An Architect of Excellence: Building in Enterprise AI with Oracle's Cait Moran

Khullani Abdullahi (00:01.176) Good afternoon or good morning whenever you are listening to this podcast. Welcome to the AI in Chicago podcast. I'm your host, Khullani Abdullahi, the founder of TechniAI, a Chicago-based AI governance, risk compliance, and strategy firm. AI in Chicago spotlights operators, builders, and thinkers across our great city, scaling applied AI throughout the Midwest and the world. Each episode delivers practical stories and actionable insights. empowering leaders to think about and use AI minus all the hype. I'm so pleased and excited to welcome today Kate Moran, the Senior Director at Oracle's AI Office Center of Excellence, a leader who's shaping Oracle's global strategy for enterprise AI and generative capabilities. Kate brings over 15 years of experience in data science, cloud architecture, and international team building. She is known for launching Oracle's first production generative AI applications, delivering high impact executive workshops worldwide, and bridging technical complexity with executive strategy. Today, you'll be fortunate to hear her insights on Oracle's approach to applied AI, how AI is transforming enterprise operations, fueling talent development, setting new benchmarks for innovation. So whether you're a business leader, a technologist, or an AI enthusiast, you're going to benefit from hearing directly from one of the leaders of the world's top AI ecosystems, a strategic leader with experience across academia, enterprise, and startups. Kate, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Cait Moran (01:39.971) Thank you so much, Kalani. That was an amazing introduction. I appreciate that. Khullani Abdullahi (01:43.978) Of course, of course. I did want to give you a little room to introduce yourself. So I always like to kick things off with your origin story. And so your origin story that helped you arrive at this point, right? So if you take a step back and you kind of reflect on Kate Moran's story, you've done everything from hands on engineering to education, technical education work. Today, you're leading Oracle's AI Center of Excellence. Mind you, companies are still developing AI Centers of Excellence and know they need it. So here you are leading one. Walk us through your journey. Tell us about how your education and your different work experiences have led to this moment where your work is globally relevant. Cait Moran (02:36.623) Okay, okay, that's a big one. Let's see, so. My perspective since the very beginning, since I was a little girl, has really been living at this intersection of art and science. And it sounds a little bit cliche whenever I bring that forward, but it's so true and relevant in my life because it's this intersection because I've always been in this tension of do I pick one or the other? And... Khullani Abdullahi (02:52.59) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (03:08.303) picking one or the other never felt completely right for me. And that goes all the way back to where I kind of started my education as well. So after a lot of kind of even like self-reflection on different personality tests, getting to know myself, it also had, I had data to kind of back that up of kind of who I am was this bridge of kind of technical precision with this creative vision and where I've been having conflict and finding my career journey. So. That's kind of where the spark and where I had to identify that within myself. And then looking back at kind of where I started to where I am today, I kind of see that through a couple of different life eras. So starting kind of at the phase one is the kind of that engineering mindset and that discoverability within myself. I started, I'm originally from Florida, Tampa, Florida, and went to my undergrad at UCF and University of Central Florida, which was big engineering. ecosystem or tangible mechanical and aerospace engineering. So I thought I was going to be a mechanical and engineering, you know, out in Lockheed Martin or something like that. And through that ecosystem in the education system there, I didn't quite fit in, Kalani. It was very, very tough for me getting started in the university ecosystem and kind of Khullani Abdullahi (04:19.542) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (04:26.978) Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. Cait Moran (04:35.919) playing into the things that I knew and loved at the time. And so that kind of caused me to course correct a little bit during my early education where I discovered programming. And it was kind of this way that I found of bringing to life from a technical standpoint, this digital building, and just fell in love with solving these kind of technical backend problems. Khullani Abdullahi (04:46.882) Yeah. Cait Moran (05:03.311) but I also had this drive and desire for this front end beauty and intrigue that I wanted to bring to the world. And so when I found kind of my footing in this tech landscape, back then it was very new. There was no kind of world of startups and things like that. And that's where I first started. this was the very beginning. Khullani Abdullahi (05:08.288) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (05:21.016) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. This was even before full stack development was a term, right? Yeah, we're dating ourselves here, but no one can tell. No one can tell. Cait Moran (05:33.515) Okay, there was... I... Exactly. And so that was this new exciting thing that was primordial in a sense. And I saw that and I wanted to be a part of it. And so I took my first steps. It was actually a program called Startup Weekend. And I pitched and got a good feedback and won the startup competition and blah, blah. And so That is where I kind of had the first initial spark. And that was kind of my engineering era, right after college, went and got a job in programming. And that's what I thought I was going to do. And then I went into my next phase of which I call my builder era. And this is the era that I was kind of after my studies, did my, my, the, my degree at the time was called a digital media, internet and interactive systems, because it wasn't right. The traditional computer science. Khullani Abdullahi (06:31.458) Yeah. Yes. Cait Moran (06:34.211) but whatever that white space was of what was coming next for the internet and programming. And so once I kind of got my footing, got my first jobs in that space and whatnot, I'm always looking towards what next. I spent that next phase, what I say is like kind of mastering the fundamentals. The fundamentals is where Khullani Abdullahi (06:36.768) Yes. Right. Khullani Abdullahi (06:56.76) Okay. Cait Moran (07:01.697) what this concept for myself that I can say that I really fell in love with. And so that tangibly was an kind of infrastructure, technical infrastructure, things like mobility, how we move from one place to the other, mathematics, data, all of these hidden systems that we have that power our industries is where I kind of found myself and where the domains that I shaped and what was what that was. Khullani Abdullahi (07:26.029) Right. Cait Moran (07:32.161) Once I kind of found that this label for myself of I love mastering the fundamentals, I then progressed into what I call my leader era. And that's where I had the opportunities in these different companies that I was working for ecosystems to was recognized as an authority and can communicate and lead people and earned respect. And I developed my leadership style. I blended a lot of kind of Khullani Abdullahi (07:38.328) Yes. Cait Moran (08:02.679) My authority from a deep technical lens, marrying that with what's happening with the people dynamics of, of execution. always scanning the horizon as a leader, right? Where are we going and asking those questions? And then having that mindset of zero to one, how do we start at ground zero and how do we make something from nothing? That. catapulted me into what I say my era is right now is kind of that architect of excellence, right? How do we then take, have all of those different phases of my life to bring into an environment that's ready to do something, but not sure what, and being able to sense what's And so building the trust. Khullani Abdullahi (08:37.944) you Khullani Abdullahi (08:57.784) Right. Cait Moran (09:01.785) building them, how do we execute at scale? How do we, we know we want to go the direction, this direction, but how? And architecting what that looks like in conjunction with humans and technology. And then doing that at the explosion of the AI era that we're in now is kind of how this has evolved for me and where I've ended up today. Khullani Abdullahi (09:05.838) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (09:20.834) Yeah, yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (09:24.972) I love that. So much shared in the journey. I love this phrase, the era of the architect of excellence. think that's extraordinary. and so well put. I want to dive into it a little bit. We'll talk about centers of excellence for AI for organizations. But I think it's clear from your background and your remarks that you as an N of one, as a leader, as an individual, as a human with natural intelligence, not artificial intelligence, you have architected a life. where you have a center of excellence, right? Like Kate Moran has a center of excellence that has allowed her to see trends before they arrive that has allowed her, you to build expertise in the right ways, in the right times, in the right places to think of yourself and your leadership and your skills at these intersections. And there's an entire generation of leaders behind us. How do they do that? What allowed you to do that? you read differently? Do you write differently? Do you speak differently? Do you think differently? Like that. the center of excellence that you've built for your own life that has allowed you to continue to grow and be relevant and to drive value at the scale that you do didn't just happen by accident, right? So what are the personality traits, the defaults, the mental models that have served you throughout your career that have allowed you to do that personally? And then we'll dig into how you're doing that at the enterprise level for an organization like Oracle. But I think there's some parallels there. Cait Moran (11:14.863) Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love this. I think for me, my, okay, actually it is always you find and understand yourself through others. Khullani Abdullahi (11:35.522) Mm. Cait Moran (11:35.927) And I was with one company for about five years and I reached my five year mark and everybody did a little blurb about me and, you know, talked about me. I never heard other people talk about my leadership or anything. And there was this one moment where they used the adjective, our formidable leader. Khullani Abdullahi (11:56.737) Wow. Cait Moran (11:58.671) I had to look up the definition of formidable, right? was like, am I scary? What am I doing? But I took that as the first word that helped me understand my power. And I think understanding that was a catalyst of thought that then brought me back to trying to understand what it is I'm trying to do. Khullani Abdullahi (12:00.362) Yeah, yes, yes, what does this mean? Khullani Abdullahi (12:13.528) Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (12:26.784) Right. Cait Moran (12:26.881) and where my potential in the world is. So finding in myself kind of my potential energy. I look through the lens of energy on everything. And so this kind of intersection of potential and kinetic energy. Okay. And so that to me, Khullani Abdullahi (12:45.848) Yes, yes. Cait Moran (12:51.595) is where the magic happens for my personal self. That's where curiosity lives for myself. I had to find, I think I saw others how others perceived me. Khullani Abdullahi (12:55.566) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (13:03.906) Right. Cait Moran (13:06.157) I knew I always wanted to live up to my full potential. And so tapping into that or knowing how to transform personally my potential energy into kinetic energy within myself and every step of the way on the journey to excellence, being that potential, recognizing that and seeing that Khullani Abdullahi (13:11.693) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (13:19.853) Right. Cait Moran (13:35.819) manifest right into action and movement and how I could unleash that within myself, unleash that with between others, my customers, my partners, my education, my friends, my family and everything. Find that that full spectrum of potential and being able to really be fueled by embracing both the depth I had in terms of Khullani Abdullahi (13:48.557) Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (14:02.862) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (14:05.923) my education, technology, skills, emotions, everything in between, and the height at which I think I personally could go, but then also everyone around me, our business, our tools, our partnerships, our technology, that full range and recognition of that is really where that, I think my definition of excellence comes from. Khullani Abdullahi (14:34.338) that. Let's apply that to how it shows up at Oracle. first tell us, and I assume my audience knows Oracle in the abstract sense. But what does Oracle do? For those members of my audience that don't know Oracle, introduce Oracle at large and then walk us through the AI initiatives at Oracle and how this AI center of excellence plays a role and what role you've played in there and get people up to speed on what AI looks like at a cloud computing and infrastructure company, which is how I think of Oracle, but I'm sure that's not complete. Cait Moran (15:18.617) Yeah, one of the most, okay, so Oracle is a tech company, big tech company that's been around since 70s, long time, okay? So it's one of the first tech companies in the world, creator of the database, did all the movement of the internet and everything in between to where we are today, right? So it's been around for a long time. So who Oracle is has evolved. I think it's fascinating, the journey of the legacy. Khullani Abdullahi (15:25.55) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (15:30.594) Yeah. Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (15:37.409) Right. Cait Moran (15:48.356) that someone like Larry Ellison has built. So Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle. And who we are is really a company that is resilient to an evolution of technology and not only using it or whatnot, we're setting the stage for what's possible. So starting back at it from an infrastructure. Khullani Abdullahi (15:50.819) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (16:13.133) Right. Cait Moran (16:16.601) point of view, right? Something as fundamental as the database. And that technology evolving into a lot of where we play today in what we call Fusion Application. So Fusion Applications is a SaaS product that we built the back office for enterprise businesses around the world, small governments around the world. That's things like customer experience, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, human capital management. And so the back office applications to the world's largest companies, Oracle powers. Now during that evolution, the cloud, right? We transitioned from on-prem to cloud. So for those who don't know, that's just where our servers, our computers, once we're in kind of a warehouse, we now open that out up to rent. Khullani Abdullahi (16:53.74) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (16:59.629) Yes. Cait Moran (17:10.083) rate for people around the world. So that's where we get the cloud infrastructure. So Oracle today is one of the major leading cloud providers in competition with people like Amazon and Google Cloud and Microsoft and whatnot. if you go back on the news history rate, a lot of people will say Oracle was late to the game, the cloud game. Khullani Abdullahi (17:37.558) Interesting. Cait Moran (17:38.978) I think it was personally the biggest advantage that Oracle has because they sat and, well, we watched the triumphs and failures of the industry and got in the game right at the right time and came in with a global mindset. We had already had reach at a global level. And so we were able to quickly, once we make the move into the cloud, we're able to impact. Khullani Abdullahi (17:48.995) Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Cait Moran (18:07.361) across the world now with cloud regions, fastest growing regionalization of our cloud infrastructure across the world. Now, when it comes to AI, it's no secret Oracle is not building the next big model or frontier model. And that's a strategic decision. But what we are doing Khullani Abdullahi (18:09.517) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (18:27.67) Frontier model, right? Right. Cait Moran (18:36.619) is being the partner ecosystem to enable AI. And so we're no longer just focused on what can Oracle do for you, what can the Oracle ecosystem do for you by way of our infrastructure, our applications. And in today, what we have, our latest product this year called AI Studio, AI Agent Studio, where we are becoming the platform Khullani Abdullahi (18:40.174) Right. Right. Khullani Abdullahi (19:03.056) Mmm. Mmm. Cait Moran (19:06.191) form company, right, to enable the acceleration of AI in the enterprise as well as manage all of the infrastructure that powers everybody underneath the hood. Khullani Abdullahi (19:20.194) That's extraordinary. I have a question. My audience knows I sometimes ask questions that are not from the synopsis and background I provide to guests. But I do have a question that your comments made me think of. So one thing that I hear from the companies that I talk to is this fear of investing in enterprise-wide AI strategy. because of the uncertainty, because of some of the moving parts. At Oracle, since you're layering on AI with some of these tried and true solutions, products, and platforms, how easy is it for a company to develop and launch an enterprise-wide AI strategy using Oracle as their backbone and feel confident that in 18 months when ChachiPT 8 is out or some new model is launched that they'll still be able to like meet their business objectives. Cait Moran (20:25.967) So Oracle takes the position of that full range potential by applying it to Oracle ourselves. So we are the definition of, we build our entire company off of our own technology, right? So if it's good enough for Oracle to run our business, it's good enough for others. And that's all the way down from Khullani Abdullahi (20:31.202) Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (20:35.168) Interesting. So you use your product. Khullani Abdullahi (20:47.083) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (20:52.11) That's phenomenal. Cait Moran (20:55.811) You know, the data centers, we're building data centers all over the US right now with, you know, getting the dirt off the ground to build our actual centers to actually running our applications to run our HR department, right? And that's when we talk about that full range potential. And we've had to, it's not really a hard sell anymore on an AI strategy because Khullani Abdullahi (21:06.221) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (21:13.889) Wow. Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (21:22.574) Right. Cait Moran (21:23.999) We are leading by example. Khullani Abdullahi (21:28.086) Wow. You know, it's phenomenal that you answered it that way. One, because I think it's such a, it's a truism that not a lot of companies can say, because without naming names, as you and I sit here, we know of an Android company where the engineers have Apple phones and MacBook Pros. And they are the originators of Android, right? The entire Android operating system. So. Cait Moran (21:44.271) Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (21:54.366) And similarly at some other tech companies. So we know that tech companies don't necessarily use the products they sell. So I think it's common knowledge. So I'll share this. Google's internal team does not use Google Cloud Platform that's available to me. They have a modified internal version that even being certified in Google Cloud Platform would not translate into me being able to work well internally in the Google ecosystem. So I think it's, I don't know how well known it is that Oracle runs on Oracle infrastructure, Oracle products, Oracle processes, that if I'm a customer, I have access. to the technologies that this enterprise company is using. I think that's fantastic story. It's also a story that not every tech company can tell. So to the extent of that, it's not common knowledge. I want my audience to know that and to think about that as they're evaluating enterprise AI partners. That should be a consideration. Cait Moran (23:01.92) And if you think about it that way, if you don't use your own product every day, Khullani Abdullahi (23:03.874) Yeah. Right. Cait Moran (23:08.579) then it's an easy sell, right? It's an easy story. And it's challenging because we have to, this whole kind of since the advent of generative AI, been build, we had to keep the wheels turning and build at the same time and adopt at the same time internally, right? So we're the very first users of the things that we're building. And if we can't do that, we can't expect our customers to do that. Khullani Abdullahi (23:11.991) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (23:24.334) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (23:37.624) Right. Right. Cait Moran (23:38.765) So I think it's the best strategy out there and speaks to kind of sensing when to shift gears, when to take Oracle's late to the cloud game works out so far. And so having that strategy is so important. Khullani Abdullahi (23:53.226) Right. It was a masterful strategy. Khullani Abdullahi (23:59.35) So let's dig into the center of excellence for AI or the AI center of excellence. Center of excellence can mean different things at different organizations. Tell us about this institute within Oracle. How does it operate? Who is a member of it? Who does it serve? How does it serve people? and what your vision is for where it's come from and where maybe it's gonna go in the next 18 months or 24 months. Things are moving so fast. It's like there's a two year enterprise plan and then there's the what are you doing next quarter? Which usually you're not allowed to ask enterprise leaders, but in this era, I think that's valid. What does the end of the year look like for you? Two and a half quarters. So walk us through the center of excellence at Oracle from soup to nuts. Cait Moran (24:53.059) Yeah. So let's say, so how we started really, just to give you a bit of kind of how the center of excellence even came to be is that I originally joined Oracle as a leader in the data science and we were actually building and training models. started with one virtual machine, meaning one server built out an entire machine learning AI infrastructure. Khullani Abdullahi (25:02.573) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (25:17.161) And I built a team of data scientists where we were training and deploying models in production. Okay. The change in introduction of generative AI basically dropped an unexpected bomb into the ecosystem and purview of the adoption of AI machine learning. went from. begging people to please, it's okay, we can put this model out and it's not perfect, or we have to understand, we have to get real-time feedback to do improvements, right? Begging, that begging, all of a sudden went away overnight, where everyone was then knocking at our door to help understand how to adopt tomorrow, right? Yesterday. And so when this shift happened, Khullani Abdullahi (25:48.727) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (25:54.689) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (26:03.224) Right. Yeah. Cait Moran (26:08.175) Um, there was a lot of uncertainty. No one really knew what to do. We didn't know if it was just hype, how long it was going to last, what was going to happen. And so everyone kind of just took a pause on my team to kind of see and ship the shift that was happening. And we waited a few, few months just to kind of get our bearings. Was this just an explosion on LinkedIn? This was 20, 23, I believe it was. Um, Khullani Abdullahi (26:23.747) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (26:30.382) What year was this that you and your team were doing this analysis? Okay. Okay. Cait Moran (26:38.235) And the year before we had just been at an ML summit internally and we had been talking about transformer based architecture. So this is kind of, that was one of the model architectures that catalyzed kind of the algorithmic innovation that happened to allow something like ChatGPT to become mainstream. And so we already had the team that knew all about this. We're doing presentations. Khullani Abdullahi (26:46.04) Yeah. Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (26:54.412) Yes, yes. Yes, yes. So you guys were following that attention is all you need paper. Yes. Okay. Okay. Cait Moran (27:02.515) yes, yes. And turns out attention is all you need. Because all it took was people's attention in the marketing that Chat GPT and the explosion that had happened for people to pay attention to the power that we already knew existed in the kind of solutions and applicability that we were doing with our models. Exactly that. So once we had everybody's attention, we're like, okay, now what are we going to do with them? Khullani Abdullahi (27:07.126) It's all you need. Yes. Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (27:18.989) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (27:24.334) Right. Cait Moran (27:32.618) And we went back to the fundamentals. We went back to who needs help and how can we help you? So there was this very organic transition of we don't know what to do. We know we have to do something, right? We went back to manually gathering data. We had partnerships with LLM providers and we're speaking to them about how we integrate that into our ecosystem. So I led the partnerships between Fusion Applications, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and our LLM partners, and bringing to market and integrating these into the ecosystem. And through that process, we helped anyone and anybody on anything. And it became back into this primordial ooze of Khullani Abdullahi (28:23.138) Yes. Cait Moran (28:23.981) this birth of this new kind of ecosystem of what that looks like in the generative AI era through that. Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (28:30.274) Can I ask when you did, was it a traditional center of excellence and then it transformed into an AI center of excellence? Or did you guys quickly stand one up when the transformer architecture research came out of Google? Like when did it become AI COE? Cait Moran (28:49.963) about eight months in where we were unofficially being excellent, right? To someone pointing the finger and saying, yes, this is what you are. Khullani Abdullahi (28:53.664) Okay. Yes. and saying, this is what you are. How would you characterize the nature of your team before that? Like product and strategy and data, were you kind of like a hybrid team at that time? Cait Moran (29:11.023) We were a team of 10 data scientists, 10 data scientists. Yeah. And I, and I was director at that time leading, um, and delivering models to production. Um, but to go from a mindset of we're not building the models anymore. We're building that around that we still, and it's interesting because a lot of people thought it was, you know, no more data science. don't need any of that. The evaluation of our AI systems is a very much. Khullani Abdullahi (29:13.558) Interesting. Interesting. Khullani Abdullahi (29:21.664) Interesting. Khullani Abdullahi (29:26.559) Right, we're building capabilities. Khullani Abdullahi (29:35.886) Right. Cait Moran (29:41.252) where data science has thrived because it's been at that intersection, right? That tension of the art and the science that was even more important in this kind of new sort of LLMs and how to evaluate how that's going to perform for my use case. And I still need data to test it. And I still need algorithms and methodologies to tell me how well I'm doing. And I still need one. Khullani Abdullahi (29:44.033) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (29:48.502) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (30:03.683) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (30:07.117) right? Cait Moran (30:08.937) need someone to explain that to me and how it works and what's the value of that? What's the story? So we were well positioned at that time. So it was inorganic and on organic and unofficial for about a month, eight months until we said, Hey, we need this. We need some this center of excellence because now these people have, you know, shown that we are able to move something forward, with some level of standard that we need for the enterprise. Khullani Abdullahi (30:14.754) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (30:20.183) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (30:34.691) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (30:38.627) Right. Cait Moran (30:38.903) And so that point forward, we had a formalization of the name given to myself and my team. We brought in other product strategists into there and started scaling, right? Started developing our processes and systems to formalize what we were already doing. Khullani Abdullahi (30:49.793) Wow. Khullani Abdullahi (30:55.884) I just, it just is so mind boggling because I know that for the vast majority of technical data science teams. They do not natively possess the ability to become the enterprise-wide AI strategists and subject matter experts and trainers. Right? So the ability for a team of data scientists and technical leaders to make that shift, to bridge that, like one thing that comes through loud and clear is generosity. You guys were so generous with your time, with your meetings and your enablement of the rest of the organization that independently of the full-time jobs you guys had when someone came to you and said, Kate, I'm in this department doing HR. What is this AI thing and what is my AI strategy? Can you help me? need this data. You guys said yes. And so you became the subject matter experts and the enablement and excellence function. And you were generous with your time and expertise almost a year before your institute was finalized. Tell me about how you were managing your existing workload that your team had to deliver on while all of this was happening and you began to serve your colleagues and other departments across the enterprise in a way that you, I'm assuming, hadn't been serving them. Like how did that come about? Was it teams messages and meetings and people throwing things on your calendar and then you guys just dove in and started building these repeatable systems to enable, what's the origin story of the Center of Excellence? Cait Moran (32:39.833) So it is a bit black and white in terms of we went all in on generative AI as soon as it started to shape up and to see how the markets were being moved by this advent of this new approach to AI machine learning. So it was very early on where we did a very attention all on. So in terms of managing the workload, Khullani Abdullahi (32:45.71) to love. Khullani Abdullahi (32:52.44) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (33:02.765) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (33:06.571) It was almost over a night where the band-aid was ripped and said, park everything here. Our attention is going this direction. Now attention to what we were unsure of. And it started simply by emails of this team needs help doing this. A lot of fear from those partners we were already working with. And Khullani Abdullahi (33:09.452) Wow. Okay. Okay. Khullani Abdullahi (33:19.363) Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (33:25.794) Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (33:30.71) Yes. Cait Moran (33:36.794) becoming a center of gravity. That's what I call it, a center of gravity for us to be the stabilizing force through this change that was occurring and saying, yes, it's a brand new sort of technology and movement for a lot of people. But for us, it's a little bit of a smaller shift in mindset of how we just have to rethink what we're already doing in a different light. Khullani Abdullahi (33:39.202) Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (34:01.718) Right? Right. Cait Moran (34:04.907) Was really just from people kind of saying help. I don't know what to do or we need this No one's assigned, you know on paper to do this and stepping up to the plate when it mattered most and being no ego culture of Yeah, we're back in a spreadsheet right now helping move things along and then moving things emailing a spreadsheet back and forth But that's what it takes That's what it takes so Khullani Abdullahi (34:18.499) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (34:25.42) Yes, yes, yes, because that's what it takes. Yeah. Cait Moran (34:35.023) starting back to, you know, not being married to having to do this advanced, you know, crazy Khullani Abdullahi (34:43.352) print planning and canvass boards and you guys were building too fast to even do that infrastructure, right? Like, yeah. Cait Moran (34:49.679) crumbled so fast. And it was then about breaking down silos. That's all it was. So in a traditional enterprise environment, the siloed kind of infrastructure, even at technical and people level is real. And that's, there's organic reasons for that. This was a complete breaking down all hands on deck. Everyone help each other out and collaborate. Khullani Abdullahi (34:57.792) Yes, interesting. Khullani Abdullahi (35:05.728) Yes, right. Khullani Abdullahi (35:16.108) Yeah. Cait Moran (35:16.907) No ego on the ground. I don't care if you've been here for two months or 20 years. we are back to a level playing field because there's no playbook of what to do in this situation. And we wrote that playbook, brought people in the room that had never been in the same room together. And, and that's how it started. Khullani Abdullahi (35:21.484) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (35:24.884) interesting. Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (35:33.644) I imagine. Khullani Abdullahi (35:38.222) So first of all, I think you should write a book. Because I want to read that story in detail. I think that's a movie also, right? Like it's a whole film. I can see it in my mind, right? I can see the late nights, the people walking into rooms post-COVID, right? Like they haven't met each other before, but they're all grinding. And it's an enterprise organization acting like a startup. Cait Moran (35:41.519) I'll get on that. Cait Moran (36:07.48) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (36:07.84) And it has like that energy, right? So I want to see that movie. I want to see that book. And I share that to say that I won't ask you only about that origin story, even though I'm tempted to. So this is me asking for all the details in a book and I'll help you write it. Walk me through the formalization process and the stakeholder management, the expansion, the scaling, right? Because What I would like my audience to reflect on from this conversation is for people who are similarly situated, maybe you're an enterprise data analytics leader, maybe you're already on the knowledge management, enablement, team excellence side of things. What tactically has to happen? for a small, innovative, scrappy startup-like team in an enterprise organization to end up becoming the enterprise-wide standard and to scale your impact across the organization. Cait Moran (37:15.759) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (37:21.487) Yeah, so there's no secret magic to that other than communication, okay? it goes back to communicating what the issues are, why they're happening, and over-communicating. Khullani Abdullahi (37:29.738) Okay, say more. Cait Moran (37:51.756) even though you're going a hundred miles an hour. Okay. And so from the beginning, we had to have asynchronous communication. this is where I, mean, if I want to put a prediction out there, I don't know how much longer email is going around. We're going to AI native email. We're trying to go to inbox zero on our email, asynchronous communication, which connects back to a lot of international remote teams, right? Is, Khullani Abdullahi (37:54.222) Right. Cait Moran (38:21.235) is the only thing that tactically enabled this, right? So a lot of us are open to this, right? We're starting to experience, everyone has like a Teams or a Slack or anything like that. And I used to think Slack was the problem, right? That like, that we have a million different channels and a million different things and how can I keep track of all of that? But I would say that was the single most enabler of keeping things going 24 seven. Khullani Abdullahi (38:25.802) asynchronous communication. Khullani Abdullahi (38:50.892) Wow. Cait Moran (38:51.239) and having an international and remote teams that are on the clock and we're chugging along 24 seven, right? So that asynchronous communication in the beginning and knowledge sharing was what enabled us to even get the wheels off the ground, right? Getting things going. Past that point, it was about building systems. So then we had kind of scoping out, okay, We can't just go straight to prompt engineering. We have to think about, we still have all of our historical lenses that we need to think of. How are we going to provide business value? What's the business problem, right? So we get so stuck on the tech because it's new and we want to just do it right away. There was this time where we started kind of forgetting we've been all doing this for. Khullani Abdullahi (39:32.781) Right. Cait Moran (39:44.364) know, a long time, we're all professionals that we don't need to abandon all of the learnings that we already have. So we had to keep making sure that between our team and others, that we don't need to throw out everything that we've ever learned or any process. So bringing those back in, but then adding in the new elements, right? In terms of systems and processes is what I'm specifically from, you know, a delivery standpoint. Khullani Abdullahi (39:49.422) Right. Right. Khullani Abdullahi (40:02.05) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (40:12.781) Right. Cait Moran (40:13.219) So making it a little bit less scary that we don't have to just, you know, abandon everything that we have running right now, but how can we start embedding, right? A new, you know, piece of the puzzle in the system. And we went through that, got that running and, and, myself and our team, you know, we hadn't done it before, but we figured it out on the fly and we built partnerships with our early adopters and got their feedback. Khullani Abdullahi (40:22.83) Right. Cait Moran (40:42.095) That's nothing new, right? And so we went back to what we all have learned works, kept that going, built that up. Now, after about a year of success of kind of enabling hundreds and hundreds of people and use cases within our organization, we had the advent of AI agents. just to kind of connect it back through building those systems, leveraging AI ourselves, right in our processes. Like is the thing that helps you scale. If we're going to be saying, we're going to help you build this AI, whatever, but we're not using it. We're not using productivity AI in our productivity ourselves on a day to day basis. It doesn't make sense. So building the systems, embedding, you know, the new pieces of the puzzle. Khullani Abdullahi (41:21.858) Yeah, interesting. Cait Moran (41:40.72) than actually leveraging it ourselves, just in small fundamental ways. We have an internal chat GPT, so secure in terms of what we can use internally at Oracle, but actually leveraging AI on our job to just do the little bits and bobs. And then in the last six to eight months now since the advent of AI agents, which has really taken off in 2025, building agents. Khullani Abdullahi (41:57.666) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (42:05.677) Yes. Cait Moran (42:08.963) to scale what we've already, our knowledge, everything we've, all the documents we've written, all the best practices we've developed, every communications channel that we've used. Now we need to bring that all together. And that's how we position ourselves to scale as an organization and everybody throughout Oracle as well. Khullani Abdullahi (42:09.144) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (42:17.6) All of that knowledge. Khullani Abdullahi (42:35.434) If I'm a new employee at Oracle, how do I interface with your institute? How do I know what you can help me with? How do I make a request? How do I get on the priority list? Because I imagine you get more requests than you have. the bandwidth to execute on. So is there like an AI prioritization matrix? Like how did you guys prioritize AI use cases, especially in those early days and then today? What kind of help can I ask for? Do you also help with upskilling and educating my team and giving them education resources? Or is it more of a product to build prototype, proof of concept scale, center of excellence? Like what does that include? Cait Moran (43:22.415) So in the early days, was direct one-on-one connections with another team. So it had to be kind of plugged into the ecosystem of, so originally there was just a small AI team. Like I said, we were the ones knocking on everybody's doors. And so there was already a defined kind of pocket of AI that had Khullani Abdullahi (43:26.69) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (43:40.462) Right. Cait Moran (43:48.996) that people could go to, and that was the AI team. AI applications was named a team. Miranda Nash established that many years ago. So we already kind of were in that hub. But in the early days, it was about just getting connected across organizations. So I said Fusion Applications is one, OCI is another. We're currently separate organizations within Oracle. Khullani Abdullahi (43:50.658) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (44:10.894) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (44:14.54) Yeah. Cait Moran (44:17.871) crossing that line for the first time, right, was number one in those individual partnerships. Since then, we have Slack channels, thousands and thousands and thousands of people, right, for that discoverability of where we maintain, we answer the questions directly in those Slack channels that are dedicated to these topics and provide all of the resources within the resources linked within that channel. So it's just like, Khullani Abdullahi (44:19.406) Right. Right. Cait Moran (44:47.817) the, so from the discovery ability aspect in a large enterprise environments, it's absolutely impossible to know everything that exists or where to go. So Slack is really our primary education tool and discover ability tool. I would say in terms of where you can go and how you could discover a team like this. Alternatively, my, my counterpart, Alistair Bailey, he, is the, the forefront of. Khullani Abdullahi (44:56.15) Yeah, right. Cait Moran (45:15.759) actively developing the relationships. And we had had a history of relationships within the organization, and then being broadcasting what it is we do, having an email group, email group to subscribe to this email, just like you would do to a newsletter or things like that. It's really no different than what you would do in terms of building a new product or a new business right out in the wild. You're just building that business internally. Khullani Abdullahi (45:18.829) Mm-hmm. Khullani Abdullahi (45:33.674) Yes, yes. Khullani Abdullahi (45:41.357) Yes. internally. Cait Moran (45:45.627) and marketing internally, having a landing page of what the mission is and how you can help. These are the services we provide. This is the who's who. This is the person on my team that is an expert in multimodal. This is the person that's an expert in multilingual. Please reach out to them. Right. So we had all of those traditional vehicles that you would do for building a business. just doing that within a scoped, ecosystem. Khullani Abdullahi (46:05.047) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (46:13.528) Do you find that the people in the organization who need you know of you and can find you? Cait Moran (46:21.847) Absolutely. that, but that's after, you know, earning the respect and recognition by, by working with, you know, a lot of partners and having, having success. So, like I said, in the very beginning, we just worked with one team, figured out how to do it and then said, okay, this is our new process for how we do it. We were fine, refined and polished it. And we just started offering that to. more and more groups, meaning that we just sent an email or by word of mouth of building the relationships in doing that. Khullani Abdullahi (46:53.228) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (47:03.49) I have a two part follow up. So talk to me about a lot of executives mention information overwhelm, not sufficient time to stay up to date on the latest advancements, trying to find time to up skills, read, tinker, build. How are you doing that personally as a leader? and what strategies are you using to keep your own knowledge at the very forefront so that you can enable your internal organization? And then what are you encouraging younger, newer team members or people who want to shift into this arena? What would you recommend they do to get up to speed and to keep their knowledge? fresh, like what practices are great? And alongside that, if you were to hire and expand for your team, what qualities are you looking for and where does knowledge and the ability to learn fit within that? So maybe like three part question. Cait Moran (48:13.263) Yeah, so where we started, how we incrementally built that kind of time and space to do that research and stay up on the date was almost a band-aid of rip effect in the beginning as well, where one of my amazing leaders, Jenny Griffiths, who I report to now, she designated LLM Fridays. And so we started off just having a leader that gave Khullani Abdullahi (48:25.386) Yeah, right. Khullani Abdullahi (48:35.468) I love that. Cait Moran (48:40.271) people time and space and psychological safety to spend time doing that and not feel like it's on them outside of work, right? That has to be all on them. The company is going to take responsibility for giving that time and space to do that. So on LLM Fridays, everyone chose a topic and had the freedom and trust to do their own research to get up to date. We had a Slack channel with everybody in the organization shared all of the comings out of, lot of research papers, all of the new announcements that was coming out. So we had a dedicated channel where people were just sharing asynchronously, right? All of the latest and great greatest of what was happening, in very beginning that was during the initial kind of transition phase that has it about probably about a year or about, eight months. Khullani Abdullahi (49:17.091) Right? Cait Moran (49:39.439) in the beginning and that's how we did the rapid uptake. That rapidness has not scaled down by any means, but we were also living and breathing it every day now. And so it's now become part of our DNA and we're actually setting the standard for a lot of those things. So since then, Khullani Abdullahi (49:43.746) Right. Slowed down. Khullani Abdullahi (49:52.28) Right. Right. Right. Cait Moran (50:02.403) we continue to have things like brown bags. So we again, give time and space to where it's, we've scaled it down to kind of one person every other week, having a dedicated, you know, half hour to share more in depth kind of learning and perspective on what it is they think is most relevant that's happening in the industry. And then we built kind of an agent to then look. Khullani Abdullahi (50:22.35) Mm-hmm. Cait Moran (50:30.189) view that recording and share and spread and scale that knowledge of what that person shared, for example, of what the latest industry research is or trends are. And just rapid fire communication that we're having that collaborative culture that it's no one's sharing what the latest is part of our work. Building that social network within Oracle. that sharing this information is not just a nice to have or fun. It's a necessary part of the DNA of our culture, especially, because not one of us can, right, it's information overwhelmed from one person. You have to have a network that you're all supporting each other. Summarizing, right, AI is great at summarizing. That was the first use cases. Khullani Abdullahi (51:12.406) It is, yes. Cait Moran (51:23.833) get every summary out there, right? And share that accordingly. With my newcomers coming in, it's less about reading and researching and browsing these days. There's so many tools and opportunities now to get directly hands-on. Khullani Abdullahi (51:51.214) you Cait Moran (51:51.403) is going to be your best way. So a lot of we've had some interns that have come in in the past couple months over the summer and new grads that have joined that there's still this lag in what we're in our education systems right now versus as soon as you get into industry, especially at a place like Oracle, those could feel far away. But I've been encouraging newcomers to really lean into leveraging AI to learn. Khullani Abdullahi (52:05.196) Right. Yes. Right. Right. Right. Khullani Abdullahi (52:20.877) Right. Cait Moran (52:20.975) If you have those questions, our barriers are almost non-existent now into whatever questions we might have and learning new things. So I think having kind of this meta approach to learning AI through AI is where we need to embrace. think some people are open to that. Some want to go back to the fundamentals of, you know, not doing that. Khullani Abdullahi (52:25.87) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (52:37.422) Right. Cait Moran (52:49.561) But my personal opinion is that leaning into that is gonna do more good for us in accelerating onboarding newcomers into the field. Khullani Abdullahi (53:01.742) and building. So I think that is such powerful advice because it's not just consumption, right? Like it's not going to get you all the way there. Like consumption is part of it and learning is part of it. But at a certain point you have to have, I think you use this word kinetic. You have to have like a tangible kinetic understanding of the technology, which you really only get by building. Cait Moran (53:07.895) It's absolutely not. Cait Moran (53:22.415) Exactly, all you're doing is building up that potential energy. it's that unleashing, that's what this catalyst is about. That's why we have the speed. That's why we have the momentum. We're all feeling it. That's for a reason. Brain is because AI has, in its state today, has mobilized everybody in a new direction. And that's Khullani Abdullahi (53:45.677) It helps. Cait Moran (53:50.287) Action is the new verb, right? It's not just that reading and consumption that we can do anymore, or that intellectualization of it. It's the doing and the action and the movement. Khullani Abdullahi (53:57.89) right? the building. It's time for predictions. I won't hold you to it because the world might not be here in two years. So we'll never we may never find out if you're right or wrong. But as you and I feel like this is something you've done well in your career. As you kind of zoom out. Cait Moran (54:05.995) Thank Khullani Abdullahi (54:20.684) both at Oracle and then for the world at large, right? Because AI has some existential risks. I'd love for you to tell me what excites you the most about AI, what fears, if any, you have, and what you see being very transformative. for enterprise leaders in say like two years. Where will we be in two years if you and I are having this conversation and Oracle continues on this trajectory? What does the AI Center of Excellence look like in two years? But then also more broadly, like what do you think the rest of the country or the world can expect as we see the pace of these AI developments from both a benefit and then maybe a risk standpoint? Cait Moran (55:06.521) I will say. I don't have any predictions and I'll tell you why. Khullani Abdullahi (55:13.934) Okay. Cait Moran (55:17.057) There is no way I could have predicted what I've seen happen in the last two years from the moment that someone could have asked me the prediction from two years ago, because it's taken two years. I'd say in the last two years, if I reflect back, I couldn't even fathom to kind of where we are today. It kind of goes hand in hand with what we also saw is kind of this. Khullani Abdullahi (55:23.458) Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (55:27.47) Two years ago. Yes. Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (55:37.229) Right. Cait Moran (55:45.827) recalibration of bringing predictive AI. So predictive AI is basically the learn from the past to predict the future sort of approach to AI machine learning, right? Khullani Abdullahi (55:56.994) Yeah, yeah, it was the whole predictive analytics big data wave. It's insane, yeah. Cait Moran (56:02.255) in that wave? I've been in it, right? If anyone's in the industry, that's where you are. Khullani Abdullahi (56:08.172) Yep. Cait Moran (56:09.877) It's very much been de-prioritized and all in on generative. And I think that's a direct reflection that we have the power to write, to generate our own story moving forward. So our predictions, everything in the world, in my opinion, reflects our technology. Khullani Abdullahi (56:17.07) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (56:24.098) Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (56:33.806) Right. Cait Moran (56:34.464) And seeing the day prioritization or kind of predictive AI in its natural sense or its traditional sense, you know, being brought back down or repositioned underneath generative AI shows me a reflection of what how we should think about how we live and breathe and move in the world and kind of where we are going in business and in society. And I think we should Khullani Abdullahi (56:59.662) Right, right. Cait Moran (57:04.687) I don't think that's an accident. I think that's a direct reflection of how we can think that where we are today in this technology movement, that we are not going to be able to predict the future of where, how this moves forward. But we have all of the tools to generate a future and landscape for our businesses, right? With our new technology. I, so in that sense, Khullani Abdullahi (57:19.662) Yeah. Cait Moran (57:33.591) I think that it brings a lot of excitement to me personally, looking through that lens and seeing a direct reflection there of how I perceive it. think what's, you know, my biggest fear is the fear of others, right? Of not seeing that potential, right? And not seeing and mobilizing, right? Khullani Abdullahi (57:37.9) Right. Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (57:58.062) Right. Cait Moran (58:03.375) to capture that next wave of energy to generate their own future. Because I think AIs can be the biggest empowerment tool. Yes, of course, in the hands of others that might not have the same intent or pure ideals or aligned ideals in you, that can be scary. But if we all have the same power, I think that... Khullani Abdullahi (58:05.901) Right. Right. Khullani Abdullahi (58:13.581) Right. Khullani Abdullahi (58:26.403) Right. Cait Moran (58:33.859) going in that direction is much needed. And so having a balance of power with who can understand the technology, use the technology, leverage it, apply it correctly, right, according to their own values and ideals, I think is important. So I think in the future and in the next two years, a shift to businesses. and enterprises focusing on what their value is and mission in the world is as a company, as a provider, how we are moving money across economies and things like that. Getting back to the roots of the why that business exists, what service they're providing to the world is going to become more and more important in the next two years because in how we build these systems today with large language models, we are codifying our businesses and the language that we're writing down. And so, and it's going to be much more evident, right? Rather than being in some Java code or some Python code or whatnot, it's going to be very literal in that sense. So I think the shift is, I think there's going to be, you know, fear. that a lot of us all have. I still have it as well, but my fear is more about others not being open to the opportunities that we have at our fingertips now. Khullani Abdullahi (01:00:10.166) interesting. I think one of the things that I'm going to reflect on is moving from a predictive viewpoint of the world to one where I think as you shared, you believe that AI is going to make it much easier for all of us to write in reality, right? Like we're going to be able to write and craft. reality. And so it's not just predict the future, it's like write, create, and shape the future in a way that we couldn't before. And I have to say as someone who's always reading and diving in deep and listening to these podcasts and these books, I think that's the first framing of the shift from predictive and an interpretation of generative that is like right into reality, which I think is such a powerful concept and claim. And the only questions I will ask you are the rapid fire Chicago questions. Because I want, from a substance standpoint, I want people to reflect on that last five to seven minutes that you so generously shared. So rapid lightning round, favorite AI tool, deep dish or thin crust, favorite global city for your AI work and travels. and then if you have a go-to productivity hack or recommendation for other leaders like you. Cait Moran (01:01:39.299) My favorite AI tool, Windsurf right now. Deep Dish, I hope that's not a surprise. I'm a deep woman, I have a heart, deep soul. Khullani Abdullahi (01:01:42.094) Okay, I love that. Hey, I had a guest from Avvy who said paella. And I was like, I know you're from Spain Sergio, but come on. And he was like paella. So yes, at least you picked one. Cait Moran (01:02:05.375) deep dish all the way, Chicago through and through. Favorite global city I've done AI work. I was in Hyderabad this year in India. I've had partnerships with India throughout my whole career and I had the opportunity with Oracle to go and evangelize a of our product management teams in AI and got to visit Hyderabad. And it is just absolutely, I think, Khullani Abdullahi (01:02:09.11) Love it. Khullani Abdullahi (01:02:16.374) nice nice Khullani Abdullahi (01:02:24.745) Wonderful. Cait Moran (01:02:31.841) everyone should have the experience to understand the partnerships that we have there and getting to meet everybody in the hospitality and the dancing are on another level. my gosh, amazing experience. Hyderabad for my global city. Let's see, productivity hack. Okay, so my productivity hack is that I'm always trying to overcome anything that I'm being resistant to. So this is a big... Khullani Abdullahi (01:02:36.472) I it. Khullani Abdullahi (01:02:39.888) I love it. The food, I can imagine. Cait Moran (01:02:59.865) kind of a self-awareness thing. So this is what I call resistance hacking. And I look at this through four dimensions. Individually, am I resisting? If I having an issue with a relationship with a colleague, what's the resistance factor there? What's systemic? What's temporal? What are the things that are resisting in a situation? Khullani Abdullahi (01:03:06.424) Okay. Cait Moran (01:03:25.761) So the one thing that I keep resisting is posting on LinkedIn, putting myself out there. using AI like a prompt, so I say, I keep avoiding posting on LinkedIn, break down why my brain resists it and create a science-backed strategy to get it done effortlessly. Khullani Abdullahi (01:03:31.68) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Khullani Abdullahi (01:03:49.218) I love that. Phenomenal. Cait Moran (01:03:51.743) Use that prompt. I'm using it. Even if you don't take it word for word of the actions, it is a catalyst. That is my product. Khullani Abdullahi (01:03:55.774) No, that's excellent. I have to say you need to post more on LinkedIn because you get phenomenal engagement. The number of people who are like, I can't wait to listen to Kate's episode. I was like, where were you since April when I launched this? I love that. My whole comments section, I was like. Cait Moran (01:04:11.245) Okay. to Khullani Abdullahi (01:04:16.95) So you should be a power user and poster of LinkedIn because your network is amazing and your network wants to hear from you. And I hope you saw that validated in that initial outrage. Cait Moran (01:04:27.279) I did, and I will say that is a direct reflection of overcoming my own resistance and putting myself out there. I answered one DM from Brennan Woodruff, who is a collaborator of mine, and that just opened the doors of just being open to the opportunity and posting stuff. That was my productivity hat, was literally that prompt in helping myself understand why my brain was resisting that. Khullani Abdullahi (01:04:32.83) Yes. Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (01:04:39.564) Yes? Yes. Khullani Abdullahi (01:04:47.043) Yes. Cait Moran (01:04:55.119) and actually using tangible psychological research to do that so I could ground it and start overcoming. So it's a hack. Khullani Abdullahi (01:05:03.33) Bravo, Kate, I appreciate the time, the generosity, the depth of your reflections and your insights, the tactical and strategic information that you shared. I know that I appreciate all of the learnings you've shared and I know that my audience is going to derive so much value from it. Until next time, AI in Chicago, please connect with Kate Moran on LinkedIn and continue the conversation beyond today. Cait Moran (01:05:32.783) Thank you.