“The next decade belongs to those who understand AI + human collaboration.”

Stefan Boehmer
Financial exec and AI strategist
Investor and Advisor, Graphio.ai
…sharing his bottom-line takeaway from DFW Startup Week’s AI Track on LinkedIn.

The bottom-line message coming out of DFW Startup Week’s AI track was clear, according to Stefan Boehmer: The future isn’t about machines replacing humans. It’s about learning how to work with them.

Stefan Boehmer

The 25-year finance exec, a former CFO of Körber Supply Chain and Siemens Logistics, is now advising Graphio.ai—and tracking where real-world AI is gaining traction. He shared his top takeaways from DFW Startup Week’s AI track in a detailed LinkedIn post after sitting in on “Day 2” sessions at SMU Cox, where the five-day innovation event is celebrating its 10th year.

Boehmer kicked off the post with takeaways from Worlds.io CEO and Co-founder Dave Copps, who headlined the AI: The New Awakening keynote. “It’s not us vs. AI—it’s us with AI,” was a key theme framed by Copps: the future is about co-evolving with AI.

From Boehmer’s notes, acceleration is accelerating:

• Moore’s Law is done. Compute power is now moving at double-exponential speed.
• The data flood is real. In the last six months, we created more data than in the past 5,000 years.
• AI is entering a new phase: Going physical. It’s starting to sense, measure, and respond to the real world.

He summed up trends from some of North Texas’ best AI minds in three takeaways:

1. “The cost of knowledge is dropping to near zero. The value lies in orchestrating, discovering, and synthesizing insights.”
2. “The war for deep attention has begun.” With OpenAI preparing to launch its own browser, he wrote, the question becomes: Which AI will you trust?
3. And, while large enterprises were caught off guard, they’re now investing heavily in AI and real-world data to close the gap.

On the startup front, Boehmer distilled advice from a founder panel including Spacee Founder Skip Howard, Highwire Capital CTO Richard Margolin, Sentiero Ventures Managing Partner David Evans, and David Cobbs:

• Solve real problems—AI alone isn’t the product.
• Avoid feature creep. Build with customer input from the start.
• Focus on ROI and outcomes, not bells and whistles.
• Differentiate through business impact, not just tech.

In the AI to ROI panel, speakers Microsoft for Startups CTO in Residence Bhaskar Lokanathan, Worlds Director of Partnerships and Channels Garrett Long, Slalom Sr. Director Jason Beavers, and Southwest Airlines Sr. Emerging Trends Advisor Kevin Kleist tackled the challenge of turning AI pilots into operational tools that deliver results—moving from experimentation to execution.

In other words, turn AI into impact. 

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The DEC Network’s DFW Startup Week continues through Thursday at SMU Cox. The free five-day event gathers founders, innovators, and leaders across the region. 

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.

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