Dave Ferrucci is an award-winning Artificial Intelligence researcher who founded and led the IBM Watson team from its inception through its landmark success in defeating the best human players on Jeopardy! in 2011. Watson’s victory marked the start of a revolution in advancing machine intelligence.

Dr. Ferrucci became an IBM Research Fellow and Vice President before leaving the company in 2012 to join Bridgewater Associates, where he helped lead the firm’s AI strategy. With over 25 years of experience in AI and a passion for enabling computers to think, learn, and communicate fluently, he founded Elemental Cognition in 2015.

Elemental Cognition successfully combined Large Language Models (LLMs) with formal reasoning agents, including complex optimization engines, to enable the rapid development of reliable solutions for complex enterprise applications. Dr. Ferrucci has been a leading voice in discussions about neural-symbolic architectures and the reliable use of LLMs and formal reasoning methods in enterprise contexts.

Most recently, he founded the Institute for Advanced Enterprise AI (IAEAi), a non-profit organization under the Center for Global Enterprise.

Dr. Ferrucci earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He holds over 100 patents and publications and has delivered keynote addresses at distinguished venues worldwide. He is a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and serves as an Adjunct Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He was recently recognized as one of “The Top People in Artificial Intelligence” by Business Insider.