Tyrone Ross

Who I Am

I am an AI Infrastructure and Product Strategy leader at Cisco where I help determine the hardware, software, and support for AI data centers.

A builder at heart, I lead GenAI adoption for Cisco’s Corporate Strategy org and its strategy, strategic alliances, and global tech standards teams.

Outside of Cisco, I build AI agents and tools under RossLabs. This site is where I share what I’m building, what’s working, and what enterprises tend to get wrong about AI adoption.

My systems approach to RossLabs comes from working across professional services, product operations, and product management.

What I Focus On Now

My work centers on the gap between AI capability and AI product: taking a model or agent framework and turning it into something that ships, gets adopted, and holds up under real usage. At Cisco that’s meant scoping agentic AI use cases, building the business case for partnerships like the NVIDIA Secure AI Factory alliance, and running the enablement programs — bootcamps, prompt libraries, bi-weekly training — that get teams actually using AI instead of just talking about it.

The same focus carries into RossLabs: building agents and tools, testing AI use cases and tradeoffs directly, and using what I learn to sharpen the product strategy work I do everywhere else.

How I Work

When building, I focus on solving a specific pain point for a specific user. I initially think about how data flows through the system, how well the system scales, and how to surface the right information at the right time for the user.

While building, I look for repeated patterns that can be simplified or automated. I build in telemetry early to understand performance and ensure that the next build is better than the last.

The idea for RossLabs started as I began building tooling to help me build faster. I started with debugging tools that help AI agents remember past issues, then expanded to tools that improve memory and design, and then to dev tools that let agents built on different LLMs work together.

My M.S. in Industrial & Systems Engineering shapes how I see product: user interactions as discrete events flowing through a process. I’m always looking for where a step can be faster, simpler, or removed outright. I prefer composable architectures I can reuse across projects, and I build in public.

Speaking & Advisory

I speak about the same work I build: AI product strategy, enterprise adoption, and how teams move from experiments to products people actually use. Recent sessions include the HumanX Conference “AI Living Room” panel hosted by The AI Collective, a New York Tech Week panel on AI commercialization and building with agents, and AI Table Topics for founders and operators at Camp Hustle.

I also lead workshops, bootcamps, and corporate AI briefings for teams putting AI into practice. See speaking topics and recent engagements.

Background

I’ve spent over a decade building products and strategy at Cisco, Google, IBM, Akamai, and ShearShare — most at home in startups and in small, fast-moving teams inside large companies. Before that, I served as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, directing a multinational air operations center in Afghanistan.

I hold an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an M.S. in Industrial & Systems Engineering from San Jose State University, and a B.S. in Human Factors Psychology from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. I’m an active angel investor with the Chicago Booth Angel Network and Hustle Fund Angel Squad, and I sit on the board of Chapter 510, a nonprofit that helps kids write and publish their own books.

Personality Profile

MBTI: ENTP. High D + I on DISC.

• I love trying new things, enjoy debating, and hold strong opinions — but change my mind fast when the evidence says to
• I like building processes that make things better, and get bored by process for its own sake
• I go deeper into “why” than most people I know — research is where I do my best thinking

Get in Touch

I’m always glad to trade notes with builders working on AI products, adoption, or strategy. Reach out on LinkedIn or via email at [email protected].