HearstLab

I just wrapped up the most amazing summer as a Data & AI Intern at HearstLab, Hearst. I spent most of it building three things: → A CRM data enrichment system: an "enrichment waterfall" that runs a record through 10 data providers in sequence and stops at the first verified match. I ran the testing that set the provider order, balancing accuracy against cost. The result was cleaner, more reliable records at a fraction of the manual effort. → A touchpoints system that pipes our meetings straight into Airtable: auto-tagged, linked to the right company, and dropped into a clean chronological feed, replacing the long unsearchable docs we used before. → A reusable AI agent for job applications that reads each candidate against the role and writes back a structured recommendation highlighting potential gaps or strengths for our team to review. Across 200+ applicants, we hit a 92% accuracy rate. Together, these AI agents have saved our team thousands of hours. On the surface, these three projects have very little in common. But underneath, I realized they were all assembled from the same handful of building blocks: process audits, product management, data pipelines, QA, change management, governance, maintenance, and iteration. Every project was just a different arrangement of the same underlying work. Those were the real skills I picked up! Yes, I learned to use Airtable and Clay, but the thing that actually transfers is understanding that shared structure, and knowing which block the work needs next. Once I saw those blocks, building an AI system stopped feeling like magic. But my summer wasn't all just heads-down building! I got to hear from top AI leaders including Jensen Huang, Sam Altman and Boris Cherny at Y Combinator's AI Startup School, visit the Duolingo office (I met the Duo owl!), participate in an AI workshop at Salesforce, and film a use-case video with Hyperagent. Those experiences turned out to be some of the best parts! Thank you to Dominique Festa, Lisa Burton, PhD and the entire HearstLab team for a summer I won't forget.

Some trips give you one big moment. Last week in Barcelona gave me two: real progress on AI-powered learning in financial services, and a total solar eclipse. Back in June, HearstLab made a strategic investment in Founderz — but the ambition went well beyond the investment: bring Founderz together with Fitch Learning, so that deep industry expertise gets powered by AI. Months on, that partnership is well underway. It was great to spend time with the Founderz team — including co-founders Pau Garcia-Milà and Anna Cejudo, whose talent and energy make this partnership so exciting — alongside Paul Taylor (President, Fitch Group, Inc. Group), Jose M Santos (Global Business Head, Financial Institutions, Fitch Ratings), and Azahara García Espejo (Director, HearstLab International). And special thanks to Eve Burton, who leads HearstLab, for the vision that brought us together. Founderz are truly AI-native — in just 5 years they’ve trained over 700,000 people in AI adoption. Exactly the partner you want to do this properly. There’s an easy temptation with AI in learning: to just lead with the AI. At Fitch Learning, we lead with industry powered by AI — not just AI for AI’s sake. We take deep financial services knowledge and use AI to turn it into learning that positvely (and responsbly) impacts how people perform: diagnostics, simulations, role play, coaching and assessment. Not an empty AI shell. Beacause AI alone is a very confident engine with nowhere to go. Point it through real industry expertise and you get business performance. That’s Pau and me in the second photo — proof not all meetings happen in a boardroom. Talking strategy in an olive grove, waiting for the eclipse, when the light caught just right and made it look like Pau was passing me the sun. Theres the proof of how Founderz bring Fitch Learning powerful AI energy — I just didn’t expect it quite so literally. Then the main event (first photo — no filter, I promise). For a moment the moon blocks the sun entirely and, instead of darkness, you get the corona: light revealed in a way you’d never otherwise see. Rather the point. AI eclipses the routine, and what’s left glowing around the edges is the expertise. Powerful things happen when two forces align. Also when you remember your eclipse glasses! If you’re working out how to raise capability across your teams — expertise powered by AI, not tech for tech’s sake — let’s talk. We’d love to show you what we’ve built with Founderz. #AI #FinancialServices #LearningAndDevelopment #FitchLearning #Founderz #FutureOfLearning