Dr. Ashwin Ram is Director of AI in the Office of the CTO for Google Cloud. He focuses on bringing Google AI to the world through deep personalized engagement with the leadership of top companies to reimagine their businesses by leveraging the power of AI. He also works with Google’s AI teams to drive new technologies and capabilities that address customer needs.

Ashwin is a distinguished AI researcher, technologist, and entrepreneur. Prior to Google, Ashwin was Senior Manager of AI Science for Amazon Alexa. He led cross-functional R&D initiatives to create advanced Conversational AI technologies for intelligent agents, including the university-facing Alexa Prize competition.

Before that, Ashwin managed the Interactive Intelligence research area at Xerox PARC, creating PARC’s Digital Health program and leading a team to invent new behavior change technologies to help people adopt healthier lifestyles. He was a professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and director of the Cognitive Computing Lab and is now an adjunct professor there. He has co-founded multiple startups, including OpenStudy (acquired by Brainly), an online social learning network, and Enkia (acquired by Sentiment360), which developed AI software for social media applications.

Ashwin specializes in connecting science, technology, product, and business. He received his PhD from Yale University in 1989, his MS from University of Illinois in 1984, and his BTech from IIT Delhi in 1982. He has published two books and over 100 scientific articles in international forums. He is an experienced public speaker and has given several keynotes, distinguished lectures, and a TED talk.

He is a closet anthropologist and loves travel, people, and culture.