Hello, Hello, hello. Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast from Pushkin Industries,

I Heart Radio, and IBM. I'm Malcolm Glowwell. This season we're continuing our

conversations with new creators, visionaries who are creatively applying

technology and business to drive change, but with a focus on the transformative power of artificial intelligence

and what it means to leverage AI as a game-changing multiplier for your business.

On this special bonus episode of Smart Talks, Tim Harford, host to the Pushkin

Podcast, Cautionary Tales, sat down for a conversation with two leaders forging new ways of working together, encouraging collaboration to better serve clients.

Shrini Vassen, Bentakarajan, is the director of global partner business, supervising Azure Data and AI, as well as Azure

Open AI at Microsoft.

He's a leading thinker behind digital transformation, business growth, and strategic innovation.

And Chris McGuire is general manager of the Global Microsoft Partnership for IBM Consulting.

He is responsible for driving IBM Consulting's strategic alignment and collaboration with

Microsoft, bringing clients the technologies they need with a focus on hybrid cloud and AI. They talked to Tim about the efforts of IBM and

Microsoft in the generative AI space. We're just at the beginning of

understanding what generative AI can create for customers, businesses, and the broader world.

This collaboration forward model will expand the impact of AI, allowing innovation to thrive. Let's dive in.

Chris Shrini,

welcome both of you. Thank you so much for joining me.

Tell me a little bit about your roles. Shrini, maybe you first. Just tell me a little bit about

what you do at Microsoft. So I have about 27 years of experience in the tech and consulting services

industry and in these 27 years I've had the privilege of

leading the charge in driving digital transformation business growth and

...