Lexi Reese
Appearances
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
But a lot of technology in the zip code of where we play, which is both observability and security, many other companies are definitively policing employees, whereas we're trying to effectively scale innovation. and good workflows that drive safe adoption.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Well, again, Lanai exists to empower humans to do extraordinary things with AI. So I think overall, AI will fade into the background of our lives, not because it's less important, but because it's ubiquitous. Just like, you know, once upon a time there were digital companies and there were brick and mortar companies. And now everyone's a digital company.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
The value will shift from AI itself to AI intelligence. So every organization will effectively have dual workforces. your human workforce and your AI workforce. And this is not so distant. I mean, this is happening for power users and you may feel this. You have an editor on your team and you have a production assistant on your team.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
If you're using AI in real ways, you start seeing how you are working in harmony because systems like Lanai will have eliminated the friction and the risk. The everyday person won't think about using AI. They'll just accomplish more.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And their effort is going to be applied to places that are different than where they have to spend time today as a result of AI taking over some of those more routine, potentially draining areas. workflows that you have to take care of right now.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, and I think that the companies that thrive won't be those with the most AI. They'll be those with the best visibility into how this dual workforce creates value. And that's the future that I get excited about is the best version of AI is where humans and machines are working together with intention. With intention. Right. Yep. And right now we're flying blind.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, so I'm Lexi Reese. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Lanai, and I've spent my career building what I call quiet infrastructure. It's essential systems that shape how people live and how they work, but that most never think about. At Google, I helped build their real-time ML ads engine before ML was cool. At Gusto, I scaled a payroll and health insurance company for millions of employees.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And that is not just inefficient. That is super reckless. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
So first of all, we have a waiting list for Lanai. So if you have a large workforce and you're trying to navigate the complexity that comes with trying to scale AI innovation, we definitely want to talk to you, but you wouldn't be able to use it right away as we're early in going to market and right now cannot accommodate all the demand.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
But here's a simple exercise that will give you a taste of what Lanai can reveal without having us, which is create a five question anonymous survey asking your teams which AI tools they're actually using day to day and for what tasks. OK, which AI are they using day to day and for what tasks?
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And you have to make it anonymous because people are not going to want to have some sort of negative consequence for being honest. And the results will surprise you. Most leaders discover their teams are using three to five X more AI tools than they realized. Often for use cases they never imagined. So one engineering leader found her team using Claude to debug code.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
That was not something she thought was happening. They had an AI specific tool, but that actually drove a ton of productivity gains. So that will give you some idea, that quick visibility exercise will give you an idea of like, wow, there are hidden risks, sure, but there's also breakthrough innovation, right? And when you're ready, we will be right there to help you.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
But that's the type of always on revelation that we can provide.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, I don't want AI writing my kids' schoolwork. Okay. Because the difficult cognitive stretching that happens when my 15 year old struggles through an analytical essay, as she was doing last night, or when my 12 year old puzzles over how to express an original idea. That's where the actual learning lives. Right.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And it's precisely what AI circumvents with its frictionless, effortless, eloquence, you know, make me sound like, insert name. And that teaches them nothing but dependence on digital crutches. Right. You know, what's fascinating is that that does connect with what we do at Lanai.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
We want to help organizations identify where AI creates genuine value versus undermining the core elements of human capabilities. You know, people say, are you a tech optimist or a tech pessimist? And it's just such a wrong framing of the question. I'm pragmatic that the goal isn't one or the other. It's both working together to improve the
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
society and community and that starts with you know making sure that our kids really learn how to think critically about big problems because we need them thinking about big problems
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And what's always fascinated me is how the right infrastructure amplifies human potential. So so right now we're in the most profound shift at work of anything we've seen in our lifetime since maybe the dawn of the Internet. But we are missing infrastructure for it.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
You're welcome.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Agents.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
AI native detection.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
One book everyone should read. The Atlas of AI by Kate Crawford. Okay. I'm going to write that one down.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
That unless we equip leaders with visibility and guardrails like Lanai provides... AI will automate more jobs than it will create. Wow. Wow. Love that.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Thanks. WithLinai.com is our website and you can sign up there to say you're interested and we'll get back to you. If for whatever reason we don't, please follow us on LinkedIn. Linai and me personally, Lexi Reese, I post a lot of content and we have learning journeys for leaders that are help you get oriented into AI in the world, in the enterprise.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And you can, I really encourage people to assign reading to their teams and spend 15 minutes or 30 minutes at your next team meeting saying, what did you, what do you feel or what are you thinking or what will you do differently as a result of having read or watched these things together?
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, with lanai.com.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Thank you so much, Dr. T. And kudos to you. Keep up the awesome work. Thank you.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And I saw this paradox, this paradox where companies were racing to adopt AI, but had zero visibility into how it's actually being used. And so Lanai is an observability and security platform that helps people see the interactions between humans and AI when they're happening, why they're happening, and how risky those are.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah. So, I mean, first of all, 80% of AI use happens off the grid. IT cannot manage what IT can't see. And most risk is not actually from bad actors. It's from smart employees doing the wrong thing with the right intent. Got it. I feel like we're in this BAM era. And you've heard a lot about these blind AI mandates where CEOs will say, go use more AI. But companies don't need more AI tools.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
They need intelligence about their AI. A holy smokes moment, Dr. T, was when I learned in an insurance company, a sales leader was saying how much AI was helping her with upsell rates. So they were using AI and their sales team was able to sell a lot more. Got it. Great.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
She told this anecdote at an AI council meeting and most Fortune 500 companies have AI councils and they meet to talk about the anecdotes because they don't have a lot of data of how people are using AI and what's good and what's bad. So sales leader comes in and says, this is great. More upsell. Data compliance leadership says, wait, tell us about how they're doing that.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And what was happening, right idea, wrong execution, sales team was uploading customer data into an AI tool that had been quietly added to their existing customer relationship system. So it was not a net new tool. It was a net new function within an existing tool. Got it. And they were uploading customer information that had zip code. Zip code in the insurance industry is a proxy for race.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And using it to decide who or who not to sell to is illegal. Yes. So that was a holy smokes moment where... I felt like we could create and we have created a product that gives visibility and the name Lanai comes into lean into AI, but do it safely in a way that empowers both your employees and your customers.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
So, In Cyglin I, you'd find a sixth sense about your organization's AI interactions, connections between teams and tools and outcomes that were previously invisible to you. So under the hood, we detect AI interactions across the enterprise. We classify them to identify the use case and we label the risks. And we use AI to do all of this.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Still, for the real sort of aha for some companies, you know there was a Chinese AI company competitive to open AI called DeepSeek. Most of the world found out about it two weeks after we were able to detect that customers' employees were using DeepSea. Wow. So we see things that take many weeks in... minutes and we make that intelligence actionable through real time dashboards.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And the challenge that we're that we face and that we're happy with how we've solved so far is doing this without disrupting workflows or compromising employee privacy. And so that's really important because I think there is a lot of surveillance tools that are trying to surveil actual human employees, whereas we're focusing on pattern detection, not content monitoring.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And so understanding the purpose and the impact of AI interactions without reading you, Dr. T's individual prompts.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, I think, look, there's a good story of one healthcare executive literally stands up when he sees his clinicians using 18 different AI tools, which is 15 more than was approved. And that's alarming, but that alarm was transformed to curiosity when we showed how these tools were improving the patient care times and reducing documentation burdens.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
His perspective shifted from shut this down to scale this. This is the power of visibility, transforming apparent chaos into strategic opportunity. And the jaw drop isn't discovering shadow AI, it's seeing patterns you didn't know before. So, you know, just like with your kids, you say, don't get furious, get curious. Right, right.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
This is all the speed at which human beings and enterprises are experimenting with and utilizing AI is going so much faster than any one person or existing team can keep up with. Right. What we talk to our customers about is it's a new AI era, and AI era requires new infrastructure. That's what we're providing, a map. Where is there traffic? Where are there accidents?
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Where are there clearer routes? And I think most people understand that. Yeah, no, that's good.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
I love this. We actually have a bell that we have a bell in our office that says together. We so rock. Oh, we believe values become norms and norms become expectations. And as one example, we have an orange chair in every room that is a customer. And it's to remind us that we're only here by grace of our customers. And when we get a win, we,
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
For our customers, which is defined by they have some win. Yes. Then ring the bell. So that's what it is. And it's pretty fun. You know, these are small things that ripple. So a financial institution had mandated AI use but couldn't measure impact. And they use Linai and they see a small team impact. that's creating personalized client research briefings in minutes instead of days.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And when they scaled that approach company-wide, client satisfaction climbed by something like 30%, and they were able to unlock a serious multi-million dollar figure in new revenue because relationship managers spent more time with clients
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And they were able to begin the conversation knowing more deeply what the issues and concerns were of clients, which is, I like that example because I think we say the buzzwords of, well, AI can augment human capabilities. But really, I think most people are worried AI is going to come for your job. I think AI will change all of our jobs fundamentally, and AI will take away jobs definitively.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
I will put no lip service on that. But I think when you democratize access to AI tools and let your employees experiment with guardrails, They know what will help them do their job better and they do the job to help the people that they're serving. So, you know, in the same way you can probably do this podcast better, I can run this company better as a result of A.I.,
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
It's finding those stories that actually demonstrates visibility leads to the ability to manage to outcomes that really drive real value.
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Exactly. Yeah. The magic isn't the AI tool. It's finding the needle in a haystack use case. And scaling it rapidly with thousands of employees. And we know this. Everybody who's managed a big team know there's always champions that are just able to do the thing so well.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
And you say, oh, I want to bottle Dr. T and make everybody be more like Dr. T. Effectively, Linnea is helping identify those champion use cases so that you can spread that magic to everyone. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Lead With AI
"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
Yeah, our ethical line is very clearly balancing visibility with privacy. We want organizations to understand their AI ecosystem without creating employee surveillance. And that's why we focus on patterns and not people. We show trends. We show opportunities through aggregation and anonymization. We're not monitoring individual performance or creating AI productivity scores or
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"80% of AI Use Happens Off the Grid": How Lanai Software Reveals the Hidden World of Enterprise AI
for each human being. We also believe in transparency. So one of our advisors is the chief security officer of Reddit. And he just immediately when we started talking about this, had the mantra that don't be creepy. And I know that sounds weird, like it's so basic. Obviously, you're not going to be creepy.