May Habib: Why Agentic AI Needs Guts, Grit - and the Human Touch Video
From the Horse's Mouth: Intrepid Conversations with Phil FershtShow Notes
Rewrite the Rules or Be Left Behind
with May Habib, CEO & Co-founder of Writer
"This is GenAI's COVID moment—don't waste the crisis." — May Habib
What You'll Hear in 30 Minutes
• Why enterprises are still miles away from building real agentic systems
• How Writer's Palmyra X5 enables self-evolving AI agents with memory
• What smaller firms can teach enterprise giants about speed and scrappiness
• The new formula for promotions in the age of automation
• Why "loving tech and loving people" is the ultimate success metric
Guest Snapshot
May Habib is the co-founder and CEO of Writer, an enterprise-grade LLM platform focused on AI agents that work. From translation tech to leading-edge self-evolving models, Writer's Palmyra models power agentic AI for the world's top brands—from Salesforce to Spotify. Habib shares how her early work in machine translation shaped Writer's agent-first architecture and why the next leap in generative AI isn't technical—it's cultural.
Timestamps:
00:00 – What Sets Writer Apart
02:35 – From NLP Roots to Real-World Agents
04:35 – Why Now: AI Urgency & Enterprise Inertia
07:45 – Enterprise Adoption: Challenges & Gaps
10:31 – Agentic AI in Action (Mars, Prudential, Salesforce)
14:27 – The Rise of Digital Personas & AI-Augmented Work
18:59 – Redefining Leadership & Recognition in the AI Era
22:00 – Scaling Up: Funding, Talent & What's Ahead
27:16 – Culture, Grit & Staying Close to the Customer
Learn more about Writer: https://writer.com
Follow May Habib: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayhabib
Follow Phil Fersht: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pfersht
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