Denzil Eden: Using AI To Transform Work

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Denzil Eden, founder & CEO of Smarty, an AI-powered productivity assistant. With degrees in computer science & AI from MIT & an MBA from Harvard, Denzil has been at the frontier of harnessing AI's potential to transform work. She has held roles in engineering & product management and is now the founder & CEO of Smarty.

The pair discuss her founder journey as a solo technical female, how to provide advice for startups navigating economic uncertainty, insights on how she sees AI continuing to shape the future of work over the next decade, & practical tips for founders & professionals to help them start implementing today to enhance productivity.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

I started coding at 8 years old & fell in love with building. That passion stayed with me & I enrolled at MIT where my passion thrived. I got a degree in computer science & did a Masters in human computer interactions building an app like Slack for classrooms. I thought that being a founder wasn’t for me, that I wanted more stability & I’m not sure where that mindset came from. I explored a lot of different careers & eventually went to business school to round out my education, while there the idea for Smarty came to me.
This is the time to develop your AI literacy, to play around with AI tools, to understand how they think, work & how they can make your life better, how they can augment the work that you’re doing. We’re in such an early period of what technologies & tools are going to come out with AI, but the faster you start immersing yourself in that world the sooner you’ll be able to understand how to prompt/talk to/leverage an AI tool.
There’s a lot that goes into responsible & ethical AI, we should be attributing where the data is coming from for these AI tools, the original artists should get credit, there should be some sort of system to track who was the original creator of a piece of work. On the other side, a lot of artists are standing on the shoulders of giants that came before them in terms of being inspired by things that came before & trying to create something new from that. I think AI tools can help speed up that process of experimenting with their own work.
I’ve learned so much over my founders path & specifically about being a woman in AI, because AI is so based on previous data it’s been fed, it’s really important to provide AI tools with diverse sources of data. What I’m seeing right now in the AI space is there are no female speakers at events. Not just gender, but source of information need to be diverse in race, culture, socio-economic class, diversity is fundamental to the way AI works.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I was overwhelmed in most areas of my life & I realised that the majority of the things I was doing & had on my plate could be easily automated with existing technology, so I started building Smarty for myself.’

‘I use the same pitch I started with in 2018, but the appetite for the pitch is so different today. It shows you that timing is everything. Don’t be dissuaded, have internal drive over external validation.’

‘I think AI is going to be a transformational tool in every industry, every job from tech to farming to music. It’s such a magical time & I’m very excited to be part of that movement.’

‘You don’t have to understand the ‘black box’ of an AI tool & how it works, you just have to learn how to use it & in 5-10 years’ time you’ll be the expert.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Denzil Eden is the founder & CEO of Smarty, an AI-powered productivity assistant that helps professionals plan their days & automate mundane tasks. A trailblazer as a solo female technical founder, Denzil earned degrees in computer science & AI from MIT before getting her MBA from Harvard.

Denzil has an extensive background in technology and entrepreneurship. She started coding at age eight & has worked as a software engineer, product manager, & now founder and CEO.

Denzil has been at the forefront of harnessing AI to transform everyday work life for over 5 years through Smarty. Backed by Pear VC and other investors, Smarty has helped thousands achieve peak productivity by creating structured routines, automating administrative tasks, & maximizing time efficiency. When she's not using technology to make people's lives easier, you can find Denzil playing piano, writing sci-fi stories, or searching for the perfect cup of tea.

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.