The GenAI Collective

The GenAI Collective began back in February as a small group of friends gathering in a cozy San Francisco living room to discuss the week’s latest news and advancements in AI. I don’t think any of us expected these conversations to grow beyond this intimate setting. And in many ways, it hasn’t! Yes, this group of friends has grown a little in size and heart, but the passion and purpose remains the same! This community was founded on the belief that the most meaningful connections are made when exploring a shared curiosity together, and that meaningful relationships lead to meaningful outcomes. Bring exceptional people together in purposeful ways and INCREDIBLE things happen! 🤩 Thank you to EVERYONE who has helped make the GenAI Collective’s first ten months and 50 events possible! • Organizers: Chappy Asel, Pierce Kelaita, Stephen Campbell, Amin Akhtar, Mihir Somaiya, Thomas Joshi, Haroun Ahmed, Kirill Skobelev, Matt Huang, Eric Fett, Aqeel A., Matt White, Weber W., Gavin M. Doughtie, Rui Ma, Yang Tang, and Coco Chen! • Repeat discussion group leaders: Sam Iglesias, Casey A. Fitzpatrick, Dan Klempay, Claire Xue, Brad Dressler, Steven Echtman, and Karan Grewal! • Partners and friends: Ramsey Salah-Mars, Nosayaba Okungbowa, Brittany Carambio, Tevon Strand-Brown, Ryan Fauber, Valentina Escudero, May Wang, Dr. Megan Ma, Jay Mandal, James Le, Arun Gupta, Gregory Raiz, Angela Brown, Zubin Bharti Mittal, Derick En'Wezoh, MD, MBA, and so many more that we couldn't mention because of LinkedIn's cap! 🥲 Our hearts seriously could not be more full of appreciation and gratitude right now. What an exciting time we are living in and here’s to an exponential 2024! 🫶 P.S. This is a true labor of love and we are always looking to involve new leaders who share our passion for community building. If this sounds like you, please get in touch! 😄

✍ Our 21st newsletter is live where our very own Eric Fett and Aqeel A. break down California's new AI bill, SB-1047. We encourage our community to give it a read and explore how this groundbreaking legislation could shape the future of AI development and responsible innovation. Thoughts? #AIRegulation #TechPolicy Read more 👇

We’re back in Stanford for a gathering about multimodal models. In lieu of structured discussion groups, enjoy a variety of thought-provoking conversations at your own pace. RSVP here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ec5Jye5h Full events calendar 📆 https://lu.ma/gaico

🎞 Are you an AI enthusiast AND a film buff? 📽 Join the GenAI Collective for an exciting dive into the latest in AI VideoGen! Our classic living room discussions are back with a fun twist: “Guess the Prompt” 🤔. Winner gets a prize! 🏆 RSVP here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ep5nRGVH Full events calendar 📆 https://lu.ma/gaico

More than 80 events and 12,000 members since 2023! And we're just getting started... https://lnkd.in/gvGaixQ8 Congrats to Chappy Asel Stephen Campbell and the growing team!

Join The GenAI Collective and AI professionals from diverse communities on July 11 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the San Francisco Microsoft Reactor. Register here for free. https://lnkd.in/gYQrTDG2 Hear guest speakers and panelists discuss how they are using AI in the job market, developing inclusive AI programs and tools that promote diversity, and how diversity and inclusion benefit everyone. Come ready to eat, drink, converse, and network! Speakers include Chappy Asel, Stephen Campbell, Anthony Garcia, Marcus Sawyerr, Alex Bernardin, Alexander López, Audrey Galo, Zariah C., Dr. Keita Broadwater, MBA, Jennifer Arguello, Arjun Arora, Yehong Zhu. #AI #Diversity #Inclusion #Tech #SanFrancisco #GenAICollective

🚀 We took it to the NEXT LEVEL with Thursday’s SF Demo Spectacular!! 🚀 Following an exclusive deep tech VC panel led by Lisa Yu to kick us off, we had 50+ early-stage AI companies apply for the chance to ENTER THE ARENA 🏟️, demoing to and receiving feedback from 250+ attendees!! 🧑💻 FEATURED COMPANIES • AUR+A Networking: a face recognition and AR app for event organizers and attendees (Josephine Declerck) • LearnQuantum: AI-native physics engine (Richa Sharma) • Advex AI : Solve Data. Solve AI. (Pedro Pachuca) • just words: Next-gen AI marketing platform to scale hyper-personalized messaging (Neha Mittal) • mutable.ai: Creates codebase documentation and keeps it up to date using AI (Maxwell Siegelman) • Agentplace / Machinet.net: Agentic websites. A website that is a GPT model (Uladzislau Yanchanka) • SpeedLegal: Review contracts and find issues for non-lawyers (Hans Paul Pizzinini) • Commune AI: Deploy and serve ML models in one line of code (Rohan Sreerama) • Andi: your AI brain for organizing the web and smashing information overload (Jed W.) • MultiOn: Personal AI agents that revolutionize how we interact with the digital world (Div Garg) At the end of the night, we held a community vote for the best demos to be immortalized in the Demo Night Hall of Fame! (check out demos.genaicollective.ai) After nearly 500 votes, here are the winners! 🗳️ 🏅 AWARD WINNERS • 🎨 Best Design: MultiOn • 🤖 Best Technology: Advex AI • 🏆 Best Overall: SpeedLegal This event would not have been the incredible success it was without the active participation of ~literally everyone~ in attendance who submitted nearly 1,000 pieces of invaluable feedback to the demoists! 🤩 This is only the beginning of what we hope becomes one of SF's most legendary monthly event series! And remember the GenAI mantra, this is the worst it's ever going to be... Stay tuned for another exciting announcement of our next demo night in mid-August!! 👀

Incredible turnout for our DeepTech VC panel for SF #DeepTech week with The GenAI Collective! With 849 RSVPs and capacity for the first 250 people, we packed the house! I co-hosted and moderated a panel to discuss DeepTech and how startups are leveraging AI to accelerate technological advancements and scientific discovery. Thank you to my panelists! -> Matt Caspari from Alumni Ventures -> Jeremiah Owyang from Blitzscaling Ventures -> Bogdan Cristei 🇷🇴🇪🇺🇺🇸 from SHACK15 Ventures -> Ryan Cunningham from SHACK15 Ventures Looking forward to future conversations! ~Lisa Yu, 99VC

I had the pleasure of attending The GenAI Collective SF Demo Spectular last night at SHACK15. I honestly wish I could go to more pitches, the energy is electric. Congratulations to SpeedLegal for winning the night! My dear friend Hans Paul Pizzinini is one of the most dedicated and hardworking individuals I know in the Bay Area, and his laser focus on driving his company's success is truly inspiring. (For anyone looking to invest, happy to arrange a warm introduction 😉) In a nice full circle moment, it was also great to see how far the The GenAI Collective has come. From its humble beginnings in a Mountain View apartment, it's now filling glam SF venues and expanding its community. This growth is a testament to the vision and hard work of Chappy Asel, Steve Campbell, and everybody else involved from the early days. Peter Mullen, you were there in those apartments - what a journey right? And we're still going! Swipe to see a throwback photo from the early days of The GenAI Collective!

Incredible insights from our Builders Roundtable on Fine-Tuning LLMs with OctoAI! Make sure to check out the recording for the full discussion!