We recently had the privilege of interviewing Aanchal Gupta, Founder of Agents Stack. Passionate about technology and innovative solutions, Aanchal empowers organizations to unlock their true human potential. With hands-on experience with emerging tech and Fortune 500 companies, her expertise is unmatched when it comes to solving complex business issues and improving processes. With innovation at its core, Agents Stack by Aanchal Gupta is empowering businesses to adapt to the evolving market dynamics and customer requirements.
Spark Behind the Journey
We started the session by asking, “Brief us about your professional journey. What inspired you to leave a successful corporate career and launch Agents Stack?”
Aanchal shared, “Starting Agents Stack was mostly an opportune timing with customers struggling to solve tough problems on efficiency in Asia, and me having spent my career in digital transformations and cybersecurity. AI was the trigger point as it made coding too easy which is something I never felt super excited for, unlocking the biggest problems to be solved faster. I have always been a very curious kid and have done many side hustles as a startup since my college days. This is the first one leaving my job and starting full-time as the big vision seems realistic to achieve with the team and family support.”
The Art of Balancing
Interested to learn more about the offerings by Agents Stack, we asked Aanchal Gupta, “Brief us about the company and its services. How does your firm balance cutting-edge AI with governance and ethical responsibility?”
She explained, “Agents Stack has defined the use cases that are focused on solving the high-impact use cases with data and AI that drives operational and resource efficiency in an OT environment with sustainability and security at the data layer itself, enabling it by design. The team in place comes with decades of experience in each domain and has an in-depth understanding of the governance of data and AI.”
Navigating through Challenges
Challenges are an inevitable part of professional growth and the evolution of the journey. So, we asked Aanchal Gupta, “What personal challenges did you face during your transition to entrepreneurship, and how did they influence the culture at Agents Stack?”
“Agents Stack started with a big vision with a great team joining together to solve the real tough problems. Building this meant switching roles at home to be able to commit the time, and with both my husband and me being entrepreneurs, the first few months have been tough on work-life balance with kids, team, and bootstrapping the business. It’s an internal transformation for the family, and that’s the slowest of all. Navigating it while building the team is an experience that has likely added an extra layer of resilience for the future,” explained Aanchal.
Targeting the Overlooked Sectors
Agents Stack focuses on sectors often overlooked in digital transformation. We asked Aanchal Gupta to share the reason behind choosing to target infrastructure-heavy industries like utilities, mining, and manufacturing.
“The potential to make an impact on operational and resource efficiency in these industries is absolutely massive. I have spent my career working in the traditional industries, and change management is what keeps these industries slow to move. Building an external team of consultants coupled with AI to solve the biggest data and resource problems can have an ROI of billions of dollars and a huge impact on climate, which is the need of the hour. The team in place comes with the best experience to solve it. These Industries are also hard hit by cyberattacks, where I have spent half of my career, and would like to solve it by design with simplified solutions built for the users,” she mentioned.
Driving Collaboration across the Team
We further asked, “You’ve built a team that blends senior experts with creative thinkers—how do you foster alignment across such diverse talent?”
Sharing her strategies, Aanchal mentioned, “It hasn’t been easy, we have put the structure and design along with AI automated platforms to drive the collaboration, efficiency, and visibility across the organization. We have not fully attained yet, but are on the way to building it well removing chaos.”
Leveraging ESG principles at Agents Stack
Interested to learn more about the strategies adopted by Aanchal Gupta’s company to blend ESG principles, we asked, “How does Agents Stack integrate ESG principles into its consulting portfolio?”
“ESG is essentially getting visibility of the data across the organization and supply chain across Tier 1,2,3,4 suppliers. We are trying to hit ESG principles by design by bringing the data visibility through a tech platform to solve labor and land rights, biodiversity, raw material sourcing, fuel, water, Utility consumption by machines, and more, through IOT and software with AI agents enabling real-time monitoring,” she responded.
Embracing Innovation at Agents Stack
To learn more about the innovative practices undertaken by the company, we asked, “What innovations are you driving in cybersecurity resilience and digital trust for critical Infrastructure?”
“Enabling remote access of Critical Infrastructure, removing TCP/IP layer with AES encryption, addresses data visibility across internal infrastructure or end points, and real-time network monitoring for anomalies, pretesting, and load testing to test code, preventing vulnerabilities are some of the offerings for Cyber Resiliency,” she added.
Aligning with National Vision
We further asked Aanchal Gupta to throw light on Agents Stack’s contribution to national digital agendas like Singapore’s Smart Nation or Thailand 4.0.
Aanchal explained, “Agents Stack is a full-stack AI consulting firm with a heavy focus on AI innovation for smart Manufacturing and digital trust and Cyber resilience, which is paramount in transformation. Thailand is becoming the manufacturing hub for global companies. We sit at the forefront of AI with an ESG focus and work with innovative companies on Supply Chain efficiency and tiered mapping to ensure a smooth and efficient global trade.
Singapore has inherently been more sustainable than the rest of the world and is focused on Digital trust and Sustainable financing, where we come in as Consulting partners for the SMEs or Critical Infrastructure to drive awareness on Governance and compliance for global trade.”
Fostering Local Talent
We also asked, “What role does local talent play in your regional expansion strategy across ASEAN?”
She added, “It’s paramount for countries to build local talent bases and reskill the labour with the fast changes that AI is bringing. Every country has its priority focus areas on the skills needed, and we are working with the local bodies or the University on prioritizing those skills like Cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing, or AI.”
Empowering with AI
Agents Stack aims to empower 100 million industrial workers with AI by 2029. We requested Aanchal Gupta to share her plan to achieve the same.
She reflected, “60% of the population in Asia alone are frontline workers. On average, the Govt tender for power transformation projects needs 2000-3000 people for a project at the grassroots level to run the data collection as well as technical skills. If you count the number of factories or mines and multiply by that number, it’s easy to generate 100M jobs driving AI projects with a security and sustainability focus. Security by design will mean remote access to critical infrastructure, and sustainability will mean driving energy efficiency across all Industries, whether Power transformation or manufacturing facilities.”
Envisioning the Future
To learn more about the plans Aanchal Gupta has for Agents Stacks, we posed the question, “How do you envision the future? What are your and the company’s goals in the next 5 years?”
“If the Government and Enterprises collaborate with the best talent on AI across the world, everyone will be working on the right use cases of AI, driving efficiency and improvement in everything we do daily. Agents Stack intends to be 100% remote enabling people to live and work from anywhere. It will make the emerging countries more livable with reduced pollution levels, more sustainable with better fitness levels through ML/AI solutions in early detection of diseases, and better harmony living with wildlife, like the world was 40 years back when we grew up as kids.
Inclusive excellence is one of the goals where we strive to drive diversity at all levels in the company regardless of experience, nationality, or gender. Eventually, I would love to work on sustainable tourism and wildlife preservation for a better and equitable living for all,” mentioned Aanchal.
A Quote that Resonates
Lastly, we asked, “What is that one quote you absolutely live by or find helpful?”
“Try for the best and be prepared for the worst,” Aanchal concluded.
To learn more, follow Aanchal Gupta on LinkedIn, and visit Agents Stack on their website https://agentsstack.com/.
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