Dr. Lamia Youseff, founder of Jazz Computing LLC, and a veteran technology leader with senior engineering leadership roles at Apple, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, delivered the opening session of Stanford GSB's Executive Education program for Saudi Aramco executives on their AI Strategy initiative, setting the tone for the program and earning the highest participant rating of any session, with a score of 4.7 out of 5.

Her session focused on the AI Value Chain: a strategic framework for understanding where value is created, captured, and defended across the full AI ecosystem. From foundational infrastructure and compute to the application and integration layers where most enterprises will ultimately compete, Dr. Youseff guided Aramco's senior executives through the economics, trade-offs, and strategic decisions that define AI positioning.

Attendees described the session as "one of the best classes" and praised both the substance and delivery. One executive noted that "the 6 AI layers gave me insightful perspective for defining the part of AI needed for my business environment," while another highlighted the immediate applicability of the content: "Very knowledgeable and the material content is applicable to the organization. she gave a clear framework for developing the AI strategy."

Central to the session was Dr. Youseff's proprietary framework for navigating the AI stack, including her principle of the "3 Reliable Rs" for evaluating large language models, a concept that resonated strongly with the technical leaders in the room.

Drawing on over two decades of experience building AI and ML platforms at scale and including leading a 150-person AI engineering organization at Apple, Dr. Youseff brought a practitioner's lens to questions that are too often addressed in the abstract: build vs. buy decisions, talent strategy, capital allocation, and the organizational capabilities required to make AI transformation stick.

The response from Aramco's leadership cohort reflected both the caliber of the audience and the depth of the material. As one attendee put it: "Lamia is truly inspiring, and it was an honor to attend her session. Her presence and experience were impressive." Another simply called it an "outstanding session."

The session sparked rich discussion around the role of proprietary data as a competitive moat, the risks of vertical integration across the AI stack, and how to build institutional muscle for AI adoption that outlasts any single model generation.

Dr. Youseff's opening session reflects the core of our advisory practice at Jazz Computing, where she partners with enterprises and investors navigating AI transformation through The JC12 Method, a structured, results-driven approach to turning AI ambition into operational reality.

To learn more about Dr. Youseff's advisory work and speaking engagements, visit JazzComputing.com