About Sunny Israni

I build AI systems, teach them at Columbia Business School, and write about them for O'Reilly. Before that, a decade in finance and engineering: credit derivatives, mortgage analytics, and commerce infrastructure.

What I do now

I am Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Lightswitch, where we build AI automation for mid-market companies. Most of my work is the unglamorous part of AI adoption: figuring out which workflows actually benefit from automation, and building the systems that make those workflows reliable enough to trust.

Teaching

I am an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Business at Columbia Business School, in the Decision, Risk and Operations division, where I have taught since 2022. My courses cover Python and agentic AI for MBA and EMBA students: people who will direct technical work rather than do it themselves, and who need to understand what these systems can and cannot do.

Writing

I am the author of Learning n8n: Building Personal AI Systems for O'Reilly Media, currently available as an Early Release. The book is about building AI systems that work for one person rather than the enterprise deployments that get all the attention.

Background

I started on Wall Street trading credit derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, then moved into engineering: mortgage-backed securities analytics at Bloomberg, and commerce infrastructure at Shopify. I have founded four companies. I hold the CFA charter and a BBA in Finance from Pace University. I live in New York.

Press and speaking

A running list of interviews, podcast appearances, conference talks and press mentions lives on the press and speaking page.

Elsewhere