The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has changed various aspects of daily life, from shopping to financial services. Niloy Gupta has built a career that embodies this transformative potential of technology. From his early days at Yelp optimizing ad revenue systems to becoming a key player at Affirm, the buy now, pay later giant that had its IPO in 2021, Gupta has been at the forefront of innovation. He has even launched his startup, proving that AI can tackle industry challenges.
From Carnegie Mellon to the Cutting Edge
For Gupta, the journey started with a strong foundation in computer science. After earning his bachelor's degree at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka in India, where he was a gold medalist, he pursued a master's in computational data science at Carnegie Mellon University. There, he honed his expertise in machine learning systems.
Gupta describes his time at Carnegie Mellon as "an eye-opener" for understanding the broader applications of AI/ML. He credits this period with shaping his strategy for solving real-world problems. "It was not just about algorithms," he says. "It was about figuring out how to scale them effectively in dynamic, high-impact environments."
Making Ads Smarter at Yelp
Gupta entered the AdTech field at Yelp as a senior machine learning engineer, focused on enhancing advertising systems. He designed ad-targeting models that boosted revenue by 10 percent and developed distributed pipelines to process billions of data samples for real-time ad optimization. Notably, he improved the performance of Gradient Boosted Trees, making them run three times faster, significantly impacting online advertising.
"AdTech was a proving ground," he says. "It was where I learned to balance innovation with execution and to deliver results that mattered for both the business and its users."
Rewriting the Rules of FinTech at Affirm
Gupta's career was pivotal when he joined Affirm, a leader in the buy now, pay later industry. As an early ML engineer, he significantly influenced the company's machine learning systems for underwriting and fraud detection.
At Affirm, Gupta led a team that developed models optimizing loan repayment terms and interest rates, contributing millions of USD to the company's cumulative contribution margin.
One of his key projects was Shparkley, which aimed to make AI models more interpretable by scaling the Shapley algorithm to understand predictions better. "In finance, trust is everything," Gupta states. His work on Shparkley enhanced transparency and gained attention in the tech community, leading to its open-source release.
Taking the Entrepreneurial Leap
In 2023, Gupta left the corporate world to co-found Lambent Logic, a SaaS company focused on solving revenue management challenges in the pharmaceutical industry. As the startup's chief technology officer, he raised $1 million in pre-seed funding, built the product from scratch, and successfully piloted it with enterprise clients.
Launching a startup brought new challenges, but Gupta embraced the shift. "As an entrepreneur, you wear many hats," he says. "I was not just an engineer anymore, I was a fundraiser, a product manager, and a recruiter. It was a steep learning curve, but also gratifying."
Lambent Logic leveraged Gupta's expertise in machine learning to provide pharmaceutical manufacturers with tools to optimize pricing and revenue streams. It was another example of how AI can address complex, industry-specific problems.
More Than Just an Engineer
While Gupta's technical achievements are impressive, his contributions surpass his professional roles. He holds a patent application for optimizing financing programs, has published research papers on biomedical text summarization, and has contributed to open-source projects that make machine-learning tools more accessible.
His work has also had a humanitarian impact. Early in his career, he led the development of assistive technologies for visually impaired students in India. These tools were deployed in blind schools, earning him recognition in national media outlets such as The Hindu, The Deccan Herald, and The Times of India.
Gupta is a firm believer in the power of collaboration. "Innovation happens when we share knowledge," he says. "That is why I have always been passionate about contributing to open-source projects and making my work available to the broader community."
A Visionary for the Future of AI
As Gupta reflects on his career, he quickly acknowledges that the journey is far from over. His ability to move between industries, AdTech, FinTech, and now pharmaceutical SaaS, underscores the versatility of AI. Whether optimizing ad clicks, redefining financial systems, or optimizing drug pricing, Gupta's work consistently proves that AI is more than just a tool.
"AI is not just about technology," Gupta says. "It is about solving real problems and creating value for people and businesses alike."
With his technical expertise, entrepreneurial spirit, and commitment to innovation, Niloy Gupta is a figure to watch in the ever-changing world of AI/ML. His story reminds us that the possibilities of AI are as limitless as the creativity of those who wield it.
