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Trustworthy AI: Why Explainability Will Define the Next Decade of Enterprise Technology

·37 min

Pat Kondo, founder and CEO of Seeker Technologies, joins host Keith Newman to discuss why trustworthy AI with explainability is critical for enterprise and government adoption. Kondo is a serial entrepreneur with a background in aerospace and defense systems, having previously built navigation systems for the space shuttle. His company, Seeker, focuses exclusively on providing AI for mission-critical environments where errors are unacceptable. Kondo explains that the initial wave of consumer AI tolerated hallucinations, but enterprises and governments cannot. He argues that high-quality, domain-specific training data is essential because public internet data is largely marketing or social media content. Seeker's platform is built around "explainability," meaning users can trace how an AI model arrived at a specific result, similar to auditing a financial invoice through a P&L statement. He cites managing nuclear power plants, satellite operations, and autonomous military jets as scenarios where unexplainable AI could cause catastrophe. The company currently serves a 60% commercial and 40% government client mix, which he expects to flip due to massive defense spending. A surprising insight is that Seeker's best prospects are customers who have already tried and failed with mainstream AI providers due to cost or reliability issues. Kondo observes that AI sales cycles have shortened from several months to about 30 days for a pilot model. He criticizes policymakers for seeking AI regulatory advice from the same large tech firms accused of monopolistic practices. Contrary to the industry's focus on superstars, Kondo's key hiring metric prioritizes team players over individual prima donnas who might disband a team upon leaving. The conversation is direct and educational, grounded in Kondo's four decades of technical and business experience. The tone is pragmatic and slightly contrarian, focusing on implementation challenges over hype. This episode is ideal for enterprise founders, CTOs, and government tech strategists evaluating AI for high-stakes applications. Listeners seeking an introductory overview of generative AI or consumer applications might find the deep focus on enterprise trust and explainability too niche.

As heard by us

A practical AI conversation about explainability as a buying requirement.

Pat Kondo treats explainability as a working requirement, not a slogan, and that gives the conversation some weight. The discussion moves from Virginia's data-center buildout to the mechanics of explaining why a system made a choice, then to the costs of getting it wrong when…

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Why you'd press play

You want the real-world case for explainable AI, not buzzwords.

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