Thursday, May 7, 2026
George Gvishiani
From AI Hype to Adoption: What Actually Works in Organizations
Open-source projects like OpenClaw have generated enormous buzz by showing what personal AI agent systems can do. Steve Smith (WG'98) started there, building his first version on OpenClaw before migrating to Claude Code to unlock full access to Anthropic's most powerful model, Opus 4.6. The result is Project Ollie: a multi-agent AI system running on a $600 Mac Mini that operates his consulting practice 24/7 with 13 specialized agents scanning emails, generating intelligence briefings, tracking prospects, and delivering executive summaries before he wakes up each morning. In this talk, Steve will compare the open-source experimentation model with a custom-built system running in production, walk through the architecture and security decisions that bridge the gap between "cool demo" and "I trust this with my clients," and share practical lessons for any professional thinking about what autonomous AI systems can do for their work right now.
Stephen (Steve) Smith WG'98
Stephen Smith is the CEO of Intelligence by Intent, an AI strategy advisor and trainer. He has delivered AI training and strategic guidance to over 1,000 organizations, with a focus on practical adoption, governance, and measurable ROI. His approach emphasizes hands-on implementation over theory, helping leadership teams identify high-impact AI use cases and build internal capabilities for sustained adoption.
Smith brings over 25 years of executive leadership experience to his AI advisory work, including serving as CFO at multiple organizations and as SVP of Revenue Operations at 8x8, where he helped scale operations from $300M to $600M+ in revenue. His background includes Strategy Partner roles at IBM Global Services and TCG Advisors, where he developed growth strategies for Fortune 100 technology companies. This combination of C-suite financial acumen and deep AI expertise enables him to align technology initiatives with strategic business objectives.
Smith holds an MBA from the Wharton School (WG’98) at the University of Pennsylvania and writes the Intelligence by Intent newsletter at smithstephen.com.
