AI has been all over the news for a while, but one of the biggest stories came on Jan. 27 with news about DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence company based in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.
DeepSeek’s latest AI model, DeepSeek-R1, temporarily upended the marketplace with its ability to perform tasks at a level comparable to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but with a much lower development cost, and requiring only one-tenth of the computing power typically needed for comparable large language models (LLMs).
“DeepSeek’s entrance to the market is like the equivalent of an 11-year-old making it into the NBA,” said Henry Hays, CEO and founder of DisruptREADY, a Baton Rouge strategic advisory firm that helps executive teams keep up with rapidly evolving technologies such as blockchain, crypto, and Web3.
“Open AI spent four years training ChatGPT 3, spending over $100 million,” Hays explained. “DeepSeek spent around $5.5 million with just 200 employees. To put the pace of change into perspective, Netflix, one of the original gangsters in the streaming service arena, took three and a half years to get to 1 million paid subscriptions. It took ChatGPT just five days. That was two years ago. Now, with DeepSeek, we’re dealing in a space and speed we’ve never seen before.”
Despite recent security concerns over DeepSeek’s website code potentially transmitting user data to banned Chinese telecom China Mobile, AI technology continues advancing toward seamless integration into daily life, with agents increasingly able to predict and understand consumer behavior.
“Like J.A.R.V.I.S. used by the fictional Iron Man character Tony Stark in the Marvel Universe, we will have AI agents in real life,” said Hays. “It’s closer to reality than most people think.”
These agents will be able to understand consumer preferences and purchasing habits, such as size and color preferences, while anticipating needs like delivery services.
A new spin of the Travel “Agent”
In the ever-growing travel industry, AI is used in multiple ways. AI not only makes personalized suggestions about flights, hotels and activities, it can also provide 24/7 help with booking changes and flight delays and create customized itineraries. It can provide speedy updates on health, weather and security alerts, detect fraud, and quicken customer feedback analysis.
“Imagine an AI agent that understands your travel preferences and automatically makes the best choices for you,” said Hays. “Without AI we go through a cascade of decisions when booking travel, but that can all be handled seamlessly by AI, which gives us more free time.”
Local company iSeatz — which just celebrated its 25th anniversary in August 2024 — evolved from a restaurant reservation platform in 1999 to a global leader in travel technology that has powered nearly 40 million bookings for more than 65 million travelers and processed more than 928 billion loyalty points since 2008.
iSeatz empowers financial services and affinity brands to create rewards ecosystems that attract and retain customers while helping brands differentiate themselves in competitive markets and strengthening customer loyalty. The company’s customers include American Express, IHG Hotels & Resorts, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
iSeatz uses AI to automate customer support, fraud detection, data management, and testing for its evolving LXP platform, which integrates booking platforms for travel, hotels, and airlines, including the American Express’ rewards-based travel system.
AI Improvements in Accessibility
iSeatz also uses AI to develop technology designed to accommodate users with diverse abilities. Zivile Goodwin, iSeatz accessibility specialist and software engineer, emphasized that accessibility goes beyond regulatory compliance — it’s about creating digital experiences that genuinely serve everyone. Neglecting this not only impacts users with disabilities but also makes poor business sense.
According to Goodwin, 20–30% of the global population experiences some form of disability ranging from vision and hearing impairments to mobility limitations and cognitive-processing difficulties. For businesses that rely on digital user interfaces when engaging with their customers, the user experience is integral to customer retention and loyalty.
“Imagine being a long-time member of a loyalty program and suddenly finding that you can no longer fully utilize it because the user interface has become difficult to navigate with your declining vision,” said Goodwin. “Multiply that disappointment across hundreds, or even thousands, of customers and the cost of investing in accessibility features seems minor in comparison.”
The loss would be enormous. “The total after-tax disposable income of working-age people with disabilities in the U.S. is approximately $490 billion,” added Goodwin.
Travel booking interfaces not only need to be user-friendly for people with vision, hearing, or cognitive disabilities, but they must easily accommodate specific travel requirements such as wheelchair accessibility, availability of roll-in showers in hotels, bed height and elevator access.
AI can adjust the online interface based on user preferences, such as providing larger text, high-contrast modes, or screen-reader-friendly layouts. It can also utilize voice assistants to guide the visually impaired, remember user preferences and automatically apply them to future bookings, and prioritize listings based on accessibility needs.
Netflix, one of the original gangsters in the streaming service arena, took three and a half years to get to 1 million paid subscriptions. It took ChatGPT just five days. That was two years ago. Now, with DeepSeek, we’re dealing in a space and speed we’ve never seen before.
– Henry Hays, CEO and founder of DisruptREADY, a Baton Rouge strategic advisory firm
AI Transforms Healthcare
AI is also transforming healthcare in New Orleans through partnerships and innovation, local experts say. “Large enterprises are increasingly adopting AI solutions,” said Robert Lalka, executive director of Tulane University’s Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “Ochsner Health recently partnered with DeepScribe to implement speech recognition technology across its 46 hospitals and 370 care centers to improve operational efficiency and patient care.”
Healthcare startups are also leveraging AI.
“We’re seeing innovation from startups like Informuta, which received a $275,000 National Science Foundation grant to develop AI tools for identifying antibiotic-resistant genes,” Lalka said. “This technology could revolutionize treatment of antibiotic-resistant diseases.”
Tulane University received $23 million in federal funding through President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative for MAGIC-SCAN, an AI-driven imaging system.
“This technology will help surgeons detect minute cancer cells during operations, reducing the need for repeat surgeries,” Lalka said. “It positions New Orleans as an emerging biotechnology hub.”
James Zanewicz, chief strategy officer at Tulane’s School of Medicine, sees broad applications for AI in healthcare. “If you look at the full healthcare spectrum, AI is involved from early drug research and genetic targeting to back-end operational efficiencies,” said Zanewicz, who serves on the boards of the Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare (AAIH) and Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
While acknowledging implementation risks, Zanewicz emphasized AI’s potential to improve healthcare access. “AAIH is a good example of a premier organization operationalizing AI not just to improve patient care and increase healthcare efficiency but also to establish ethical standards and regulatory principles,” he said.
Tulane researchers are collaborating with LCMC and Ochsner health systems on AI applications for billing and coding optimization. “Tulane may not have the computer science resources of Stanford or MIT,” Zanewicz said, “but we have something unique — an incredibly diverse data set which gives us a wealth of healthcare data, making us an ideal partner for AI-driven medical research.”
AI in Crypto and Gas Conversion
Jared Loftus, CEO of MaxBoring, a company that builds infrastructure for cryptocurrency blockchains, said he relies on AI to stay competitive as a solo entrepreneur in the fast-moving Bitcoin mining industry.
“I received a large PDF of accounting data that I needed to analyze,” he said. “AI converted it into a spreadsheet in seconds, saving me hours of work.”
Loftus also uses AI to cut electricity costs and improve efficiency in cryptocurrency mining with alternative power sources.
“Instead of relying on expensive grid electricity, we use excess gas from oil fields to generate power for our computers,” he explained. “This turns wasted energy — gas that would otherwise be burned off — into something productive.”
Navigating the oil and gas sector presented new challenges for Loftus.
“There are a lot of moving parts, and I’m just one person,” he said. “Industry experts talk to me about industrial generators, combustion ratios and Caterpillar specs. To keep up, I feed documentation into ChatGPT and it lets me stay in the game.”
At just $20 a month, Loftus sees AI as an invaluable resource.
“It’s making a meaningful difference in my business.”
