Insights at the Speed of AI — LIFT Labs' Tito Obaisi

Fred Schonenberg
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the VentureFuel Visionaries podcast. I'm your host, Fred Schonenberg. I'm so excited today to welcome Tito Obaisi. Tito is the Senior Manager of Pipeline and Insights for Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs, where he leads efforts to identify strategically relevant enterprise-ready AI startups that are at the cutting edge of new technology to not only deliver new capabilities, but also shape insights from working with one of the world's largest media and technology companies. 

He has a background spanning growth strategy, venture partnerships, startup consulting. Tito brings a unique perspective on how large organizations can innovate through collaboration. I've had the fortune of getting to work closely with Tito, getting to know him over the years, and he is legitimately at the forefront, if not beyond, of AI in the enterprise. We jokingly say we get Tito time when we get to get his insights, and so I'm so excited to share that with all the listeners today.So please join me in welcoming Tito. Tito, thank you for coming to the show.

Tito Obaisi
Thanks for having me on, Fred. Looking forward to it.

Fred Schonenberg
So I want to start with the big picture for anybody listening that might not know what LIFT Labs is. Can you talk about what your group does and maybe the role it plays within the Comcast NBCUniversal ecosystem?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, yeah. Our team's evolved over the years, but as of now and what we've kind of got a lot of traction is that we operate across Comcast, NBCUniversal, and Sky and our other subsidiaries, and we work really closely within the startup ecosystem. We work with companies from pre-seed to unicorns, and we identify the startups that we think can plug into our product roadmaps across the company. 

So then we partner really closely with our business units to really rapidly evaluate their potential impact fit for Comcast and then kind of any insights that we derive from those collaborations. So right now it's AI all the time, so that's kind of been our focus for the past couple of years, but they actually are our mandate. It's anywhere that might be strategically relevant to a large telecom media operator like Comcast.

Fred Schonenberg
I think it's so interesting. I was lucky to be on stage with Laura Plunkett who runs your group as well as Mark from the Comcast Ventures team. And what I think is unique about LIFT Labs and a lot of things, but one of the main is this idea of, they sometimes call it venture clienting, the idea of having these leading-edge startups getting to work with Comcast, figuring out how they can navigate their way in to the right business unit, but also for the advantage of Comcast, right? So it's looking for that strategic and tangible outcome for you all as it scales across the business. 

One thing that you all do, that in itself is unique, but one thing you do that I don't see a lot of other people doing is really spending time on insights as part of that work. Can you talk a little bit about what insights mean to you and your team, and maybe a little bit about your goals and processes for delivering them?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, so we kind of see LIFT Labs as kind of being to kind of visualize it like in a watchtower with a telescope with a particular vantage point, right? And so we are trying to report back from that unique vantage point into the company. And so part of that uniqueness is that we, like I said, we sit alongside our ventures team who are doing some really great work and making some really key investments in some of the most innovative AI startups at the moment. 

We have one foot in the startup ecosystem, so we're meeting founders, meeting investors, and learning from ecosystem players like VentureFuel. We're seeing what's new and what's exciting and what's innovative on the one hand, but our other foot is really deep into the tactical side of deploying new technology within a large enterprise.

So all the things that people don't, all the nitty gritty tactical details, legal hurdles, data security concerns, stakeholder management, change management. We have that unique vantage point. And so we try to provide insights back to the audiences that we, and the clientele internally that we serve from where that rubber meets the road between what's really innovative and new and what we want to bring inside and what are the realities of deploying new technology in a Fortune 100 company like Comcast.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, it's so, so interesting. I mean, there's, obviously, you've got one foot in all the things that Comcast is, which I love. We always show that here's all the companies that are part of Comcast NBCUniversal, and it's a giant page of logos, right? And so there's all that insight. Then you have the startup ecosystem, the venture capital ecosystem that's around that. And then you guys really think about where do those intersect? And how can we, how can you make it intersect better, faster, with more success, which is, which is super interesting. 

One of the things I was thinking about when we prepped for this is how do you gain insights into AI? It feels like it is moving at a pace I've never seen before. And it's almost like every day, one technology is replaced, replacing another. There's a new term, there's a new thing happening. It seems like such an extraordinary task. How are you making sense of something that moves so quickly?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, yeah. Anybody who tells you that they're, they have a full 100% grasp on this technology is kidding yourself. And we're no different. And what we've tried to do, and what we're uniquely, I think, positioned to do is to stay really close to the innovators, right, who are the nimblest and who are moving the founders. And that typically means the leading startups, right? And we just try to stay in their slipstream, right? Learn, treat it like we're in school, like whatever, like learning what these people who are experts in this technology, who are PhDs and founded AI companies in the past and things like that, and just like, what are they seeing? What are they learning? 

We use that opportunity to, in these collaborations with the startups and their founders, to have it be a two-way street. Yes, we would like for them to come in and deploy their technology here and have them be potentially a long-term vendor and have Comcast be their client. But it's like teaching us what you know as well. What are you seeing, right? And so, like, when you're, when you're in an innovation group like ours, you have to teach it like you're in school and you're just constantly learning and have that open mind in this to learn. And that kind of makes a difference for us to make sure that when we're reporting back, we're reporting something unique, it's something original.

And so, it also speaks to the quality of the founders that we have at our disposal and the quality of the startups. And that, just being able to have these people who are a very rare breed in technology, in terms of a very rarefied skill set a lot of times when it comes to AI, that perspective is invaluable. 

Fred Schonenberg
One of my favorite organic moments that it's unfortunate to happen a couple times is at the evening after a day with founders that are in the cohort, as well as executives from Comcast. I've gotten to sit and talk with you and just to give you an idea for other people, right? So, LIFT Labs is working with startups from the seed stage to series C. 

So, one company is being valued at billions and billions of dollars, right, to somebody that is really just at the cutting edge and is just enterprise ready. They're just ready to work with you. Then you hear like your CTO or somebody else within the organization talking about the technology and the challenges inside and like, just to digest that. And I think one of the things that you've done really well, and your whole team does, is this belief in intellectual curiosity, always being learning, how do we connect the dots, right? And it's very… I don't want to overuse the word insights, even though that's what we're talking about, but like the insights that come out of that and how that gives advantage to Comcast is so unique.

Tito Obaisi
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. It's like, it's being able to find the… I think they've been able to find what is really moving the needle for enterprises. What it's really like, yeah, having our senior leadership come in and we will have, we'll put dinners together, but we'll have founders sit down with senior leadership. We'll have social gatherings, even the things that are mundane like that, but having to have that mix of minds, having our elected, our CTO come in and kind of exchange ideas about what Comcast is, how Comcast is thinking about AI and he gets to pick their brains as well. 

And it's, we've had these sessions numerous in our cohorts and as our profile, and as our like track record builds within Comcast, we're getting more and more engagement from our leadership across the org. And as we kind of have a developer reputation for being able to help AI companies deploying Comcast, we're getting more and more of the best founders.

So in our most recent cohort that just wrapped our spring cohort, we had companies like Rider and Windsurf. These are billion dollar, these are unicorns who are at the top of mind for a lot of players in the space. And they saw value in our program that involved coming here and being able to interface with senior leadership at a top Fortune 100, Fortune 50 in ways that they haven't been able to with their other clients, right? That level of engagement has been pretty critical. And that exchange of ideas is what allows us to continue to provide value and generate these insights.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah. I think one of the things that's really interesting about what's unique about LIFT Labs is this focus on actionable results, right? Commercialization, running pilots, really tangible things. And I think that's part of why it resonates so well internally and externally, right? If you're a founder, like you're trying to run a business, you're trying to scale. You don't want to go to a startup petting zoo where some corporations look at you. Maybe you get a pilot and maybe you don't, right? And if you're a BU, right? You've got all these KPIs you have to hit this quarter, right? And so you're doing these things.

And what you guys have done is, I would say, professionalized the ability for large companies and startups to work together in a tangible way that both of them exert, I don't know if that's the right word, but taking value out of it is what I'm really interested in. I'm curious to take that idea of tangible results and apply it to insights because oftentimes when people think about insights, they're very theoretical, academic, right? It's like, oh, here's something that you can read and think about. I think what's cool is your insights also feel very grounded in action. Could you comment on that?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah. I think what we try to make sure we do when we're thinking about our insights is, A, start with our audience. Who are we trying to talk to, right? And it's not as simple as it sounds, especially at a 200,000 person company like Comcast. You have senior leadership. You have a line of business leads. You have subject matter experts, technical people.You have the general population. Who are you talking to?

And then once you figure out that audience, and sometimes it's different for each kind of deliverable you're putting out there, you want to figure out what moves the needle for them. What do they want to learn about? Especially when it comes to AI, everybody wants to learn something, but what specifically applies to what they're working on and what matters to them? And then what also do you feel like you can have an opinion here on what people don't know they don't know? What's the unknown unknowns? And to be able to kind of provide some, shed some light onto that as well.

And so we kind of take that perspective as a framing. And then we like to really, because we get so, our day-to-day work is really about being that link between the innovators and the internal product roadmaps, we get to see, we have case studies out the wazoo, right? So be able to see, like be able to show tangibly at Comcast the results of what's working, right? And so, and what doesn't work, right? And so sometimes it doesn't actually work out. Sometimes when we work with a company, we realize that it doesn't quite fit for what we do.

And, but there's, there are learnings that come from that, that other colleagues can learn from and take into account when they're thinking about collaborating with startups. So it's, it's all about figuring out for a Comcast-specific team like us what makes, how do we deploy AI here? How do we learn from what our colleagues have done and what they're doing? How do we bring those learnings in so that you don't have to put your hand on the stove yourself, right? And how do we scale responsibly, quickly, how do we move nimbly? And it's really been able to have that track record of showing that, Hey, we have been able to go from idea to results with startups and our BU's to be able to take those learnings and bring them back in.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah. I think I love everything about that. I think one of the things that's interesting too, is like you start with those BU challenges, right? And what is the pain point within the business or the opportunity area in the business? And so everything is grounded in that this is, has strategic relevance to the organization, right? Which is, which is super interesting as a through line, right? So anything you share is relevant, right? And then it's how do you tweak that for the audiences within the organization? 

I'm curious, one of the evolutions that happened this year with the program is the switch to always on sourcing. And, and I love everything about that. I think it was so necessary given how fast everything is evolving within AI in particular. I'm curious how you see this impacting the insights work. Obviously you're on the sourcing side as well, but does that impact insights in any way?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah. Yeah. I think like I said, we have two big tentpole accelerators in our year, and those are great convening points to be able to bring in startups. We have a whole vetting, a massively rigorous vetting process that involves bringing in business units and subject matter experts into that process. We could think a company is great, but if no one is interested, it doesn't fit with a roadmap, then it doesn't work. 

And so the companies that make it into our cohorts are the ones who typically are great products, but also have a lot of hands raised. Like this is going to be a company that's going to move a needle for a lot of us, for a lot of our teams. What always allows us to do is to have that shorter feedback loop, right? So instead of doing this twice a year, this big process is twice a year, we're doing it year round. And so we're constantly bringing companies in front of our colleagues.

That allows us to kind of continue to refine our targeting and our scouting and our sourcing and be able to bring in even continuously more and more relevant startups. And so what that, when it comes to insights, it really, really allows us to get a clear understanding of the sort of something you mentioned there, the pain points, the friction, and when it informs our sourcing, it also informs our insights.

So we get an idea that even though this is maybe an area where the market is moving in one particular area at Comcast, this particular friction point is where we need to focus our efforts in bringing in companies. And we get that knowledge constantly throughout any given year at the speed of AI, right? The way the speed of AI is moving as opposed to just two big points per year. I think that's kind of the main benefit, I think, to this always on sourcing is the tight feedback loops. And that allows, that just makes our insights more relevant.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah. I love the tighter feedback loops as well as moving at the speed of AI. It's a great line. I'm curious, you've been in this, you're just coming out of the first cohort. Are there any insights for people listening about the AI space that maybe are fresh in your mind that you think would surprise the audience, right? Whether that's about collaborating with AI startups or just in a general sense of what is exciting you or what you see coming?

Tito Obaisi
Oh, yeah. It's, again, it's just, when you're around innovators all the time like this, it's just kind of keeping up with the insights that are flowing, right? And so in these meetings. So a couple of things, there's a lot of things, but a couple of things we've noticed that are really interesting, how AI, it seems to be disrupting traditional SaaS, right? So with the expectations around ROI and go versus buy and pricing service delivery that dollars per seat per month model, it seems to be starting to phase out a little bit, right? 

There's a move towards outcome value-based pricing models. You see a company like Sierra, Brett Taylor's Sierra, they priced that way with their agent solution, kind of due to the way that AI is able to provide really niche custom workflows for really specialized job functions. So you see there's a perception among enterprises that their AI is driving or allowing for falling perceived switching costs. So you see Klana publicly ditching Salesforce and trying to build AI functionality internally.

So it's a really interesting trend that we're keeping an eye on, right? And measurement obviously is hard, like what is success if I'm a vendor versus an enterprise and you have to agree on measurement of success in order to price from a value or outcome-based in an outcome-based way. That's super interesting. It's not new to say that it's the year of agents. It's another big area. The functionality is really getting there, but I think the other things are hard. That's kind of what we're seeing, right? 

We have a company called Rider in our portfolio now, and they've kind of launched some new agent solutions. And the big thing we've noticed is that the functionality is there, but the things like the governance, the data security, permissioning, authentication, non-human ID, how data moves and who's allowed to see it and when. These are the things that really are going to determine how quickly agents are going to be able to be deployed. And Rider is one of those companies who are thinking deeply about that from an enterprise perspective. An enterprise looking to deploy agents, they have to have really strict governance and guardrails. 

So that part has to catch up. The functionality is there and it's getting there and getting better, but that part is going to be the determinant of whether this is truly the year of agents, right? And then probably one more… Oh, go ahead!

Fred Schonenberg
No, no, no. I was just going to say one thing on Rider because I always, when we get to walk around and talk to the founders, talk to your business units and executives, I'm always kind of listening to what they're saying to each other. Rider used the phrase agentic orchestration. And I just wrote it down right away because I was like, oh, everyone's talking about agentic AI, but it's more than one agent.

And if you're an individual, that's fun. But if you're a 200,000 person company, it's not that you have to control it, but how do you give it those guardrails and governance and make sure the way people are interacting with it is the way the company wants it to be. So as they were describing that, I'm like, oh, what an eloquent way to put it. And that is different from what people are talking about right now in most insights, right? Like it's the year of agentic AI. And it's like, well, hold on. To do that, there's a lot of pieces that have to go right.

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, that represents part of the critical.

Fred Schonenberg
If I interrupted you, what were you going to say before?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, yeah. I think probably the last thing I think that caught my attention is like, we're just seeing, it's a kind of future of a work idea where you're seeing companies scale faster from smaller than ever before. You're seeing companies hit $100 million in revenue with under 100 headcounts, right? Like quicker in under 24 months, right? Curse is a great example where a big driver of that is AI internally. 

So we have companies like in our cohort, a recent cohort called Synthetic Users, who are servicing double digit percentages of the Fortune 100 with a headcount that you would find hard to believe, right, in doing that. And the insights they provide is that they see AI as really as an intelligence allocator about, oh, employees or work, sorry. They see their employees as intelligence allocators as opposed to output producers, right? 

And so being able to arm your employees with the tooling, especially AI tooling that allows them to extend themselves to offload the administrative tasks and to really focus in and supercharge the super high business value tasks is allowing companies to really reach enterprise readiness at speeds and sizes that we've never seen, right? And so just being around a lot of these companies, this is stuff that's just constantly happening and coming up in conversation and in collaboration and with startups and enterprises. That's one of the many things we're seeing.

Fred Schonenberg
Yeah, I think it's so interesting, the speed of AI, right, is one part. So they're just going faster, but all these AI startups are AI enabled on the backend, right? They're native to this. They launched their company and they're, how do you do it frugally in a unique way? And so it's really cool to see AI influencing AI to build these sorts of powerhouses very quickly. And it makes what your job is so important, right? 

Is staying on top of all this as it evolves and new opportunities pop up and making sense of that for Comcast overall and making sure that the new solutions are validated and vetted and right for them. And then how do you test those and then scale them? So Tito, where should people go to learn more about yourself, about the work that you're doing?

Tito Obaisi
Yeah, yeah. Follow us on LIFT Labs, Comcast Universal LIFT Labs on all social media. You get lots of great updates on what we're doing. There's our website, lift.comcast.com. That's especially for founders who are interested in learning more about how to collaborate with Comcast. We're getting better at telling our story externally. We have done a lot of work telling our story internally, but you'll be seeing more from us in terms of engaging with the external community publicly online in ways that allow people to learn more about what we're doing and how we might be able to help them as startups and ecosystem builders.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it. And I mean, I can say from firsthand experience, it is such a powerful program. There's so much value for founders. Obviously, there's so much value for the BUs and all the Comcast side of things. But some of the testimonials that are on that page about the value that founders, some of which to your point are unicorns, get out of the program are really spectacular. So I encourage everyone to go to the website and Tito, thank you historically for all I learned from you, but for your time today and everything you're doing to spark change.

Tito Obaisi
I really appreciate it. Thanks, Fred. And it's been great. Partnering with VentureFuel is great. We really enjoy working with you guys. Looking forward to more of these conversations.

Fred Schonenberg
I love it.