- Janet Adams is co-founder of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASA) and COO of SingularityNET.
- Adams’ passion and objective in the AI space is to achieve decentralisation in order to prevent AI from becoming monopolised or misused.
- Janet is motivated by the goal of achieving advanced AGI in a way that is accessible and safe.
Tell Me About Yourself and Your Company
I’m Janet Adams, COO of SingularityNET and co-founder of the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (ASI). My background spans 20+ years in banking, AI and tech innovation, and I’ve long focused on making advanced technologies more transparent, ethical and accessible.
At SingularityNET, we’re building a decentralised marketplace and development ecosystem for AI. Our vision is bold: to create open infrastructure that accelerates the rise of Artificial General Intelligence – AGI that benefits all humanity. In parallel, I helped co-found the ASI Alliance, which unites world-class AI and Web3 teams to build a global, decentralised AGI stack.
What Inspired You to Start Your Company, and What Problem Were You Trying to Solve?
While I didn’t start SingularityNET, I joined because the mission aligned perfectly with my values: decentralising AI to prevent it from becoming monopolised or misused.
My own career had shown me how much opportunity there is for decentralised, ethical AI, and I was and am very excited about the possibilities for AI for workplace automation. Then, when the opportunity came to help launch the ASI Alliance, I saw huge potential for the Alliance to really tackle and take on the dominance of big tech.
By bringing SingularityNET, Ocean Protocol and Fetch.ai together into an interoperable, decentralised tech stack, and with the brilliant later addition of Cudos, we can move toward AGI more quickly – and with greater confidence that we have the necessary tools, talent and resources to win the AGI race.
What Has Been Your Biggest Challenge So Far, and How Did You Overcome It?
As an executive transitioning from a highly regulated, hierarchical institution like banking, to a dynamic, decentralised tech startup I faced several significant challenges. My background spent working in the structured environment of a large bank, with clear compliance protocols, defined roles and risk-averse culture, contrasted sharply with the fast-paced, dynamic and talent and innovation-focused culture.
I had to learn to adapt to a flatter organisational structure, where influence is earned more through agility and collaboration than title or tenure. I rapidly completed my mindset shift from governance to innovation by inventing a progressive ‘Pod’ based decentralised management system for SingularityNET, which utilised the best of my background in structured techniques along with my natural creativity and curiosity and innovative spirit. Four years on, that management structure is thriving and really supporting the teams in delivering a lot of breakthrough technology.
Can You Describe a Pivotal Moment That Significantly Shaped the Direction of Your Startup?
A defining moment was the official formation of the ASI Alliance. SingularityNET was already pioneering decentralised AI, but by joining forces with Fetch.ai and Ocean Protocol, we transformed our trajectory. It wasn’t just a partnership – it was a merger of missions, forming a full-stack ecosystem to pursue AGI.
That shift – from independent innovation to collaborative ecosystem building – changed everything. It also validated our belief that decentralization and cooperation aren’t at odds; in fact, they’re essential for scaling responsible AI.
The moment we committed to building this together, we crossed into a new phase of ambition and impact, and later accelerated that new phase with the addition of Cudos, the largest provider of high end AI compute for the decentralised world.
How Do You Define Success?
As a Business: Success for SingularityNET and ASI means open, decentralised AI infrastructure being used in the real world – by developers, enterprises and researchers – outside of Big Tech’s walled gardens. If we see our tools powering life sciences, decentralised finance, robotics or climate solutions – and governed by the communities who use them – we’ve done our job. AGI is the long-term aim, but democratized intelligence along the way is success in itself.
As a Founder: Success for me means staying aligned with purpose. If I can look back and say I built something meaningful, empowered others – especially underrepresented voices – and stayed true to ethical principles, I’ll count that as success.
What Advice Would You Give to Someone Thinking About Launching Their Own Startup?
Startups aren’t just about solving problems – they’re about solving meaningful problems. So ask yourself: if this idea succeeds, whose life will it improve?
Also, build from values. There’s nothing harder than scaling a business you’re not proud of. The other hard truth? You can’t do it alone. Build around people who challenge and inspire you. Hire for mission-fit, not just CVs. And finally, prepare to evolve. Your first product, pitch, or plan won’t be your last, but your values should remain constant. If you can hold that center, you’ll build something real.
What’s Next for Your Company? Any Exciting Developments We Should Watch Out For?
We’re launching the ASI Tech Stack – a modular, interoperable system designed to accelerate the development and deployment of decentralized AGI. It’s not just another set of APIs. It’s a full ecosystem: AI model training (Train), composable AI workflows (Create), real-time agents, knowledge graphs, symbolic reasoning and on-chain governance.
We’re also rolling out ASI-1, our open large language model, and deploying compute centers to decentralize the infrastructure layer. This isn’t about hype – it’s about building the rails for the next generation of AI. And yes, it’s all open-source. We believe the future of intelligence must be accessible, accountable and shared.
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Founder’s Five with Janet Adams
Janet Adams is motivated by her belief in the importance and necessity of decentralisation and safe implementation of AI and soon, AGI. But, who is the lady behind these ambitions? Here’s a little more about Janet Adams in TechRound’s exclusive Founder’s Five.
1. Favourite Business Tool
Notion. It’s my go-to for strategy, documentation, collaboration, and even organizing AGI research notes. Pair that with our internal AI models for summarization and it becomes a real productivity force multiplier.
2. One Lesson You Learned the Hard Way
Tech alone doesn’t convince people—trust does. I’ve learned that vision must be matched with communication, empathy, and constant alignment. Innovation without adoption is just noise.
3. One Future Trend You’re Watching
Decentralized AI agents with memory, personality, and governance—all natively interoperable. It’s the convergence of symbolic reasoning, LLMs, and crypto-economics. And it’s coming faster than most expect.
4. One Quote You Live By
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The ASI Alliance is proof of that in action.
5. One Book/Podcast You Recommend
Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark. It doesn’t just explore what AGI could become—it challenges you to think about what we want it to become. Every founder working with AI should read it.
