstrate that success, and success is being able to collaborate with the players, right? And NTT is a key partner of ours in how we're going to market P5G, and driving innovation in those industries, like manufacturing and healthcare, who wouldn't have been recognized and wouldn't have been real unless we'd have brought this partnership together. So that's been quite a shift change, where it's not the brand that says "partnerships" in our corporate deck, but it's really how we're going to market, and how we're engaging from a front-end perspective, from a go to market perspective. 

Clinton: Right. And what you could show off as actual real life outcomes. Like, this is what we're doing in market, and for this particular industry. And not that it has to be so industry-focused, it's just that... You could do a lot of illumination for adjacent industries, or not even infield, and say, look, you have a similar problem. It's... Sure, this one's happening in a hospital, and this one might be happening on a warehouse floor, but your problem is a very human problem that actually is quite similar. And the technology we built for, say, this healthcare system, can be adopted. And could be just, you know, slightly pointed differently to solve your problem as well, which is, I think, eye-opening. I think, very often, folks get so down the chunnel, if you will, of, you know, if it hasn't happened in their industry, they come to it and they say, well, I want an industry example. And I get that, I get that. I always want folks to open the aperture a bit more and say, did you solve a problem like that? I don't really care if it was in that industry. I wonder if you have any thoughts on that particular piece of, like, near-field adjacencies? 

Kamran: Again, starting from AR when it was hype and coming down through the trough and hopefully making out the other end... 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: Those use cases are very important, right? But the use cases, like you said, the industry is looking at it... Especially AI, AR. What's been the proof right now? If we were waiting for all industries to deploy it before I'm going to try it out, you're missing an opportunity. 

Clinton: Yes. Yes. 

Kamran: Right? Missing an opportunity to leapfrog some of that capability. Now, we are seeing a lot of confidence being built from that ecosystem standpoint. So, fine. If you haven't used CareAR, let's say, in a retail environment, however, you have seen similar technology and services elements, which are two-thirds of the picture, in other adjacent technology, that's confidence enough. And really, when people ask for that, those proof points, they're really trying to see, okay, without me having to spend months and validating whether you're going to work or not, can I get a cheat sheet response of, yeah, I think that's... It's a safe bet. Now, using that partnership model, you can see that... You can already reassure them of a few dimensions of that and give them the confidence to test it out. Let's do a quick pilot, see if it works, fail fast. And that fail fast concept is really penetrating a lot of enterprises. And I can see a lot of people are taking bold steps. We've got health tech customers using CareAR to say, hey, I cannot validate and drive service experience in my field where they're managing and operating and servicing these cutting-edge medical devices, but I cannot service them quick enough now. So I've got a problem. So, either I can wait for someone to come up with a solution, or I can throw money at it and hire tons of more people. Or, let me take a different approach. Let me see if this works. Fine. We don't see any other health tech providers using this, but we have seen manufacturing, we have seen logistics, we have seen others do the same thing in the field domain, working with other technology alliances like ServiceNow. Gives them the confidence to say, hey, let's try it out. And we've got a few customers who are doing that today. So it's hugely exciting times. And, in a way, my job's cut out a little bit, because... (Laughs) I don't have to go and convince people that much. People are a lot more open, I would say, in that sense, to taking on a pilot and seeing how it works. And as I said, the fail fast concept, finally. 

Clinton: Yeah, Kamran, that sounds awesome. And you mentioned the concept of failing fast at the enterprise, and how that's becoming more and more adapted. And I totally understand that. And our VP of Engineering at Launch, his name is Nate Berent-Spillson, in his book Frictionless Enterprise, he talks about kind of moving fail fast even a bit more forward, into this concept of failing small. And saying, for the enterprise, like, he says that a component of failing small is speed. That's the velocity. You want to fail fast. It's a key component. He also says, like, leaning in to technology that could absorb change. So, basically treating yourself as a platform, or, I think in this case, leaning into established platforms that could help you spring things up faster and sooner to get to value, or see if value is possible. So, he coins it that way and says, hey, it's not enough nowadays to just fail fast. You have to also fail small. Because if you end up spending a ton of money in the enterprise, but you have to do it quickly, people are still going to be mad at you, you know? (Laughs) So, finding ways to have both less risk and velocity is kind of a key. And I wonder, when you look at CareAR and the ability to trial things and trial concepts, if that's true for that platform also, with the ability to help people take swings smartly, but really with a little... With less risk than maybe, let's say, 5 or 10 years ago? 

Kamran: Absolutely. I think that... I love that concept of fail small, right? And we see a lot of that, actually. So, big, vast majority of new customers, when they look at CareAR, they actually try and fail small, now that I'm kind of taking on that terminology. And the way we address and enable that in a sense is, first of all, look, we're a SaaS platform. And the key word is platform. Which means, while you are failing fast, but for the off chance... And hopefully you do succeed. How do you scale up? So you're not going back to the drawing board, saying, oh, right? That was a fantastic success. And guess what? We'll have to spend years trying to replicate this, right? So one thing, from a platform perspective, having that capability, having the availability that's there if you need it. But also, the second part of the key USP that we have from CareAR... Again, the driver that we're trying to drive in the industry is to reduce the need for those skills and democratize knowledge. We've taken that same concept, applied it on our platform. To create AR content, we shouldn't have to go out and hire those skilled engineers and spend months creating this AR content. We've introduced the concept of no-code, not even low code, no-code in our platform. Extensibility, as well, which allows us to tap into other environments. But simple drag and drop allows you to create those AR-driven workflows. AR could be just one element of it. 

Clinton: Sure. 

Kamran: Again, I'm a true believer in, let's not overbake the solution, and let's not just show off technology. It's about the use case. But really making it simple. Taking the concept of no-code to, even things like machine vision, visual verification. And that doesn't need to be complicated. I've instructed my engineer to plug in this cable and turn the lever left. Has he done it or not? My customer has a power outage, right? We need to diagnose this quickly. We've asked, is this powered on? Is the cable plugged in? The only way for us to verify that today is to dispatch an engineer. Best case, we have a two-hour SLA. Still wasted time. Can we actually get that verification on the ground? And take away that needless delay, and take away the needless dispatch of engineers? Sustainability is an angle there as well. How much time and resources you're wasting there. So, by bringing those, that concept of no-code, we're bringing down the time and the cost it takes to test out a use case. To test out an ROI. So, one of the things that we do is, we obviously lead from a platform perspective. But the other thing that we do is, we've brought in this concept of proof of value. We don't talk about pilots. We don't talk about proof of concept. We demonstrate proof of value through a systematic way, which... It's called two by two by two, I don't know if you're aware of it. I don't know who actually started it, but our lead consultants have got me really hooked on this methodology. 

Clinton: Yeah, explain that a bit further, because I'm not aware. 

Kamran: Yeah. So, basically what we do is, we take two hours to understand the use case and make sure the metrics are there. Then we spend two days to validate, workshop in terms of what the use case and solution is. And then we deploy it in a pilot for two weeks end to end. But then measuring the output. The output is not whether the technology works or not. We know the technology works. 

Clinton: Right. 

Kamran: What we're trying to verify is, okay, did it reduce your spend? Did it reduce your dispatches? Did it improve your customer success? What were the actual business metrics? If you see improvements in that, then yes, we will proceed. If you don't see that, let's move back to the drawing board and pick from another use case. Because the proof is not whether technology works. It will. The proof is whether your organization sees value, can demonstrate value to get to that scale, to leverage the platform, to scale out those use cases. That's really important for us. 

Clinton: Yeah, I love that two by two by two. Because to me, it was putting a bit of a mathematical equation to the idea of failing small, and not just failing fast. Like, that's how you're living it with your clients and any prospects that you're hoping to take on CareAR. Another area that I love, too, is your focus on partnerships. And you mentioned working with NTT and private 5G, another area with this particular tool is, with AR at the, kind of the shop level, if you will, is also the identity access management. Like, there's so many cool things that go into the pot of, okay, does this piece of capital equipment, which, by the way, if we operate incorrectly, could be deadly, and then maybe some sliding scale of unfortunate things happen, but all the way out to, like, this could kill somebody. And this identity management of knowing, okay, is the right person in front of this piece of equipment? Are they allowed to access this? First and foremost, are they the person that should be operating this? Are they up to code, HR-wise? Have they checked the box, and all the things they should be knowing how to operate this piece of equipment? And then, if so, great. How are the ways we can make their job, in this case, maybe a task or fixing something, or reinstalling, whatever it might be, much, much simpler. With the simplicity, they do their job better, they're more accurate with it. There's less accidents. There's less, whatever it may be, they fix the thing the right way, they install the thing the right way, because the instructions were so crisp and so vivid for that particular use case. So, that's just a bit of me being a fanboy of these things coming together, Kamran, so... Which I think is a lot of fun. I do want to spin back to the history of CareAR, because you can't tell the history without some of the history of Xerox. And again, Xerox has an incredible history, a really important history for humans and our progress with technology. So, Xerox, you know, of course, they manufacture and sell what are complicated high-volume usage machines. So, was CareAR born from Xerox creating the technology and saying, hey, well we have these complicated machines, we need this in field? Or was CareAR born and acquired by Xerox? So, how did the two come together? 

Kamran: That's a very interesting story. Xerox, interestingly, was a customer of ours before they acquired us. This was going back… 2020, I believe? 2019, 2020. And this really brings to life, as you said, Clinton, right? Xerox's contribution to humanity. 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: And the way technology is adopted. When they... When you look at their investment philosophy, PARC, right? Palo Alto Research Center, for those of you guys who haven't heard of it, Google it. And see the kind of technology they have gifted to the world, right? Graphical user interface, Ethernet, Laserjets, you think about it, right? To that list. You wouldn't think, well, Xerox, the printer guys, right? Doing all of that. They actually did. It was actually based on that same ethos. They looked at the technology that CareAR was bringing. A, yes, there was a need, right? Because this was around the time of Covid, and there were challenges in Xerox. How can we go and service these high-end, high-volume print machines in our customers, install them, maintain them? But also, how do we solve this logjam of skill set? Right? People cannot fly. People cannot travel. That was an extreme during Covid, right? Now, obviously, even today, that challenge is still there. So, they're talking about, how can you give the skill set in the right place. It's still the same problem. Thankfully, travel has opened up a little bit now, but skill set is still a challenge. And so, they acquired CareAR, they deployed it within the Xerox environment, but one thing it really brought us is this tremendous opportunity for, to be able to work closely with your main customer, what we still call customer zero. Xerox, although they own us, we talk about that. Right now, there are about 8500 Xerox field engineers using CareAR. The Xerox service desk is using CareAR to provide their front line support. A lot of the Xerox content is moving from the age of the PDFs that everyone chucks out the window the moment they get it, and the part of the website that rarely ever gets used, right? Unless you have a real big problem. And they're converting CareAR immersive workflows and experiences to bring that information to life. So that really accelerated CareAR, right? So, that really accelerated how we can get that feedback from a core user, from a core customer, innovate, evolve the platform, and leapfrog a lot of the traditional steps. Having to fail and build back up. Because now we're working lock in step with our main customer in that sense. So they acquired us. And they've also split us up in a company. So while we're still delivering a lot of services to Xerox and their partners in the print business, but they've seen this huge opportunity that CareAR and this no-code-based workflows and service experience can bring to other industries. And that's where, with the partner first approach, we have a go to market to go in and drive that independently in the business, in the market as well. 

Clinton: You were hinting at some things towards the end there, around, you know, not patient zero, but like, client zero, customer zero, with Xerox. And how you really learned quite a bit from them, because they were deploying it at scale. And they have these really niche use cases, which is quite interesting. What I want to ask you about is, as the VP of partnerships, what is your relationship like with your product team? Why I ask this is because I think there's always this tug of war within enterprises, with who gets to say what gets built next. You know, you have a vast network of partners. You have this core owner. Like, this parent, in Xerox. And you have a product team that has a roadmap that they want to go do certain things, they want to do certain extensions and provide new value. What is that relationship like when it is a partner-first ecosystem, like it is at CareAR? 

Kamran: First of all, I think it's positive tension. You always need that in an organization. 

Clinton: Love it. Yes. 

Kamran: From a partnership or a sales perspective, if I didn't have the checks and controls that I have in our organization, we would look very different. So, in terms of organization structure, I cherish those engagements. Product is one element of that. Making sure that we're true to our vision. We're true to what we set ourselves out to go and achieve. And those side missions, while they're important, but... Making sure, yeah, fine, absolutely. Having the compass in terms of ROI and demonstrable return for our customers as the key metric, but still driving in that right domain. Obviously, you've seen wearables and you've seen a lot of the capability around that, and we are working on that with our partner team. But again, focusing on, hey, is that a wide scale use case for us? It is definitely an important one. So we're working with the likes of Lenovo, with Apple, with everyone, and we're driving that. But again, keeping an idea of, 99% of the workforce probably still is expecting technology to be delivered on their choice of device, which is a phone and a tablet. So, keeping that focus in that sense as well. Having those checks and balances is very important. The other thing, as well, is that feedback loop with partnerships, it's ever so important. So, what we do with our partner product team is, they're not off doing their own thing, and we're not engaging with partners in a separate track. We actually have the ability to bring those partners in touch with, on a regular basis, with our product team. So, what we do is, we shape our roadmap, every release is about 4 to 6 weeks. And we're lock in step with our partners, to say, hey, look, this is what's coming up. Do you see value in this? Do you see enough? What's going on? How can we make sure we deliver value for you and for your customers? Obviously we're a smaller company compared to, let's say, those big behemoths. So we have a bit more control and agility, and we're using it to our benefit. And we're using it to make sure that we can deliver the value that's needed right now, just in time, before we think about the other things. And of course, there are longer term evolutions, as well, that have to take place. One example of that. So when Xerox and CareAR came to being, we had, primarily had a remote solve solution called CareAR assist, and it's still the workhorse of our platform. And effectively what it does is, it connects a remote expert with the person on the ground, whether that's field or a consumer, in a live video session. And you use augmented reality annotations to guide the person on the ground. You had video, you didn't have the ability to guide the person on the ground. So we brought that. The feedback we got from Xerox was, okay, that's getting my job done, finally. However, it's still constraining me on that scarce resource, which is the remote expert. I want to find a way that, how can I still get the job done, even if the service desk expert isn't available yet? Or, it's a 30 minute delay and a call to get access to him? Or, to try and find a solution somewhere, there may be some ways the customer could have done themselves. So over the last year or so, we actually focused more on self-solve, and we brought our Instruct and our Experience Builder product. I mentioned the no-code capability. 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: So that's what we brought to market. And that was a result of that close feedback loop of, with customers and partners, saying, hey, is that value? Is that a unique proposition? And obviously, how do you make sure we create opportunity for the partner there as well, in terms of services, and not just a single license resell, in that sense? Creating opportunity avenues for our partnership ecosystem as well. So, those are some of the ways that they are a fantastic part of the team from a partnership perspective. And we've seen partners who've taken a lot of our advice, and... 

Clinton: Right. 

Kamran: Where we've learned lessons. They're in adjacent technologies. There's no need for them to go and learn things the hard way. Similar, I would love to find a way not to have to make mistakes to learn, but instead learn from others. So bringing the product teams, and seeing how we can learn together and that, from a partner perspective, has been fantastic. As I said, allows us to leapfrog a lot of those development cycles in that sense.  

Clinton: Yeah. You definitely get to shorten cycles and learn a lot more quickly, too. And for those who love that topic, very recently I had recorded with three leads from Launch, one's a strategy lead and one's a design lead and one's a product lead. And we had gotten around this idea, the intentionality of tension. That healthy tension, and being not just open to it, but in some ways seeking it out. And purposely seeking out that tension, so that you have the right team with you from the beginning, so that you're not learning things much later than you ought to. Because that's when they get more expensive. Who cares what industry you're in? I think that goes across all industry, which is very interesting. I do want to ask you about, you know, it is 2024. You can't watch a golf event or a watch a baseball game or, you know, if cricket's your thing, or an IndyCar, without seeing some advertisements around enterprise security. You know, from the CISO or the CIO, that's really, really focused on security. So, hey, getting to quick value, and getting, you said getting to proof of value, super important. Great. But let's say you're an energy company and you want to leverage an AR tech like CareAR, and you have service people that are in field, and they're repairing and working on very expensive capital equipment, that also happens to put out very complicated and... Data that you don't want the entire world to have. How does CareAR play in that world where, you have to keep the data and the capital equipment both safe from a CISO perspective? What's a CareAR's kind of look at that type of conundrum? That's a difficult thing to solve out on the edge. So how does CareAR help do that? 

Kamran: That's a really important question, Clinton. Because we can talk about all the technologies we want, but if we can't build the business confidence in terms of risk, in terms of security, around the technology, it's... There's no point, right? The, we tackle this in terms of a couple of ways. One, first of all, we're a SaaS-based, cloud native platform. So the other thing we take more from a, and I'll explain what I mean, and there's an element of our partnership with NTT in that sense as well, in 5G and cloud. But one other, more conceptual piece in there, fundamental to us, is ownership of data. So, first and foremost, what we make sure is, people are creating content. They're creating platform-based content and using data that may be very secure and sensitive for an organization. Our principle is that data is owned by the customer, and will always be owned by the customer. That's a simple statement to make, but it does have its flip challenges. And the challenge that it creates for us is, now, while we're creating a lot of this content, we can't reuse it. Which means, if a next adjacent customer had come around and said, yeah, I'd like to figure out a way how I could digitize the whole operation of digital smart meters, for example, right? If you're talking about energy? 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: Well, yeah, you can. And guess what? We have done that before, but sorry, we have to take a few steps and make sure that we can create the content specific to you. Now we solve that by using no-code, so the time and pace at which you can create that is a lot lower, and we are using gen AI and et cetera to bring a lot of that time down as well. But again, fundamentally, reuse of data and content is, it does create barriers. But we've taken that decision and we're staying strong on that. The second thing I mentioned, from an architecture perspective. Control on your data, control over where your data sits and how you operate it, and how you're securing it, is also very important for organizations. So when you talk about SaaS, what we've done is, we've built our architecture on Amazon and Google Cloud. It's cloud native. One of the key things that allows us to do is, we can work on partnerships with NTT Data around, for example, you have your 5G platform. So, your distributed cloud capability, we can now deliver a lot of the capability down to the edge, which means your data is closer to your organization. And yeah, fine, we can retain it and in the geographical North America, et cetera, that is a done thing. But now we can actually bring that to the edge. Think about the value of that. 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: Also, now it's part of the same 5G stack that goes across your enterprise network, and your whole architecture. Bringing the partnership back in, NTT observability, the ability to manage and orchestrate the whole communication and that data as it is in flow and at rest, is a fantastic, from a security perspective, a methodology to bring that confidence and the trust in the technology from that perspective. And now, yeah, we are SOC 2 compliant, and we, yes, we make sure we comply with all the procedures. But without this element of, architecturally, how are you making me secure? Are you creating another silo where I'm keeping another set of data? And do I own my data? Right? Those three questions, and I think we've tried to tackle them head-on. Yeah, we've... So far I think we're getting a good long traction. It's a journey. 

Clinton: Sure. 

Kamran: Yes, we do come across questions and queries, and we're adjusting for that. But yeah, it is a really important point that a lot of people forget. Without that validation, you're not going to go into the platform and scale out stage, which is the key metric for our success at the moment. 

Clinton: It loops right back in, as you were describing, with the key partnerships that are there. And say, yeah, we're going to just deploy on what you already, maybe, have created. You're used to this 5G network, this mesh network out there on the edge. Yeah, we can work, we'll work right in with that. And probably put those CISOs' minds at ease for at least a half a heartbeat, because we know they've got a lot on their plate in 2024. I always think it's really cool to, when we're looking at newer technologies that are being democratized. One of the things that I think is always fascinating is the surprise use case, or the surprise use cases. When you see a client take what you had done and use it in a way that makes you go, huh. We would not have thought of that, maybe, in a million years. So, are there a use case or two where you and your team were talking with partners, and you went, wow, that's intriguing. Never would have thought of that, but you really caught our eye with that type of use case. You have one or two you could share? 

Kamran: Absolutely. I'll share two, actually. One really boring one and one really interesting one. The boring one was, so, from a sales perspective, right? We're going out selling and we're working with our partners creating content. And one use case we came out with was with, from our sales support team. So they created AR-based workflows to make sure that the sales guys know how to use the CRM, and we're doing it the right way. So, creating documentation. And look, we are... I am at fault a lot of times, not dotting all the i's and dashing all the t's. But the reason for that, a lot of times, is, we don't know what is wrong. And just, in the pace of they, just... get on with it. Them being able to create that content actually helped build compliance internally for our organization, and following procedures correctly. So that was a very boring, but... 

Clinton: But useful, right? Yeah.  

Kamran: Yeah, absolutely. But a very interesting one was, recently, around sustainability. So we were out talking about augmented reality's skill set. And when we talked about CSE, we focused a lot on the S part, right? The society part. We were focusing on, okay, how do we democratize knowledge? How do we make it more inclusive. One thing that our partners actually came back and said, hey, look, the end result is, you're avoiding truck rolls. You're avoiding needless return of devices, which is, reverse logistics, wastage. Right? So this is all inherent carbon that you're avoiding. Now we have this concept of scope 4 coming up as well, right? How are you creating sustainable business models, right? How you're creating and ensuring, with your success, you're not actually coming at a detriment of the planet, right? Of the society in general. So this was a really interesting one. And now we've created a calculator, and we're... And it's a really key topic for a lot of organizations, saying, okay. Yeah, I can save money. I can empower my customers more, I can improve satisfaction for my employees. And you're saying I have a sustainable angle to this as well? Sustainability? This is win-win-win. So, in a way that wasn't us that came up with that. And I have to admit, we learned from our customers and our partners, actually. And, that was a quite an interesting one. And we're looking at that scope 4 and seeing how that evolves as well.  

Clinton: Yeah. Love it. I love that stuff. That stuff I could geek out on for hours on end, because I just find it fascinating when people create, on top of the potential that are the platforms. You mentioned the magic words earlier. Like, it's very difficult to have a pod conversation in 2024 in technology and not talk a little bit about gen AI. So, you know, early stage AR for these types of use cases, in field, to me, were kind of like a glorified chatbot. You know, like okay, this specific thing is broken. Cool. Do steps one, two and three to remedy it and Godspeed. Hopefully it's... Hopefully that was it. Now with gen AI, computer vision, machine learning on the fly, again, at the edge, imagining it really opens the aperture of what can get repaired, fixed or serviced, and when? How is CareAR looking at gen AI and incorporating that into what I'm assuming is, like, a next-gen platform that's probably already out there for the customers? 

Kamran: So, in a sense... So, first of all, the key piece that we're trying to do is reduce the barrier to train these models so they can suggest and guide people on the ground better. And that can only be done when you train the platforms at scale to be able to identify the stakes, identify the next steps. So we're using AI to predict shapes, predict steps, and predict the next... From a visual perspective and workflow, how we can pull that into a process. The other thing that we're also trying to do is, utilizing machine vision for, not just pass/fail, but guiding next steps. So, while that can be connected to a chatbot, but this is a meaningful way where we can actually suggest, in a visual and a more workflow-driven process, what that outcome could be. The other thing, what we're also looking at, fine, we have no code, and we brought the time down to create this content. We're trying to bring it down even further. If you think about the flat PDFs that you had, converting them into contextual, machine-driven workflows. 

Clinton: Yeah. 

Kamran: Really powerful. How do you bring the time down to convert those legacy assets into these workflows? These real, immersive, engaging workflows? Is something we're working on in AI, to see how we can bring the time and be able to predict how these outcomes are driven. And again, from an experience-builder perspective, how you can train it, how you can create templated driven outcomes. So there's a couple of different ways we're looking at it. Again, the key thing is, we're not doing it on our own. 

Clinton: Right. 

Kamran: We're using partnerships. With the likes of NTT and our technology partners. Saying, okay, we do not want to create our own AI just because we want to have a logo of AI. Let's learn together. Let's figure out how we can leverage AI to create a pace at which, how we can drive this transformation. That's really what we're thinking of at the moment. 

Clinton: So, we have been chatting with Kamran Khan, VP of Partnerships at CareAR, and we truly appreciate you coming on to share that vision for the future of AR, and like we talked about, what it means to lead partnerships in 2024. Kamran, thank you so much. Hey, a website or two people should go to? So, if they want to know more about CareAR, where should they go? 

Kamran: It's CareAR.com. 

Clinton: Keeps it simple, right? And if they want to find you, I'm assuming LinkedIn? K-a-m-r-a-n. And then last name Khan, K-h-a-n. Best place to find you socially, is that correct? 

Kamran: Absolutely. Thanks a lot, Clinton. It was really good talking to you. And looking forward to speaking soon. 

Clinton: Absolutely. Alright, folks, if you've been enjoying these Catalyst conversations, please be sure to share the podcast with colleagues and friends. And remember that in this studio, we believe in shipping software over slideware, that fast will follow smooth, and aiming to create digital experiences that move millions is a very worthy pursuit. Join us next time as the pursuit continues on Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. 

(CATALYST OUTRO MUSIC)