Founder & CEO, Ascendo AI · Author, Beyond Break-Fix
Kay helps service leaders make the judgment of their best technicians available to every technician. She speaks about Physical AI, preserving expert knowledge as experienced technicians retire, and keeping humans in command of AI on critical equipment.
Founder & CEO
Ascendo AI
Author
Beyond Break-Fix (2026)
Former leader
Adobe and Sun Microsystems
Co-founder
Paloras, acquired by Amazon’s Lab126
First female board member
TiE Silicon Valley
Contributor
Forbes Technology Council
Karpagam (Kay) Narayanan is the founder and CEO of Ascendo AI, a Palo Alto company that builds AI agents for field service and technical support, and the author of Beyond Break-Fix: The Service Leader’s Blueprint in the Era of Physical AI. She previously held leadership roles at Adobe and Sun Microsystems and co-founded Paloras, which Amazon’s Lab126 acquired.
Conversation topics
Each topic can be shaped for executives, practitioners or technical teams. Kay keeps conversations educational and grounded in real service work, not product demos.
Why expert judgment, not information, is the scarcest resource in service, and how organizations can make it available to every technician on every shift.
The difference between generic AI, document search and organization-specific judgment, and why complex service decisions need the last one.
Retirement as an opportunity to capture and share hard-won expertise across sites and teams, so knowledge stays with the organization instead of leaving with individuals.
Ideas from Kay’s book on moving service from reactive repair to proactive operations, and what Physical AI means beyond robots.
How hospitals, utilities and network operators can use AI to support technician decisions while keeping qualified people accountable for the outcome.
Lessons from founding and selling Paloras, building Ascendo AI, serving as TiE Silicon Valley’s first female board member, and 15+ years leading Girl Scouts robotics and STEM programs.
The book
Published February 2026
A practical guide for service leaders on preserving expert technician judgment, moving from task automation to coordinated AI agents, and keeping people in charge as Physical AI reaches the field.
“A necessary guide for any leader who wants to move from ‘serving’ the machine to ‘sustaining’ the outcome.”
“A more uplifting and responsible vision... creating vital space for humans to adapt with empathy.”
Kay on the mic
Ascendo AI’s conversation series with service, support and customer experience leaders on AI, automation, workforce and the future of support. Kay has hosted conversations in the series, and the list also includes Ascendo webinars. Pick any episode to play it here.
Experience Dialogue · Ep. 24
Jaspreet Singh, with host Kay Narayanan
Read the episode summaryAll episodes
24Watch
The Company Brain overview and short clips from Kay’s LinkedIn.
Featured · 2:34
A short overview of NeoCortex, Ascendo AI’s Company Brain: how it reasons over closed cases, service logs, manuals and asset history so service teams can resolve faults nobody documented.
Explore the Company BrainSpeaking and writing
AAMI (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation)
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents for HTM Professionals
CMIA Connect 2026
AI Agents for BMET
Service Council
Advisory board member
MIT AI Conference
Global Artificial Intelligence Conference, Santa Clara
Maximizing ROI in AI Projects
TiE Inflect
AI and Machine Learning Bootcamp
Forbes Technology Council
From Big Data to Context Graphs: A 2018 Vision for AI as the Blueprint for 2026 Agents
Press kit
Approved bios in three lengths. Copy the one that fits your show notes, event program or introduction.
High resolution JPG, 2000 × 1333
DownloadFor host introductions and emcees
Karpagam “Kay” Narayanan is the Founder and CEO of Ascendo AI and the author of the #1 Amazon New Release, Beyond Break-Fix. A pioneering voice in Physical AI, she helps MedTech and heavy industry leaders move from reactive service tools to a coordinated System of Agents that empowers frontline technicians and reduces burnout. Before Ascendo, she held senior leadership roles at Adobe and Sun Microsystems, co-founded Paloras Corporation (acquired by Amazon’s Lab126), and made history as the first female board member of TiE Silicon Valley. A passionate STEM advocate, Kay has spent more than 15 years expanding robotics and engineering programs for the Girl Scouts.
Invite Kay
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Formats
Based in Palo Alto, California (Pacific Time). Available for remote recordings and in-person events.
