KATHMANDU, Aug 1: Artificial intelligence may be transforming industries around the world, but Nepali businesses rushing to adopt it simply because it is the latest trend risk wasting time and money unless they first identify the problems they are trying to solve, according to American AI entrepreneur David Swicegood.
Swicegood, founder and chief AI officer of US-based AI consulting firm 7Lift.ai, shared the observations in an interview with Republica after spending a week in Nepal under the U.S. Embassy’s Speaker Program. During his five-day visit, he met business leaders, startup founders, policymakers, university students and entrepreneurs to discuss how artificial intelligence can support business growth, innovation and Nepal’s digital economy.
“I think the businesses that are successful are the businesses that use AI to solve a business problem,” Swicegood told Republica.
“There has to be some type of business problem or some type of pain point that needs to be addressed, and AI happens to be one of the ways that you can address that problem. But you can’t just adopt AI for AI’s sake. It fails.”
For Swicegood, one of the biggest misconceptions businesses make is treating AI as a strategy instead of a tool. Companies should first understand where they are losing time, money or productivity before deciding whether AI is the right solution, he said.
“A successful AI program has to be solving a business need or a business pain point, and it has to be tied to a strategy,” he said.
“It has to be measured. Here’s the problem beforehand, here’s how much time and money it’s costing us, then we introduce AI as the solution and measure it afterwards. That’s how you know whether it is successful.”
Talent isn’t Nepal’s problem
After engaging with stakeholders across Nepal’s business and technology ecosystem, Swicegood said he came away convinced that the country has no shortage of AI talent.
“It’s certainly not talent,” he said.
French Embassy celebrates Cannes win of Nepali Film 'Elephants...
“There’s a lot of talent here with regard to AI. The universities and training academies are putting out a strong curriculum, and they seem to be tuning that curriculum to what businesses need in Nepal while also preparing students for international markets.”
The bigger obstacle, he believes, lies inside businesses themselves.
Many companies, he said, have yet to properly document how they operate, making it difficult to automate processes.
“A lot of business owners have not really documented their processes or their workflows,” he said. “It’s really hard to automate something that doesn’t have a documented workflow.”
While acknowledging infrastructure challenges at the national level, Swicegood said he was encouraged by the conversations taking place among government agencies, businesses and technology experts. At the business level, however, he believes Nepal already has the ingredients needed to accelerate AI adoption.
“There are people in business that have a need, and there are people in Nepal that are AI providers who can provide that need if we can just match them together,” he said.
From cheap labour to solving global problems
Swicegood also challenged the idea that countries like Nepal should compete primarily by offering low-cost outsourced services.
Instead, he urged Nepali entrepreneurs to build AI-powered solutions that address real business challenges for clients around the world.
“I don’t think the answer is selling hourly work because AI is taking a lot of those jobs,” he said.
“The answer is finding out what businesses need and curing those business problems because those solutions aren’t measured by the hourly rate.”
He believes businesses that solve high-value problems will remain competitive even as automation replaces routine tasks.
AI is not a cure-all
Despite growing excitement around artificial intelligence, Swicegood warned against expecting the technology to solve every business challenge.
Many organizations, he said, invest in AI before clearly defining their goals.
“It’s hard for some businesses to express what their strategy is, where it is falling short and what their pain point actually is,” he said. “The AI has to be tied to the strategy.”
His work, he explained, focuses less on futuristic concepts and more on helping businesses modernize their day-to-day operations.
“I deal with practical, business-oriented AI,” he said.
“All of our businesses, in every country, need modernization. The easiest and fastest way for us to modernize is with AI.”
Bridging Nepal’s AI knowledge gap
One of Swicegood’s strongest takeaways from his visit was what he described as an education gap between businesses looking to adopt AI and people capable of delivering AI solutions.
“There are a lot of investors and business owners that have money to improve their business, but they don’t know anything about AI, and they need someone to teach them,” he said.
“On the other side, there are students and practitioners with AI skills, but they don’t have customers.”
Connecting those two groups, he believes, could unlock significant opportunities for Nepal’s economy.
“A business leader doesn’t have to come up with money out of nowhere to pay for AI,” he said. “They’re already wasting money in a certain area, and if AI can solve that problem, the money to pay for that service is right there in the solution of the problem.”
For Swicegood, Nepal’s journey toward becoming an AI-enabled economy will depend less on how quickly businesses adopt new technology and more on whether they use it to solve meaningful problems.
“The opportunity is already here,” he said. “Now it’s about bringing the right people together and using AI where it creates real value.”
