While the industry obsesses over AI replacing junior analysts and mid-level managers, Akool and Zycus just shattered the ultimate glass ceiling: they’ve digitally cloned a CEO. At Horizon SEA 2025 in Malaysia, these companies unleashed an AI avatar of Zycus Founder and CEO Aatish Dedhia that engaged senior procurement leaders in real-time strategic dialogue about competitive positioning and transformation.

This isn’t incremental innovation. This is a direct assault on the belief that visionary leadership can’t be codified.

This partnership represents the convergence of cutting-edge AI avatar technology with deep industry expertise.

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Most GenAI applications target the bottom of the org chart—automating reports, scheduling meetings, drafting emails. But this partnership proved that even the most sacred executive function—strategic vision and thought leadership—can begin to be digitized, scaled, and deployed at will.

“This partnership represents the convergence of cutting-edge AI avatar technology with deep industry expertise,” said Jiajun (Jeff) Lu, Founder & CEO at Akool. “The avatar was trained on over 20–30 minutes of personalized video content, enriched with proprietary procurement knowledge and competitive intelligence. The result was a highly interactive digital spokesperson capable of delivering strategic insights at scale.”

“Everyone’s been playing it safe, automating the obvious,” said Amit Shah, CMO & Global Head BD at Zycus. “We’ve taken the first bold step—creating a digital CEO that could hold meaningful conversations with C-suite executives across APAC. This is just the beginning, and naturally the avatar has a long way to go, but it proves that audacity opens doors others won’t even attempt.”

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This breakthrough stems from Dedhia’s two-decade journey as an AI pioneer. Long before “AI” became boardroom buzzword bingo, he was building Merlin AI—proving his conviction that AI could fundamentally transform enterprise operations. Today, it’s Dedhia who pushes his team beyond conventional thinking, demanding they abandon the obvious for the seemingly impossible. True innovation requires audacity over comfort zones.

The real disruption isn’t in the current technology—it’s in the precedent being set. If the initial replication of strategic insights from a founder and CEO shows this much promise, what executive function might eventually be scalable?

Both companies are now exploring how to evolve this breakthrough across client experiences and training programs.

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Source – PR Newswire

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