After completing a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Penn State, Jablokov moved to Charlotte to work at IBM’s campus in University City. Jablokov worked on several research teams, including with the group for the project that eventually became Watson, the company’s computer system capable of answering natural language questions.

Jablokov appreciated IBM’s status as a global business leader. “The company was a systems business, which meant its leadership cared about software, hardware and networking versus just computer chips or another narrow niche.”

While at IBM, he served as a mentor for the Extreme Blue Program, which paired MBA candidates with four undergraduates during the summer. It was eye-opening for Jablokov to observe what a small team with access to leading-edge technology could accomplish.

“That was the first time I considered how five veteran subject-matter experts who joined forces could literally change the course of history,” Jablokov noted.

While witnessing an IBM project involving Sony and Toshiba before the term cloud-computing entered the lexicon, Jablokov proposed adding a microphone to a home-based device that would recognize human speech and respond. That product became the PlayStation 3.

“Everyone said no one is going to allow their voices to be streamed to someone they can't see,” he said. 

Driven by a desire to innovate — and frustrated by corporate resistance to his AI assistant concept — Jablokov left IBM to start Yap. He typed up a one-page treatise for a multimodal portal, or AI assistant, which his brother, an MBA candidate at Wake Forest University, shared with his entrepreneurship professor who encouraged them to pitch it through a business plan competition, which they did at UNC Charlotte.

A former Amazon executive in attendance walked up to them and said, “I’m your first investor, and I’m your first board member.” He then requested they never publicly speak about the project again.

Experience working with small, dedicated teams that accomplished great things empowered Jablokov to recruit for Yap. He hired a lead engineer from Apple’s iPod R&D effort. The late Apple CEO Steve Jobs had placed the researchers in Charlotte. Members of that team joined Yap, along with others from IBM, Microsoft and Nuance, helping Jablokov build the company.

Knowing he would soon assume greater executive and leadership responsibilities, Jablokov enrolled in the Belk College of Business evening MBA program after completing his undergraduate degree to expand his business acumen.

Jablokov prefers the term augmented intelligence to artificial intelligence with the goal of increasing productivity.

“I don’t envision AI displacing workers. When I think about innovation and creativity, humans are at the center. AI software has been characterized as consuming the world. AI is supposed to be the heart of technology, not the teeth. I’ve been working in AI for two decades and with practitioners who have 40 years in the field, and we are advancing AI primarily for three reasons: to enhance accessibility and opportunity, to try to save lives and to bridge cultural divides among people who don't speak the same language.”

Pryon’s one-of-a-kind knowledge operating system uses advanced AI including computer vision and large language models to read and understand organizations’ content to provide answers to customers’ or employees’ most pressing questions. Pryon’s system is operating in airports, hospitals and power plants, and it is the artificial intelligence behind Dell, Nvidia, Westinghouse and the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Intelligence unit.

“I want to see nurses, physicians, electricians, plumbers, sanitation workers, water treatment operators, pilots and truck drivers with access to this style of AI technology, because it will enable them to be more effective in their jobs. AI must be useful for everyone from all backgrounds, and it must be responsible in that you know how it works and what it does, and you must be able to trust who is behind it,” Jablokov said.

Jablokov and the leaders of Charlotte’s College of Computing and Informatics believe technology, particularly AI, helps democratize access to information. CCI’s vision of “a world with equity in computing and humanity in technology” provides the fuel for the college’s significant enrollment growth among women and people of color in the last six years. And the college holds a strong, collaborative relationship with the greater Charlotte business community with employers providing scholarship and internship opportunities.