In this interview Avi Arya discusses the breakneck speed of AI development and its disruptive impact on traditional business processes. He recounts a recent encounter with a conversational‑AI startup (Bodhi/Bodee) that used an AI‑driven sales agent to close a $8 million funding round, illustrating how AI can now negotiate and close deals faster than humans. Arya critiques the “wait‑and‑watch” mindset, emphasizing that companies must actively experiment with AI—especially as new large language models from China and smaller open‑source models emerge—to avoid being left behind. He then reveals his own upcoming products: askaviarya.ai, a personal knowledge‑capture assistant that fields any team question, and agencyfounder.ai, a subscription service that delivers his coaching and insights at scale, automatically updating as he learns. Throughout, Arya stresses pattern recognition, rapid iteration, and the importance of being a player rather than a spectator in the AI race.
Chapters
So what you're saying is what's happened is an applicant tracking system that's going through, let's say, resumes and, you know, applications on the job side is now going to be applied to a whole new industry and can actually become disruptive in the space.
6 weeks from today, do you see? That's because I am— I discovered it yesterday. I'm sure there are many people who already know it. So I was in Vancouver and I was, you know, I was like, I can't sit at home, I can't sit at home, very restless. I'm like, what should I do? Because I am— we still are 112+ people and I still need to tell them what the next step is going to be. So there's a friend of mine who is an acquaintance of mine who met me and he said that he tweets AI for large companies. So I said, booked a meeting with him, I went and he told me things are changing so fast, so don't try to do anything right now because if you build a product or whatever, it's going to get redundant. He said hundreds of thousands of companies are investing millions each and getting redundant because things are too fast. So just observe. So what the holy namaste. So I started digging more. There's a company, shit, how do I forget the name, Bodee. So Bodee, the founders, I think 2 founders, they came up with an app. It's a conversational AI because first is this, sab nahi se veni ka HR ho khaa. I keep this conversation. The third day the video will come and say, hi, I'm the HR head of Interim Brokers and how can I help you. So these guys went to the conversational level and they said, this guy can close your sales for you, any company, anything. So they went to raise $4 million from somebody and the guy said that, okay, I'll test it out. So he said, fine, this is the number, call Bodee and then back and forth conversation. So after a few days they said, we love Bodhi, we want to invest, you come. So these people went. While Bodhi don't have Neha Banerjee with them, they went to the office and when they were going up Bodhi called them and said that— Bodhi called the founders and said, where are you? He said, we've reached here. He said, don't go. He said, why? He said, we're going to close the deal for 4 million. Bodhi said, don't worry, I've closed it for 8 million. TechCrunch has news that AI has closed app deal 2x of what the founders were going to do.
That is just— insane.
It's closed a deal.
And we're talking about— we talked about sales now. I always said that, okay, the sales guy seems safe in the wall.
Sales guy, and we are talking about workflows, Zoom automation. Just imagine. Yeah, that's the— that's what's exciting.
I think the pace we work, you know, moving at is, is insane. I think it's very interesting also that you mentioned that there are some people who want to sit and wait. They're like, right now is not the right time, things evolving, you know. Now we, of course, you know, got a and the Chinese LLMs coming, and, you know, then you've got, you know, even the smaller, you know, language models coming in. So a lot of people still want to play the wait-and-watch game, and I think which is what is interesting when you said that, you know, jump in, you know, get your hands dirty, you never know, you know, what's really going to happen. And a lot of people are just sitting on the fences, and I always say, you know, spectators always pay and the players get very— so I think you need to be in the game. I think that's very important.
Yeah, so that's what we— so now, you know, as you grow and you become towards 50, you have pattern recognition that becomes your expertise, I assume. So I remember when I did Cheap Tickets India when I was in my early 20s, or when I did Internet Moguls, I was just feeling excited and I'm feeling the same feeling, so I just have to go for it now. There's no logic, logic baad me aayega. So what we are building, which should be launched in the next 3 to 6 weeks, is askaviarya.ai. So none of my team members have to ever ask me any question, and then I'll be building agencyfounder.ai. So if you can't pay me 2 lakhs an hour for my coaching, then you pay me 2 lakhs per year for agencyfounder.ai. I think, yeah.
And all your insights and knowledge, everything's captured, going to be updated.
Yeah, because after this conversation, it's going to be— I'm going to be having a variable here, right? And I discuss something with you, it'll pick up this one new, it'll update agency. agencyfounder.ai automatically. So if you're paying 2 lives a year, you're paying for an updated version of what I'm learning. I'm learning and disseminating its information. And it's so cheap, it's so cheap, and it's so easy to do, it's not even fun. Right.
So of course, you spend a lot of time traveling, you know, between the US, Canada, India, all of that as well. Do you think adoption of AI
