Meet Kendal Parmar, CEO and co-founder of Untapped AI

Untapped AI was co-founded by myself (Kendal Parmar) and my friend Brendan O’Hara. My background is primarily in business psychology and behavioural science. This led me to design the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’ methodology for the Sunday Times, which is still used globally and influences many lists (I can see now that there are significant flaws in this process). 

Brendan was a former Senior Vice President at JP Morgan in Equities Technology where he managed global teams creating high capacity systems handling huge volumes of data. With over 20 years in technology in senior roles, Brendan’s passion is the effective and responsible use of AI.

Working with a co-founder can be tricky, so understanding and compromise is important. How have you both found the process of building a business together? What makes it work?

We have distinct roles and responsibilities that make it a perfect marriage. Brendan has an extensive background in finance and technology, so he heads up the technical side of operations, and I deal with strategy and business. Combining our expertise was actually what worked so well and was key to forming Untapped AI in 2015. 

Of course collaboration and a profound understanding of each other is crucial to being successful, but having been friends and neighbours before as well, there’s a level of trust which allows us to flourish. 

There’s always a lightbulb moment before the beginning of a new venture. What was that moment for you?

It was actually our children that gave us that moment! I was on holiday with Brendan, and one day we looked back at two of our children, transfixed by their phones and excitedly sharing videos and talking about them. With turning 16 just around the corner, it was a key moment in their lives as they grappled to know themselves and what to do about the future. And yet, as they scrolled their phones, the big tech corporations were hoovering up information about them, harnessing their data to advertise what they could buy or watch. 

“Is this really it?” I asked Brendan. The greatest information-gathering exercise in human history, frittered away on selling us more stuff?

And that’s where the idea sparked. What if we could take all that data, and give it back, helping us learn more about ourselves? Turning it from an exercise in AI taking and selling data, to one of AI taking data and giving it back: instead of being used to sell or buy more, it would be used to learn about yourself for no commercial gain. 

Tell us about your journey into this market.

After recognising that a lot of organisations fail to both measure and create successful change, we wanted to specialise in providing uncensored, grassroots data to drive business transformation and speed up the pace of change from the bottom-up. So we went about combining psychology with technology to create a democratisation of support and self-awareness. To achieve this, we needed to harness the power of AI and create a platform to accrue and provide accurate, raw, unfiltered data of anonymous individual insights. And then, with this, we could instigate organisational change from the bottom up by aggregating the data and feeding it to people driving change. It’s change on both an individual and organisational level. 

But the human element is just as important. We bring emotional intelligence to technology, and our insights combine transformational human relationships with the power of AI feedback. The Untapped ‘accelerator platform’ creates personalised data insights from coaching sessions by our Accelerators, who can make sense of the data and provide the right resources and support to help individuals reach their untapped potential. 

What plans do you have for Untapped AI over the next two years?

Currently, to make people and companies aware of the flaws of surveys and the benefits of gaining objective AI driven insights. We found that 75% of change initiatives do not work in companies as they try and drive the change through the use of surveys. Most people think they are self-aware, but actually only 10-15% actually are. 

Pulse surveys simply don’t provide accurate data, with employee responses dictated by current mood, unwillingness to answer truthfully to their boss or have the awareness to reveal how they really feel. Surveys can be cultivated to say what people want to hear or set with an agenda. 

On the other hand, AI doesn’t have an agenda and it tells things as they really are. It can monitor behaviour and highlight trends before they become endemic problems within the workforce. So generating this awareness of the limits of surveys, growing our product and expanding our reach are the current ambitions.

What is the end goal?

We want to be the go-to experts on radical organisational change - but, crucially, with grassroots, bottom up change as the fundamental component.

We’re aiming to grow our company into a position where we can also provide opportunities and our technology services to help people and companies who may not have the means to access it otherwise. The wider we can reach, the more we are able to democratise support to increase self-awareness and create broader organisational and societal change. It’s all about developing the power to challenge. 

What movie or tv show do you find inspiring?

Right now, Ted Lasso. Watching a man who embodies humble emotional intelligence (IQ) leadership - similar to Gareth Southgate. Here is a man who sits in a position of power but focuses his management style around feelings rather than status. It’s exactly the leadership that is needed right now as we come out of a stuttering pandemic recovery. 

How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?

Taking a grassroots, bottom-up approach to organisational change. Our key differentiator to others is not only providing this approach to individual change and awareness, but using this data and aggregating it to drive wider organisational change. 

Describe your business in three words.

Bottom-up transformational change. 

What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?

1. Identify a gap in the market that you are passionate about
2. Listen to the people that you've surrounded yourself with and make it your priority to bring them along with you
3. Mess up fast and keep re-pivoting
4. Don't be afraid to be random
5. Keep humble - you will learn the most valuable things from surprising people and places

How do you prepare for an AI centric world?

We’re already creating our own AI centric world and see it as the vital cog in our machine. 

AI has the power for businesses to uncover the complex human behind the job title. It’s looking at what’s underneath, and enabling open conversations about this on a deeper level, helping a person and groups of people to develop. But for us the human relationship will always be integral, for both interpreting the data from the AI and then providing the right understanding, resources and coaching in light of this. 

In a broader sense, AI is not only providing data but insights that are helping to drive wider societal change. In preparing for its increasing influence, I think it’s key to help people understand the benefits of AI and demystify any concerns around sci-fi takeover. It’s about humans working with AI rather than against it, and both aspects being enhanced by each other.