# Lutz Finger

> Head of AI at Zoovu, Data Scientist in Residence at Cornell SC Johnson,
> Venture Partner at Cherry Ventures, Forbes contributor. Two founder exits
> (R2Decide sold to XGen AI in 2026; Fisheye Analytics sold to Kantar/WPP in
> 2013). Ex-Google, ex-LinkedIn, ex-Snap. Writes and speaks on AI workflows,
> Generative Engine Optimization (GEO), LLM moats, and AI in e-commerce,
> healthcare, and education.

Image: https://www.lutzfinger.com/img/lutz-headshot-800.jpg

Ask Lutz anything: hello@lutzfinger.com. Public Q&A below pulls answers from his archive.

## Canonical pages
- [About](https://www.lutzfinger.com/about/): biography, current roles, exits, education.
- [Writing](https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/): every published piece, with a JSON search index at /writing-search.json.
- [Forbes column](https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/forbes/): 54+ articles on AI products, GEO, LLM moats, healthcare, policy.
- [LinkedIn](https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/linkedin/): 26 Pulse articles.
- [Intereconomics](https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/intereconomics/): 2 peer-reviewed pieces (2019, 2025) on data, geopolitics, and Europe-vs-US AI.
- [NZZ](https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/nzz/): guest opinion in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (March 2025).
- [Speaking](https://www.lutzfinger.com/speaking/): upcoming keynotes, workshops, conference sessions.
- [Keynote series](https://www.lutzfinger.com/keynote/): "The Keynote on AI" at eCornell.
- [Workshops](https://www.lutzfinger.com/workshop/): two hands-on AI agent workshops with eCornell.
- [Q&A](https://www.lutzfinger.com/qa/): 41 curated answers from his writing, tagged across 16 topic areas, each with its own page and FAQPage + Speakable JSON-LD.
- [Portfolio](https://www.lutzfinger.com/portfolio/): nine shipped AI use cases.
- [Book](https://www.lutzfinger.com/book/): *Ask, Measure, Learn* (O'Reilly, 2014) with Soumitra Dutta.
- [Newsletter](https://www.lutzfinger.com/newsletter/): short, occasional email tying recent AI events to the concepts in the Cornell certificate.
- [eCornell Certificate](https://www.lutzfinger.com/ecornell/): "Designing and Building AI Solutions" five-course certificate.

## Topics he writes and speaks about
- Generative Engine Optimization (GEO): being discoverable to AI assistants instead of Google.
- LLM moats: eval data, distribution, why model-only moats erode.
- AI workflows: why redesigning work around AI beats bigger models.
- AI in e-commerce: fine-tuned models, attribution, the death of category search.
- AI in healthcare: value-based care, the data-quality problem, preventable admissions.
- AI in education: Cornell AI Teaching Assistant, the Virtual Teacher pattern, how the MBA skillset is shifting.
- Product strategy for AI: "good enough" beats perfect, the value translation gap.
- AI policy: regulation, fairness, deepfakes, EU strategy, geopolitical implications.

## Portfolio use cases (what he has built)
1. AI-driven search & discovery for e-commerce (R2Decide, sold 2026 → Zoovu)
2. Predicting preventable hospital admissions
3. Cloning influencers (Q&A from a public figure's corpus)
4. Decent Espresso "Derek" community Q&A bot
5. Virtual Teacher (flipped-classroom AI tutor)
6. SAI: thin personal AI client on Anthropic Claude
7. Audiobook summarizer
8. Predicting "Future Me" (LinkedIn career-graph model, Mashable 2014)
9. Social-media analytics at scale (Fisheye Analytics, sold 2013)

## Keynote-series guests (selected)
- Aneesh Chopra (former US CTO)
- Martín Casado (a16z)
- Richard Socher (You.com, former Salesforce Chief Scientist)
- Lila Tretikov (NEA, Head of AI Strategy)
- Lucilla Sioli (European Commission, AI policy)
- Benjamin Goertzel (SingularityNET, AGI research)
- Colin Walsh (Varo Bank)
- Kurt Wagner (Bloomberg)
- Cyriac Roeding (BioAI)
- Josh Wong (AI + the grid)

## Feeds and indexes
- Writing RSS: https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing/rss.xml
- Speaking RSS: https://www.lutzfinger.com/speaking/rss.xml
- Sitemap: https://www.lutzfinger.com/sitemap-index.xml
- Writing JSON (for LLMs and custom integrations): https://www.lutzfinger.com/writing-search.json

## Contact
hello@lutzfinger.com