What we’re about
AppliedAI is a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to developing the next generation of AI leaders in Minnesota. We do this through a conference, podcast, weekly news, monthly newsletters, YouTube channel, and monthly meetups. Our events provide education, hands-on training, and real-world AI applications to help people of all ages learn how to use AI to solve real-life problems.
Additionally, we encourage you to subscribe to our Conversation On Applied AI Podcast. We publish new episodes every other week on topics related to Artificial Intelligence and its applications! We also publish a Monthly Newsletter with details on our current events and ways to engage with our community.
What is Artificial Intelligence
In computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), sometimes called machine intelligence, is intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans. Leading AI textbooks define the field as the study of "intelligent agents": any device that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of successfully achieving its goals. Colloquially, the term "artificial intelligence" is often used to describe machines (or computers) that mimic "cognitive" functions that humans associate with the human mind, such as "learning" and "problem solving".
What is AppliedAI?
Simple. :) It's the real-world applications that these far-fetched, big ideas lead to. Some things around us that are applications of AI include digital assistants (Google Home, Alexa), self-driving cars, robots, chatbots and many many more!
Who should go AppliedAI Meetups?
This group is a place for anyone who is interesting in learning, sharing and applying Artificial Intelligence to their products and services. It's also for people of all ages just interested in what's going on in the AI space by networking and talking with real-world practitioners of this exciting and new technology.
What happens at AppliedAI Meetups?
• We have speakers and panelists talking about AI in real-world scenarios
• We do demos of AI related projects and explain how they work
• We discuss, where AI has been, where it is today and where it's heading in the future
• We have fun!
Where else can I find you?
Follow us on social media!
Facebook, LinkedIN and Twitter
We also have a podcast and YouTube page.
What are the colors of your logo?
They are derived from the color palette of a few of the first-ever AI-generated photos from Google’s Deep Learning tool.
Upcoming events
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AI in Product: Panel Discussion: What It’s Really Like to Run an AI Sprint™
Lab651, 550 Vandalia St #231, St Paul, MN, USOverview
At Blank Metal, we use AI Sprints™ to help organizations move fast from uncertainty to clarity. We use the methodology to validate whether a specific use case for AI is desirable, viable, and feasible - the three lenses of good product development. We have been able to compress what can take months of research and validation into 10 days by combining expert engineering, hands-on experimentation, and daily collaboration with client teams.Each sprint starts with a problem statement: a focused question about where AI could make a measurable impact. Then we work side by side with the client’s engineers, designers, and leaders through daily standups, demos, and technical validation. In this panel discussion, we will share some of the things we’ve learned along the way, some of the adjustments we have had to make to improve the process, and share ideas about working in this fast, intensive approach with clients.
Agenda
- 2:00pm - 2:30pm: Arrival and networking
- 2:30pm - 2:45pm: Announcements and round-room introductions
- 2:45pm - 3:30pm: Featured panel, Blank Metal Panel Discussion: What It’s Really Like to Run an AI Sprint™
- 3:30pm - 4:00pm: Your impromptu discussion topics
- 4:00pm onwards: Continued networking at Monster Brewing
Meet Our Featured Panelists
Elli Rader, CGO
Elli Rader is the Chief Growth Officer at Blank Metal. A veteran of the digital innovation space and former GoKart Labs executive, she brings 15+ years of experience building and scaling digital product practices, having worked with hundreds of clients across healthcare, financial services, and education sectors. Prior to co-founding Blank Metal, she served as a Partner in West Monroe's Product Experience & Engineering Lab following the firm's acquisition of GoKart Labs, where she led revenue and brand initiatives while championing user-centered design and helping enterprises navigate digital transformation. Known for her exceptional relationship-building and culture development skills, she plays a crucial role in Blank Metal's partner ecosystem and mission to revolutionize how enterprises implement AI, making the company a center of AI influence in the Midwest.Eric Johnson, CTO
Eric serves as Chief Technology Officer at Blank Metal, where he architects the technical foundation that powers the company’s innovative AI solutions. With deep expertise in AI systems design and implementation, Eric leads the technical strategy and oversees a specialized team of data scientists and AI engineers dedicated to building transformative products for clients. His extensive experience spans integrating advanced AI capabilities into practical business applications, ensuring that Blank Metal’s technical solutions are both cutting-edge and production-ready.
Eric is known for maintaining Blank Metal’s technical edge while keeping a keen focus on real-world implementation challenges. His leadership ensures the delivery of AI solutions that work reliably in complex environments and adapt intelligently to evolving client needs. By combining technical vision with a pragmatic approach, Eric helps organizations leverage AI to create significant business value and solve real-world problems.Mike Osborne, AI Engineer
Mike Osborne is a Senior AI Engineer with 3+ of experience designing and deploying advanced AI solutions that deliver measurable impact. He has built specialized platforms such as a high-volume AI chat system serving 2,000 monthly users and supporting tens of thousands of chats each month, as well as an AI-driven consulting tool that reduced a week-long mergers and acquisitions discovery process to ten minutes.
Mike focuses on using AI for its strengths—combining it with custom software or integrating it into existing systems where it has the biggest impact. He has advised numerous clients on AI strategy and implementation, bringing a pragmatic perspective that balances innovation with operational realities and consistently helps teams work faster, smarter, and at scale.Eric Ness, AI Engineer
Eric Ness is a Minneapolis-based principal machine learning engineer who designs and ships production-grade AI systems and data products end to end, from model development through scalable deployment and monitoring. He has led architecture and implementation of high-impact platforms, including FastAPI- and Kafka-based model deployment frameworks, Azure ML– and Airflow-powered MLOps pipelines, and real-time services that quote hundreds of millions of dollars in shipments annually on Docker and Kubernetes. His track record includes cutting prediction error by 50% on sparse-lane cost models influencing tens of millions in quotes, operationalizing an automatic order acceptance system processing thousands of orders per day, and building recommender microservices on AWS Lambda with live integrations to transactional sources.
Earlier roles spanning senior machine learning engineering and data science strengthened his product instincts and platform rigor, while foundation work in BI and data engineering honed his ability to integrate heterogeneous data and optimize performance at scale. He holds a degree from Northwestern University and stays current with advanced study across deep learning, MLOps, and data engineering, including a Udacity Deep Learning Nanodegree and specialized training in Spark, pandas, and linear algebra.Sponsors
This event is sponsored by Lab651 & Recursive AwesomeOrganizers
This event is part of the community interest groups series at Applied AI, where community members power sessions for niche interest areas through the Applied AI platform.This event is organized and hosted by Cameron Gross, John DeBauche, and Beth-Alison Berggren.
38 attendees
Applied AI Holiday Party!
Lake Monster Brewing Company, 550 Vandalia Street, Saint Paul, MN, USOverview
Join the Applied AI team at our favorite networking spot, Lake Monster Brewing, to celebrate our community and another incredible year at Applied AI!At the party we'll have AI-driven activities like using generative AI to write holiday jingles and a small photo booth to capture all the merry moments with our community members. We will also take some time to reflect on the successes of 2025 and share our excitement for what's to come in 2026.
Agenda
- 6pm - 9pm: Beers, networking, AI-driven holiday activities, photo booth fun, end of year message from Applied AI, and more!
It's been an amazing year, and we couldn't have done it without our fantastic community, so come on down, grab a delicious beer, and let's celebrate together!
AI-Powered Holiday Festivities
- Holiday card creation station: Get ready to craft heartwarming holiday messages with ChatGPT or your favorite GenAI tool! We'll provide blank holiday cards for you to fill with AI-generated holiday greetings. Take your cards home at the end of the night to spread AI fueled cheer!
- Festive jingle writing contest: Put ChatGPT to work on reimagining classic holiday jingles, and potentially get a free beer out of it! We'll have a station ready for generating new lyrics to old classics; the lyrics will be added to a slide deck, and we'll all laugh as we attempt to sing our way through them as a group. The jingle with the most applause earns its creator a free beer from Applied AI!
- Seasonal social media post generator: Create holiday themed social media content in a moment with the help of AI! Whether you want to post right from the party or save ideas for later, we'll have a station dedicated to crafting messages that capture the spirit of the season.
Sponsors
This event is sponsored by Lab651 & Recursive Awesome64 attendees
Past events
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