Deepak Agarwal: LinkedIn appoints Deepak Agarwal as chief AI officer

Online professional networking platform LinkedIn on Wednesday announced the appointment of its former employee and Pinterest executive Deepak Agarwal as the new chief AI officer (CAIO).“This is Deepak’s second stint leading AI at LinkedIn, with his previous role seeing him serve as the VP (vice president) of AI for 8 years,” Microsoft Corporation-owned LinkedIn said in a statement.

“During his time at LinkedIn, Deepak played a key role in developing AI innovations at a massive scale, which has been serving as the foundation for much of the company’s AI efforts today,” LinkedIn added in the statement.

Prior to this, Agarwal worked for more than four years as chief AI officer and VP of consumer and trust engineering at image-sharing social media curation platform Pinterest.

An angel investor as well, Agarwal comes with 24 years of experience in engineering and AI roles, having previously held leadership positions at Pinterest and Yahoo.

“I am thrilled to share that I’m joining LinkedIn as the company’s Chief AI Officer… My mission as CAIO is to push the boundaries of what’s possible, ensuring our AI innovations are not only cutting-edge and industry-defining but also ethical, inclusive, human-centric and empathetic,” Agarwal said in a post on LinkedIn.

He added that LinkedIn has a long and impressive history of using AI to transform the way professionals and businesses connect, learn, and grow. “AI is at the heart of everything we do – from personalizing member experiences to help them grow their knowledge and access to opportunity, to empowering businesses, and fostering meaningful professional relationships,” Agarwal’s post said.For fiscal year 2024 ending March last year, LinkedIn Technology Information, the India arm of Microsoft Corporation-owned LinkedIn, reported a 1.7% dip in net profit at Rs 172 crore. The company’s total revenue also fell marginally to Rs 1,869 crore from previous year’s Rs 1,873 crore, reflecting a 0.21% decline.

Last week, LinkedIn rolled out a new AI-based feature to help both employment seekers find the right job and recruiters to get the apt talent.

The new LinkedIn feature is aimed to help job seekers understand and express their skills and experience to line up with open job positions. The feature comes as the professional networking site’s new report noted how job seeking and recruiting has become challenging.

According to LinkedIn, 49% of job seekers are applying to more jobs than ever, but are hearing back less.