Former Austin entrepreneur takes big swing in AI
Texas serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm wants to give Fortune 500 companies the future they were promised. That’s why he says he’s started Hypergiant, a company that’s designing artificial intelligence tools to help them better decipher big data, boost efficiency and even make personalized craft cocktails.
Hypergiant has 24 employees and about a dozen Fortune 500 clients, including Dallas-based restaurant chain TGI Fridays and Houston-based oilfield services company Schlumberger. It has operated for about six months in stealth mode. The company has employees in Austin, Dallas and Houston.
Its projects range from creating “Flanagan,” an artificial intelligence-enabled virtual bartender for TGI Fridays, to turning paper and clipboard-based processes at one of Schlumberger’s companies into a central dashboard that can monitor trucks and other operations in real time.
Artificial intelligence is the most demanded emerging technology among U.S. and global companies, according to recent survey by Accenture. Sixty-seven percent of U.S. companies said they planned to invest in artificial intelligence in 2018. That surpassed the popularity of other new technologies, such as smart sensors, robotics and 3D printing.
Artificial intelligence has become a buzzword for economists and technologists, who dream of the promise of smarter machines and debate their dangers. Dallas tech billionaire Mark Cuban has predicted the world’s