The gap between academia and the market in AI

I’d heard on some podcast — I don’t remember which — about the shift of people leaving universities to become AI researchers at companies. It’s really happening.

What I see are very theoretical professors, or ones who split their lives between the university and a company. Very few full-time AI professors are “riding the wave” of GenAI. Most are still in the “comfort” of very academic research. It’s necessary, but all of these people?

I’m feeling the distance between academia and the market even more. Unfortunately. Of course, there are rare exceptions, the biggest example being the Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence (CEIA).

I want to do something cool with projects at Unieuro, heavily inspired by designjoy.co. That is, a fixed fee (starting at 10k a month) that you can pause when you’re not using it — and instead of solving design, it solves automation and AI problems.

Originally written in Portuguese and published on LinkedIn on January 26, 2026. I translated it into English with the help of AI (Claude): it let me bring my LinkedIn posts to people who don’t read Portuguese without rewriting each one from scratch. I reviewed the translation to keep my original meaning and tone.