How AI is Shaping Biotech? Expert Insights from James Bilotta

How AI is Shaping Biotech? Expert Insights from James Bilotta #aiinbiotech #digitaltransformation #biotechleadership

In this episode of Biotech Bytes, James Bilotta, SVP and CIO at Dyne Therapeutics, discusses the evolving role of technology leaders in biotech and how AI is reshaping the industry. James shares his journey from hospital informatics to leading digital transformation in high-growth biotech companies.Please visit our website to get more information: https://swangroup.net/

In this video, we explore the growing importance of AI in making business decisions, improving processes, and ensuring compliance in biotech. James also explains how AI is helping organizations scale, innovate, and bring therapies to market more efficiently, while keeping patients at the center of everything.

This conversation covers:

• The shifting role of the CIO in biotech
• How biotech companies are identifying AI use cases
• Practical advice for young professionals in IT
• The importance of AI governance and leadership alignment

Don’t miss insights on how AI is not only transforming operations but also enabling companies to be more competitive while managing risk. 

Links from this episode:

• Get to know more about Steven Swan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swangroup 
• Get to know more about James Bilotta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bilotta-7a06607
• Learn more about Dyne Therapeutics: https://www.dyne-tx.com/

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#aiinbiotech #digitaltransformation #biotechleadership #aiadoption #ciorole #biotechfuture

Transcript

Steven Swan [00:00:00]:
On the next installment of Biotech Bytes, join me for a conversation with James Bilotta, SVP and Chief Digital Information Officer at Dyne Therapeutics, where we get deep into AI and we get in deep into how a CIO can help learn, you know, earn trust of an organization and the business and what it takes to get there. Welcome to Biotech Bytes, where we talk to IT leaders within biotech. I'm your host, Steve Swan and today I have the pleasure of being joined by Jim Bilotta. Jim is the SVP and Chief Digital Information Officer at Dyn Therapeutics. Thanks for joining me Jim. Want to make a reminder to our viewers that if you enjoy what you see today, don't forget to like us and sign up to Biotech Bytes on either Spotify, Apple or YouTube. Jim, thanks again. Now before we get going here, I always like to give our viewers a big overview on who I'm chatting with.

Steven Swan [00:00:59]:
So if you don't mind, give us a little rundown on Jim Bilotta, how he got to where he is and that kind of thing.

James Bilotta [00:01:07]:
Sure. Well, first of all, thanks for inviting me. Appreciate it. Yeah. So Jim Bilotta I am the Chief Digital Information Officer here at Dyne. You know, I come from a background where I started, you know, right out of college, you know, in hospital informatics, fell in love with healthcare, healthcare informatics, you know, was doing resistance studies for antibiotics and like really a diverse but really healthcare oriented background. But as a, as a technology guy at heart, you know, I kind of graduated into, you know, consulting, you know, leaving that behind and working for automotive companies and large pharma. But always my heart was always in the pharma projects.

James Bilotta [00:01:53]:
But we did a lot of management consulting, a lot of M and A work, a lot of big SAP projects. It's mostly large pharma, some mid size. And from there, you know, kind of made my way through to, to rare disease. And I got there in a sort of roundabout way. You know, we had a family member who was diagnosed with a rare disease and through that ended up, you know, kind of foraying into that field and had the opportunity to meet the CEO of Alexion and they were getting ready to launch and it's just a tremendous company, incredible drug, you know, focused on pnh. And we brought that company from pre commercial to market and you know, really became a multibillion dollar organization that's now part of AstraZeneca. Left there to join the former CFO and another company called Synergiva, which ultimately got bought by Alexion, you know, and they launched the product for us. We were, we were launch ready and joined Alnylam, which was an incredible experience to one of the most amazing companies I think I've ever had the opportunity to work for.

James Bilotta [00:02:57]:
You know, novel science, Sirna, you know, you know, you know, really a lot of opportunity, just this huge, huge force in the industry for, you know, kind of like focusing on, you know, preventing disease symptoms from occurring rather than trying to suppress them. Great, great technology, you know, launched, you know, a considerable. We launched our, launched our first drug in four more and you know, now they're, you know, you know, just a huge success as you can imagine, around the world. So all of these companies and then left there to, to join the former chief operations officer over here at Dyn. And we are in the process of getting ready to launch our first, uh, drugs into the, our first therapies into the market. And in Neuromuscular, which is for, specifically for DMD and then DM1, you know, again, incredible science. I mean, I'm really humbled by the science at all these companies, especially if you're a dye and you know, but been focused on launch for all these companies. So even for Alexion, my focus was a combination of my technology passion but my experience in business and, you know, sort of helping these companies go through the change that it requires to, you know, take great science and turn it into these therapies for patients and change lives.

James Bilotta [00:04:21]:
I mean, it's, it's pretty humbling to be part of, you know, a machine that turns, you know, creates successful companies that actually are focused on changing people's lives for the better. And so for me, it's been an incredibly rewarding career. I continue to love it to this day and, you know, but that's, that's what I do. I, you know, I'm really focused on building companies and global organizations that can bring, you know, as many therapies to every patient that could benefit from it.

Steven Swan [00:04:48]:
Well, your track record certainly speaks for itself. You, you've been in some great places. You've helped them build up from, you know, where they were when you joined to where they either got sold or where they were when you left. Right?

James Bilotta [00:05:00]:
Yeah. Yeah, I'm very, very fortunate. Great company. It's really, really good successes. Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:05:04]:
Yeah. Well, I mean, I, I'm again, you are a humble guy. I know that I, I've spoken to you before. I'm going to say that you had a lot to do with some of those things. Right. But I don't think so. You know, I talk to a lot of IT leaders and, you know, once a mistake, twice a trend. How about four times? So I think you've done some good work.

Steven Swan [00:05:27]:
And, you know, the fact that, you know, the, the leaders of these companies and a lot of them you've known for a long time can see that, you know, the roi, that what you do and what you bring to the table gets multiplied with great science. Right. I mean, I know you said there's, you got to have it married with great science. Right. But on top of that, if you have somebody that can see the vision, understand the business, understand, you know, really getting the medications to the patients and delivering a lot of different value around that, that's just, you know, that, that, that's something that a lot of folks don't do and can't do and haven't done. So.

James Bilotta [00:06:05]:
Yeah, I agree. I think your point about the role that we play as CIOs and digital officers, and really this role is so far beyond maybe just the technology. It's really about advancing the business objectives, which really are to bring these medications to patients. Otherwise, it's just great science and being focused on, not necessarily did the project end on time, but, you know, did we change a family's life and understanding that? And when you're having those communications and you're building those strategies and you're working with management, really focusing on the right things, that helps you understand kind of where you're going as an organization, and it helps you build the right technologies to get there and it maintains that alignment, you know, and I think it's a, it's a really important piece of what we do as technology leaders is really, you know, being business leaders. Right. You're a business leader first. Right. And then, and then there's the functional aspect of it.

Steven Swan [00:07:03]:
Yeah, well, let's talk about that for a second. Maybe I'll take a little bit of a different direction than I originally thought. You know, when, when I last saw you face to face, we talked a lot about the business value of it. Right. So that's kind of what we're circling around here. How do you think, Jim, in, in your opinion, how do you think that's changed over the years? Because you, you've had a lot of, you know, you've seen obviously, ups and downs, a lot of ups and teams. Right. But how has the head of it's role sort of changed and morphed over the years as somebody that is business focused, business embedded? I mean, you know, because now we got the msps right? We all have figured out, hey, we're really not in the, you know, the core technology business.

Steven Swan [00:07:42]:
We can get MSPs as long as we structure that properly, right. We can get them to handle maybe, you know, the desktops, laptops, you know, whatever it is. And then we have AI, which we can get to. Right. But in the middle still the business value of it, which, you know, we talked about last time I saw you in Boston there. But over the years, just to kind of frame that, how do you think that's morphed and changed for you as an IT leader?

James Bilotta [00:08:06]:
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's interesting question, right. I think, you know, and I've been around a while, so I think, you know, it's. I've had an opportunity to kind of see IT grow and you know, it's interesting. You know, Steve, kind of going back to your first question, I started out on the consulting side, right. And as a, as a consultant, we always went in through the business, right? You very rarely got brought in through IT because it was people looking to affect business change. It was either opportunity for M and A or growth or, you know, conversion to ERP system because, you know, we're taking on new business capability and we want to be able to exploit that business capability, you know, at a global or enterprise level. Synergies, things like that. And so you train yourself back then to think like, you know, about the business value and about the outcome.

James Bilotta [00:08:48]:
And I think it was interesting because it was always when, you know, kind of working with the IT organizations, we were always very tech centric. And I think that was the ask, right? That was the ask for these leaders back then. And that was, the ask was, you know, because it was kind of separate from the business. It was like this necessary thing that we did. It was a cost, right, that we had to bear. And it was, it was, you know, absolutely necessary. But, but I think it was maybe not as essential as it is today in the sense that you can't do anything without it. And it is the advantage, right Too, like you think about, and I'm sure we'll get there is digital and AI, right.

James Bilotta [00:09:24]:
So I think over the years, I think a lot of technology leaders have kind of gone, realized that the ask is different in the sense that the value that you bring to the organization. And I've watched it kind of change and grow over the years and I've seen, and there's different companies have different asks. I think younger companies tend to look for more. They look for that business kind of background and they look for leaders who can truly understand the organization because they can kind of set us free and we know how to work within the organization and we know kind of what needs to be done in order to build the organization. And they value and trust and they seek that information. And I think that's great because you're contributing beyond the sort of borders of technology.

Steven Swan [00:10:11]:
Yeah.

James Bilotta [00:10:12]:
And I think that's become more the norm now. I think, you know, as the positions evolved and you know, to your point, you know, we're able to sort of utilize some really, you know, fantastic partners who can do the day to day, you know, not that we, you know, need can really take our eye off the ball. We have to manage that and make sure that, that, you know, you know, never gets in the way of business delivery. It's got to, you need strategy there and all of that. But I think, you know, the ask is that we, we're better aligned with kind of like the goals of the organization and how to get there and contributing to that roadmap and contributing to that strategy. And I've seen that change over the years and I've seen people really go far with that knowledge. And then I've seen some people, you know, are still, you know, primarily technology focused. And that's the ask.

James Bilotta [00:10:59]:
And I think that's okay too. But I do think, you know, the, the role has certainly changed from, you know, kind of, you know, just, you know, managing, you know, systems and data to really being, you know, kind of, you know, business centric and growing and growing the organization. And you know, we, we used to have this expression years ago, consulting, where it kind of paves the way. Right. So, you know, we, the goal is to make it so that our business can grow uninterrupted. Right. We never want to be between a patient getting therapy and the company being able to provide that therapy. So it has to be super smooth.

James Bilotta [00:11:37]:
And part of that is understanding the goal, understanding how that works within the organization, what the expectations of the consumer are, what the expectations of the business are. It's not just about the technology. So I've seen that change over the years. I've seen it really grow and I've seen the role. And I'll be honest, I love that. So, so for me, you know, kind of, you know, with a business school background and consulting and technology all tied together, this is where I want. This is the best place we could possibly go. And I think also it helps us as leaders, you know, be more successful because we are truly business leaders rather than maybe Just technology leaders.

James Bilotta [00:12:13]:
So.

Steven Swan [00:12:13]:
Yeah. And you know, from a technology perspective or as a technologist, you don't want to be the roadblock. You don't want to be the bottleneck, right? You want to be like you just said, let's, let's, let's get, make this thing able to scale. But you got to really understand that business. I'll never forget when I sat down with a guy that I placed, boy, this must have been almost 10 years ago now. The VP of Commercial IT at a local company, about $4 billion. And he talked about. Steve, we're starting with the patient at the center.

Steven Swan [00:12:38]:
And let me tell you what else is going on. When I tell you we spoke for an hour, the last three minutes, he talked about technology. And I swear, every time I talk to this guy and I say this to him, I say my IQ goes up three points every time I talk to him. The guy's just, it's awesome.

James Bilotta [00:12:53]:
And that's, that's how to think about it, right? He's, he's, yeah, that's great.

Steven Swan [00:12:57]:
Just crazy stuff. Question for you. Okay. I was thinking about this as you were going through what you just said. I'm a young new IT leader, right? I'm in a small company. My company needed me to, to be a, be an operator, right? To be somebody that can, you know, be more foundational. But the company's growing. Things are happening.

Steven Swan [00:13:18]:
What advice does Jim Bilotta have for me? To change the conversation, right? To change the ask. I'll use your term to change the ask from, or to help, maybe. You can't change. Yes, you can shape the ask, right? As a business partner, you can change the ask or shape the ask from, you know, being somebody who is seen as, you know, more, the, more the, the hands on practitioner than helping to, to, to deliver the business value of it. Is there any, a couple, even a couple sentences, anything you would say to me as a young guy coming in that how do I change that ask or how do I think about that? How do I shape that inside my organization? Sorry to put you on the spot here on that one.

James Bilotta [00:14:01]:
This is what we're doing. This is great. I love the question, actually, because I, I, you know, I think it's a really, really valuable question for people. I think the very first thing that we all have to do as young IT people coming into the field is convince ourselves that it's not a job, right? That it's a career and it's an opportunity and you have to love what you do. But you also have to love the business and the type of business that you're in. And I would say pursue an industry that you're interested in. And, you know, that is going to make you want to be there and learn more about it. Right.

James Bilotta [00:14:38]:
And be part of it. I think, you know, as technologists, the nice part I always, you know, another great, you know, analogy is you're kind of the catcher on the baseball field. You see every base, you see every play, you're part of it, right? You learn a tremendous amount as part of that, and it's okay to start to play that back to people. What you, you know, what you've learned and how you're, you know, and how you're thinking about your role in the context of, of what you're seeing on the field. Right? But I think the most important part is to remember that, you know, most of the companies we're in, certainly not all of them are not technology companies. They are whatever the industry is. In my case, it's. It's.

James Bilotta [00:15:19]:
It's biotech, right? And we have a purpose and we are striving for that purpose, which is, again, to take these incredible science, build these amazing therapies, and get them to the patients that can benefit from them. That's our purpose. And so when you speak to people as a younger IT person, a technology person, you need to put into context what you do, because you're a contributor to that, right? You are part of that, whether you realize it or not. You know, if you're help desk, if you're a programmer, if you're an architect, if you're an AWS administrator, whatever, you are part of that. You are. And so when someone asks you what you do, your answer should be, I take great science, I package it up into these incredible therapies, and, and I bring it to patients. My role in that is this, right? I mean, that's how you have to think about your job. It.

James Bilotta [00:16:06]:
It. Not only does it like, you know, allow you to kind of grow in the context of your industry, because I, you know, whether you realize it or not, you know, the day you start your first job, you're in an industry and you're building experience in that industry, and that benefits you because, you know, I think most industries prefer to hire more people that have industry expertise. You know, certainly there's crossover, but it helps, right? And so if you start in an industry that you really love, it's gonna, it's gonna help you. But if you start to think about your role as more than a job, and as a career and, you know, as being part of the machine that's, you know, able to, to make that transformation for people's lives or whatever the industry that you're in, you will grow, you will just, you will naturally evolve, right? And I think that would be my advice is to really treat it that way. Don't, you know, shut it off and don't, you know, go home. It's really. Just get involved and love it and be part of it and, and understand the business that you're in. Pay attention to the field that you're playing on.

Steven Swan [00:17:03]:
So if I get involved with that company, right, let's say I get involved with a company where they say you're, you're, you're, you're technology, you, you know, you're an operator. But if you, if you have that passion, right, and it comes through and, and you have constant curiosity and you're always learning and you're always working with business. Do you think you can take those leaders? Do you think you can help those leaders see that it is not a cost center, it's not a necessary evil. It's an addition. It's an addition to the organization that can add tomorrow? I. Do you think somebody who's again, got that passion, curiosity and energy can do that in a place? Or do you think that that's.

James Bilotta [00:17:42]:
I'll tell you a story, actually. So when I was young, go, this is so. Fade to black and white. When I was young, you know, I worked in a hospital, as I mentioned earlier, and I started as a computer operator after the microbiology stint, which was incredible, but moved into the computer operations role. And, you know, back then we had this big mayframe, and, you know, we had printers and we would print lab reports and we'd deliver them by hand to all the, all the, all the labs.

Steven Swan [00:18:10]:
You know, we're not even on black and white. We're on radio, man. Yeah, Mainframes.

James Bilotta [00:18:15]:
So I, I thought, well, this is dumb, right? Like, you know, why am I doing this? This, you know, we could automate this, right? And so I worked at night and everybody had gone home today. And so I, I was learning programming at college, right? And so I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna script this all out and I'll have more time to study. And so I wrote these scripts and I scripted it all out so that they would be delivered to the labs and everything would be done, and it would just send me a report afterwards. So a, you know, success or failure. And then all I had to do was check on it. And one day I came in and I, it was great and I loved it. And I still worked there and it was great, but I automated the whole thing. And our, our.

James Bilotta [00:18:49]:
My, My boss said to me, he's like, jim, he's like, this is great. He's like, but you, you essentially eliminated your role. I was like, yeah, I understand that. You know, I understand that. But this is, this is, this should be done. This, you know, this is how you're. This is how our department's going to evolve. I mean, this is great.

James Bilotta [00:19:04]:
And so they hired me as a programmer. They said you're, you'd be great as a program. Let's bring in. So I started, you know, even though I was still in college, I started doing programming and, and they were wonderful group of people, and they were fantastic. But, you know, you have to be willing to take risks and take chances and if you see something that can be better, make it better. Right. I mean, I think, you know, that's, that's, that's where it is. I think you got to take some risks and you got it.

James Bilotta [00:19:25]:
Like, you, it's. You don't have to worry about, like, your job and like, you know, it's all about, like, you know, again, like, you know, contributing and being part of it. So that, to me is really, really important. But yeah, so that, that, that was a great experience for me because it worked out in that particular case.

Steven Swan [00:19:45]:
Yeah. Well, listen, so like, we all are talking about, you know, when, when the technology evolves, oh, it's going to eliminate this. It's. Yeah, it's going to eliminate something, but it's going to open something else up. Right. It opens up the programmer position, you know, and AI is doing the same, I would guess, right now. Right, Right.

James Bilotta [00:20:00]:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. AI is a. Certainly been a great tool and a great advance for our industry. It is probably the most obviously impactful thing we've seen in decades. Right. I think what we're able to do and how we're able to rethink the work overall has been great. And again, I'll go back to your question about how can we as technologists, I think every role in it should be thinking that way about, you know, does, you know, why are we doing this? Does it need to be done, could it be done with AI? Does it need to be done at all? That sort of thing. And, you know, certainly not only in terms of like, you know, we think about LLMs and agents and things like that, but complete, you know, systematic alterations of the things that we do and the reasons that we do them by way of AI.

James Bilotta [00:20:49]:
I mean that's the sort of thinking that we need. And those are, that's one where, you know, beyond automation, right. Like, you know, the whys and can it just be, can we do it with AI? So I think it's, it's certainly been impactful in all areas of our businesses, you know, in all industries. And I think my advice to technologists would be to truly understand how to apply it to your business because that is going to be a tremendous value for your company.

Steven Swan [00:21:13]:
Right. And you can't, like you just said, you can't look at it as oh, I can't do this because it's going to eliminate me. Right?

James Bilotta [00:21:20]:
Yeah, right. I mean there's certainly like, I work in a, you know, we all, there's, there's regulated industries, right. And you need to really be, you know, you need to be thoughtful about, you know, whether it's AI relevant etc, but, but you know, I, I think that you know, you need to be open minded about, you know, how you can do things in a very compliant way and make advances. And I think most agencies, regulators are understand that and encourage, shouldn't stop you. But, but again, I think, you know, it's really important that you know, people, you know, as we think about this, we, we do it in a way that's compliant.

Steven Swan [00:21:54]:
Yeah, well, the FDA has actually got an AI whatever division component, whatever you

James Bilotta [00:22:00]:
want to call it. Right. You know, yeah, it's yeah. Recently updated. So yeah, I mean, I think, you know, again, I think again it's, you know, it shows that this, everybody understands that, you know, this is, this is, you know, again we're, we're bringing, you know, we're bringing a technology forward in a way that's going to transform the length of time it takes to get great medicines to people. You know, the way that it's, you know, delivered through the channel, the way that you know that information is, is captured and, and measured and things like that. So it's, it's good.

Steven Swan [00:22:29]:
So other folks I've spoken to, right. Heads of IT at, at other organizations talked about, you know, the bionic employee, they talked about how they see the ROI with, with AI in you know, three main areas. You know, the customer service areas, one, marketing, communications another. And then really like I said, the bionic employee, the developer, right. You know, whatever AI tool they're using, they interact with the business, figure out what needs to be built, let the, let AI develop it and then they Got to do the code review. Right. And so on and so forth.

James Bilotta [00:22:59]:
Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:23:00]:
Other areas you see it as, as, you know, use cases popping up that, that are useful, more useful coming in, coming in bigger, you know, tell me about that, if you have any thoughts there.

James Bilotta [00:23:13]:
Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing a lot of advances, tools that are involved in writing. So, you know, certainly, you know, whether it's medical writing or whether it's, you know, writing and aggregation of data related to, you know, reporting or whatever. So I think that's a big area. I also see a big area on the clinical side as well. So a lot of, you know, you know, opportunities and potential for, you know, integrating with digital assessments, you know, so I think there's a lot of opportunity there. We're seeing a rise there. I think one of the biggest ones, you know, and you kind of touched on it, is the marketing piece, but maybe even taking that further to market development. Right.

James Bilotta [00:23:49]:
There's a lot of market development, there's a lot of market understanding that can be had with AI, you know, more so than in the past. And so I think we're seeing a lot of, a lot of work there as well. Manufacturing. There's, there's a, actually probably one of the biggest areas is manufacturing both in terms of quality, you know, in terms of, you know, understanding and predicting, you know, maintenance and, and you know, that sort of thing. You know, I, I, I, I, I would love to put my finger on one particular area, but it's different for every business. And I think, you know, understanding your company and where that sort of the big ticket items are for you that are going to be, we call them strategic bets. Right. With AI, it's going to be really impactful.

James Bilotta [00:24:34]:
So, you know, beyond sort of the day to day like integration into your contract system and integration into your, you know, your marketing draft development or whatever, you know, basic writing tools, copilot, things like that, you know, where is it going to change the game for you? Are you a big manufacturer? Are you a sales and marketing organization? You know, are you, you know, a clinical CRO, you know, in understanding, you know, how is this going to impact my business and help us win in the marketplace? I think that that last question is critical, you know, and that's, and that's where you, you're going to find your biggest bets, you know, or your biggest opportunities in the company.

Steven Swan [00:25:11]:
What I've seen is, is with AI and it sounds like it's changing, but what I've seen with AI is that it's almost like the haves and the have nots. Right. So the large companies, whether that be, you know, the J and J's, and such, right. They have money and divisions allocated to AI. Just beat it up, develop use cases. Let's see what we can do. Then you got the smaller organizations, maybe they don't have that kind of free cash flow.

James Bilotta [00:25:37]:
Right.

Steven Swan [00:25:37]:
Maybe they don't have that disposable income where they can, where they can beat it up. Right. So they've got to really suss out their use cases to make sure. Like you just said, strategic bets. Right. Because they are bets and it's, you're going to spend money on it. So you got to make sure that whatever you build or whatever you do is going to be impactful. Otherwise that's, that's wasted revenue.

Steven Swan [00:25:56]:
Right?

James Bilotta [00:25:57]:
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think, you know, it's interesting. It's, it's a great point. And I think, you know, the advantage for AI for smaller companies is it allows them to compete at a level that's much greater than in the past. Right. So they can actually be a more formidable competitor. You know, because of that they also can move faster typically because it's, you know, there's, there's not a lot of, you know, kind of disparate organization of this stuff and there's a concentration of ideas. So I think they benefit from that.

James Bilotta [00:26:26]:
Certainly large companies have the funding to, you know, go out and really play with some of the more impactful, higher, higher ticket stuff, you know, in, you know, and, and I think a lot of what we're seeing in the, in the industry has been as a result of that, you know, the successes that some of those projects have had on the larger side, but those quickly translate to smaller companies. The other thing I think is we've evolved in this and we're at a level now where if you think about the hype cycle, we actually have real results for certain things and we are all incorporating those into our day to day business. I think about how lucky I am to be in a younger company where we're building a lot of the capabilities now to carry us into the future and well, guess what, we don't have to go back and go through an AI transformation. We will. We're digital, we're digital native. Right. So we're an AI native in this and we, we're incorporating that stuff in as we go because we can. And so I think there's advantage there as well.

James Bilotta [00:27:23]:
So I think, you know, as, and, and a lot of these big bet Projects are being consumerized or, or at least being commercialized. So that this stuff is, you know, it's, it's available now through tools and through partners, et cetera. And you know, there's certainly a cost to it. But, you know, you, you get the opportunity to say, you know, because it's, I don't have to go out and try, you know, I can work with a vendor to maybe pilot or do an MVP or whatever because it's commercially available and I can actually measure the impact to my company. So there's, there's new ways to evaluate it.

Steven Swan [00:27:55]:
Yeah. So, and, and, and from my side, what I see. Right, because we just talked about those, if you want to call them internal incubators at those large companies. You know, I get the calls from those folks and saying, hey, listen, man, I really want to go to a small company where I can now make an impact. I'm kind of stuck in this. Yeah. So, you know, I talk to those folks and they're like, can you find me a small place that I can, you know, make a difference? You know, and that's, those are the folks I find. Right.

Steven Swan [00:28:24]:
They're good at what they do. They've had that money coming into that money from that big company right now. They want to go and let's, let's, let's, let's. I don't want to say leave the sandbox because they're, they're doing stuff that's real. But for the most part, right then they can work for a gym or work for whomever that really needs, you know, that person. They can move the needle because they're at a smaller place.

James Bilotta [00:28:44]:
Right. And they can, and they can do it because the small companies recognize that, you know, they need this to be competitive and they need this to win in the marketplace. So, you know, they're, they actually get to apply their knowledge and their learnings. To your point, I mean, I, I can think of know some of my colleagues from the past who have come from smaller companies who've been incredible AI leaders over the last couple of years now, and they are now in large companies because those large companies also recognize that they were able to, they were able to drive things to completion, etc. So I think there's a great kind of back and forth between large and small companies and they both benefit. It's a great kind of like symbiotic relationship there. And you know, I think that, and you know, that's not only AI, I think it's that kind of across functions, but but it's great. You know, I think everybody benefits and it's.

James Bilotta [00:29:27]:
It. It. And as a result, it just continues to grow. These things get productized. You know, it's. It's great to see. It's great to be part of. Right?

Steven Swan [00:29:36]:
Well, yeah, it's a collaborative. That's right. That's what I mean. That's exactly the spirit of this. It's collaborative. People learn from each other. We're not reinventing the wheel. You know, collective intelligence goes up every day.

Steven Swan [00:29:46]:
Right. We can all piggyback off that. Right. I had a call boy, but I guess it was probably a year and a half, two years ago now from a company ask. And I might have mentioned this to you when we spoke last, but a company saying that they want, we want, our head of AI, I said, what does that mean? They said, well, we just don't want to miss out. I said, I'm not getting involved with that. You know, because if you don't know, you really. You don't know what you want.

Steven Swan [00:30:07]:
I mean, if you're just saying you don't want to miss out, you're going to hire somebody that, I don't know, they know how to spell. I'm not quite sure. But fast forward to today. A little bit of.

James Bilotta [00:30:17]:
What's the word I'm looking for?

Steven Swan [00:30:18]:
Mismatch in. In. In, you know, that person in that company. So we'll see how that all works out. But I think they're working it out. But, you know, you got to know what you're looking for. I spoke to somebody yesterday who had a whole bunch of AI things they wanted me to work on with them. And again, sort of, they said that they're getting a lot of folks that are trying to learn, kind of learn on the job, and that's not, you know, where it's at.

James Bilotta [00:30:40]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's. Yeah. And I think, you know, I. So I think that, you know, AI fluency in the organization is really critical, and anybody that goes into an AI leadership role should really focus on raising that AI fluency in the organization. Right. Because that is a sort of precursor to success, along with great data and other things. I would say, too, you know, you know, to your point about that search that you did as leaders going into those roles, that's a really important thing to flesh out when you're interviewing.

James Bilotta [00:31:14]:
Right, right. Like, you know, to understand kind of what the intention is. I think the intention often is fear of falling behind. Right. And, you know, but, you know, as a. As a leader going into an organization maybe to help, you know, the first step should be helping them to contextualize what that means. Right. And, and you know, yeah, I, I, that would be really important.

James Bilotta [00:31:39]:
I think it was more nebulous a year ago than it is now, maybe. But yeah, it's, it's really, it's.

Steven Swan [00:31:46]:
And we probably even talked about this last time I saw you. You know, even the verbiage people didn't, you know, just like back in the day, we, we had web browsers, we had the Internet, you know what I mean? All those things we didn't know, what does that mean? What, what are we talking about? So now it's kind of the same thing. We, so even learning the right terminology, let's all, let's get, you know, let's get the coo, the CFO and the CEO to, to understand when I'm talking, what I'm even saying. Right, right. And then, you know, get into what do we need? What do we want? Where are we?

James Bilotta [00:32:12]:
Yeah, I mean, an executive team that has AI fluency is a huge benefit to everybody, shareholders, you know, the company itself, etc, you know, and having that, you know, fluency also ensures that initiatives are backed and are understood, you know, so that you're not operating in a. Again, I go back to our very first conversation. We're all about advancing the business, right? So the AI projects need to be well understood and how they're advancing the business. And that requires the executive teams to really have an understanding of at least, at least a top level understanding of how this stuff works and how it can affect the business. Because it affects the business in a lot of different ways. Right. It's not just fixing or accelerating. Right.

James Bilotta [00:32:58]:
It's also, it's change management in the organization. And that's a big deal. You know, we should never underestimate, you know, and again, I go back to what I do. You know, we grow companies like, you know, through the commercialization phase. That's a huge transformation, right. For organizations like ours. And it's a lot, there's a lot of change management to be thought of when you're, you know, introducing something like A into an organization and just expecting that organization to kind of grow with it.

Steven Swan [00:33:28]:
When you just mentioned that, I just got to tell you what came to my mind. The fact that you take a company from here to there, right. And it is a huge transformation. I envisioned James Bilotta doing a trust fall on the business, catching them. Everybody's got to trust each other and they got to have 100%, they got to say, let's go.

James Bilotta [00:33:50]:
Yeah. Your team, your executive team, senior leadership team, everybody in the company, you're basically all kicking the ball towards the same goal. And it takes a team to succeed at that. Right. You need somebody that's, you know, and, and essentially you got to keep. Keep everybody kind of focused and, you know, have a clear kind of common language, you know, that you speak and an understanding about what's important. And in the case of AI, you know, how important it is to build capabilities that are enduring. Right.

James Bilotta [00:34:19]:
That are going to be durable as the company grows. And that's where, you know, you can sort of start to think about, how will this apply? How will this look two years from now? How is this going to help us win for this area of the business? And I think, again, I think that's a critical question that all IT leaders should ask on a regular basis is how does this help us win? And whatever win means to you. Right. Win might mean, again, great therapies in the hands of the people that really need them. Right. Changing lives. It could mean something completely different if you're in a different industry, but understanding what it means and how to apply that to your business is a critical question to ask on a regular basis.

Steven Swan [00:34:53]:
Well, and it depends on where you are in your life cycle. Right. It may be the AI, may be applied to the clinical side, then, then when you're going commercial, maybe applied to the commercial side, then it may be applied to the ERP side as you're getting it out there. So it's. As you move along. Right?

James Bilotta [00:35:06]:
That's such a great point. 100%. Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:35:09]:
So, yeah. So it just seems like wherever you are and where you need to go is. Is. Is what you're using it for. My next thought, thought. My next question was as you're talking about the leaders and we're talking about AI and you had all this, everything talking about data and data breaches and all that, which, which, you know, whatever, wherever we are in that and that. But my, my mind goes to governance right around this whole thing. You know, again, when I was talking to that individual yesterday, they just now in their department said, you know, we need somebody that can handle the governance side of this thing.

Steven Swan [00:35:44]:
And my, my knee jerk to them was, boy, I bet your board of directors is thinking about that first. Right? So, you know, what do you. I mean, and I don't want to put you into a corner you don't want to go into. Right. So if you don't want to talk about it.

James Bilotta [00:35:56]:
No, it's really, it's important. Right? I, I have not been part of an AI program where we did not have first an AI governance committee. Isn't that first?

Steven Swan [00:36:04]:
Isn't that number one?

James Bilotta [00:36:05]:
It is, it's, it's two reasons. Right. Actually Steve, I, I would argue that it's a fluency thing, right? Because you're, by creating this sort of cross functional governance body that's relevant for your industry. In my particular case, it includes people from, you know, regulatory, quality, legal, etc. You're increasing their, you know, their, their fluency in AI because you're exposing them to, you know, the, the, you know, opportunities and risks. But you're also, but you're also, you know, creating champions in your organization who start to really understand like geez, we, it's not, it doesn't become a binary question should we do X or Y? It becomes how can we do X and Y, right? In a way that, you know, is commensurate with our risk and with the regulations of our particular industry. And that, that's a, that's a, that's a transition, right? Kind of go from a binary we don't do this or we're not going to do this to geez, this is a really great idea. How can we do this? And that's where you, as a team, you know, see, I like to tie it back to your original points.

James Bilotta [00:37:10]:
That's how as a team, you know, you evolve as an executive organization and as a governance body. And you know, I think over time it will become a data governance body, you know, and we'll combine with the AI government's body and you know, because we're, it's really becoming an issue of data.

Steven Swan [00:37:26]:
It seems like we're close to that now. I feel like we are.

James Bilotta [00:37:28]:
No, I do too. I really do. We, you know, I think we're thinking about it that way here for sure. I, I can tell you that, you know, there's a lot of common questions that we ask across all these platforms. Not only, you know, is it AI relevant, right, or is it, you know, what's the impact going to be on the business? But also what are the risks that it brings, like who controls the data, you know, how long does it live and is, is it going to align with our compliance requirements for that and you know, all sorts of questions that people smarter than me think of because they, you know, they're in that particular area of our business. And, and I think it's really, it's really been great because it's, you Know, we, we were able to look at really great opportunities and we're able to risk evaluate them and find ways to do it maybe better than what's being proposed or, or not do it at all in some cases, or to do it and you know, and live the benefits. So, and we also think about, you know, how are we going to measure the outcome of this if we're going to spend money on it? Like, you know, how do we, how do we know that it works? Like, you know, especially, it's especially challenging when that capability in the organization doesn't exist yet because you're, you know, you have nothing to kind of baseline it against. So you're, you're kind of going off offsets and that sort of thing.

James Bilotta [00:38:41]:
But, but yeah, no, I, I, I, I, look, you know, I think go, I'm not, I'm not huge on creating extra meetings or, or you know, whatever, but I think a governance body, you know, creating and setting up a governance body is a, it's a leadership thing. So you as an IT leader, you're, you're the chair of that committee. You're, you're a leader and you're, you know, kind of helping the organization grow and win. Two, you're, you're, you know, learning and educating at the same time across the organization, across your peer kind of council members. And three, you're bringing a forum forward to help stretch that opportunities, you know, as an organization and be able to make real decisions on how they're going to impact the business.

Steven Swan [00:39:26]:
So now we got governance, AI, infrastructure and security all at the same meeting. And we got to figure this out, right? I mean, is that I'm just again, my head spinning listening to you and I'm like, man, it's, and I don't have to sit inside a company and do all this, but you do. So, you know.

James Bilotta [00:39:39]:
Yeah, you know, I always start with, you know, business relevance and like, you know, sort of what's the impact going to be? And then if we pass that test, we go to Risk and then if we pass that test, then we get to infrastructure and then we find, you know, then, and obviously security and that sort of thing.

Steven Swan [00:39:54]:
But yeah, so you go in that you don't get them all. You're right.

James Bilotta [00:39:57]:
Well, we're all, we're all there together. But I think the first thing we think of, you know, when we're evaluating this stuff before we waste time on anything is like, you know, again, you know, how does this contribute to the mission and, and how is it going to help Us win.

Steven Swan [00:40:10]:
Hit one toll gate at a time. Yeah, that makes sense. Because you can't need to. You can't eat the elephant in one bite. Right, so.

James Bilotta [00:40:16]:
Right, Exactly.

Steven Swan [00:40:17]:
Cool. Well, good. Listen, this was awesome. Anything else that you. We're running up against our time here for you.

James Bilotta [00:40:24]:
That's fun. I think, you know, for those of us in this role and for those of us that aspire to be in these roles, et cetera, it's a. It's an incredible opportunity. It's a great time, you know, because with AI, you can get even more involved in some of the business processes that are so important to your organization. Use it, take advantage of it, you know. You know, really push your leadership skills and, you know, and, you know, the rest will come.

Steven Swan [00:40:47]:
Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of folks that are trying to figure it out. Not only do they not know what it means, but then I guess to the business centric approach to it, they haven't done a lot of that, you know, and we all had that discussion, and we were kind of working through that last time. That's a tough one. That's. But that's becoming more front and center for everybody, it seems to me.

James Bilotta [00:41:07]:
So I. I agree with you. Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:41:09]:
Well, I appreciate your time and I appreciate all your advice. This is awesome. People are gonna love.

James Bilotta [00:41:12]:
Yeah. Thanks for setting this up, Steve. I. I'm happy to be a part of it. Thank you.

Steven Swan [00:41:15]:
Thank you. So I have one final question. I asked my guests. Have you watched. Have you ever watched my podcast?

James Bilotta [00:41:20]:
All the way.

Steven Swan [00:41:22]:
All the way through the end.

James Bilotta [00:41:23]:
Probably

Steven Swan [00:41:26]:
you'll remember this then. I'm a music guy. I like music. I like.

James Bilotta [00:41:29]:
Oh, yeah, okay.

Steven Swan [00:41:30]:
Yeah, you remember this.

James Bilotta [00:41:31]:
Okay.

Steven Swan [00:41:32]:
I like going to see live shows, and I like live music. So what I like to ask my guests just to give them, you know, a personal. To give anybody that wants to watch it all the way to the end, a personal flair. Flavor of. Of who James. James Bilotta is. So if you've ever seen concerts and you go to live shows, what in your. In your entire life has ever been your favorite live show or your favorite live concert that you've ever seen?

James Bilotta [00:41:53]:
So I went to Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, and, you know, he had a couple other guests, Jake Owen and somebody else. I forget. In Foxborough Stadium, you know, years ago. Like, years ago again. And it was just. We had great seats. We were right up front, and it was just an absolutely incredible show. It was a full day.

James Bilotta [00:42:15]:
It was like in. You know, it was just a wonderful experience. So it was outdoors, you know, it's just middle of summer. Just. Just incredible show. And I think, you know, it's probably the last show I've been to actually, but, you know, serve pre kids. But it was just really an amazing, amazing experience. We had a.

James Bilotta [00:42:33]:
We had a wonderful time.

Steven Swan [00:42:34]:
I remember when I was in college, I went to BU and we were going down to Foxborough to see the Stones in the late 80s.

James Bilotta [00:42:42]:
Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:42:42]:
I was the only one without a ticket. I couldn't. I couldn't even scalp a ticket. Yeah, it never got in. I had to hang in the parking lot while everybody else was inside. I could not get in. It was crazy. Yeah.

Steven Swan [00:42:52]:
Back then it was called Foxborough. Now it's Gillette, I think.

James Bilotta [00:42:55]:
And I saw Garth Brooks in Central Park. That was amazing. Really? Yeah, it's free show. It was amazing. Yeah, we live in New York.

Steven Swan [00:43:00]:
You guys see the 10,000 maniacs back in the early 90s or something, you know, so, anyway, cool. Well, thank you very much. You're a country guy. Good to know.

James Bilotta [00:43:11]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Swan [00:43:14]:
Well, thank you. Hang with me a minute here, okay?

James Bilotta [00:43:16]:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again.