AI is accelerating how fast companies turn insight into action. How do you keep up when innovation moves faster than decision-making?
This week’s VentureFuel Visionary is Tito Obaisi, Senior Manager of Pipeline and Insights for Comcast NBCUniversal LIFT Labs. He leads efforts to identify strategically relevant, enterprise-ready AI startups that are at the cutting edge of new technology that not only deliver new capabilities but also shape insights from working with the world’s largest media and technology companies.
Tito also brings a unique perspective on how large organizations can drive innovation through collaboration – the value of an always-learning mindset, grounding insights in tangible business needs, and delivering insights at the speed of AI.
Episode Highlights
- Startup-Ecosystem Bridge for AI Deployment – Tito explains how their team uniquely operates at the intersection of the startup ecosystem and a large enterprise, identifying AI startups from seed to unicorn stage and evaluating how they can plug into Comcast's product roadmap.
- Delivering Actionable Insights at Scale – Rather than offering theoretical takeaways, he emphasizes how his team grounds their insights in real deployments, aligning with the needs of various internal audiences — from leadership to subject matter experts.
- Learning in the Slipstream of Innovators – To keep pace with AI’s rapid evolution, Tito’s approach is to treat every engagement like a learning opportunity. This mindset of continuous learning ensures their insights are fresh, original, and reflective of the latest thinking in AI innovation.
- Always-On Sourcing and Tighter Feedback Loops – Tito explains how LIFT Labs’ shift to year-round sourcing helps uncover pain points in real time and continuously refine startup targeting.
- Agentic Orchestration and the New Enterprise Model – He shares how agentic AI is driving a shift from traditional SaaS to outcome-based models, and how AI-native startups are scaling faster with smaller teams.
VentureFuel builds and accelerates innovation programs for industry leaders by helping them unlock the power of External Innovation via startup collaborations.