The hard part is not the technology. It is trust.
By the time a model demos well, the real work is just starting: what a company will put its name on, who owns it when it breaks, and how a team changes to actually use it.
AI go-to-market, adoption, and strategy
Alcir Candido Goncalves
I take AI to market, and I make sure it actually gets used.
At Meta, I take emerging AI products from concept to paying customers, across enterprise and small business. Before that, fifteen years bringing new technology to market in tech and telecom across the Americas. I use these tools myself every day, so I meet customers as someone who actually uses this, not someone reading from a deck.
English, Portuguese, and Spanish. New York and Sao Paulo.
Point of view
How I see AI inside companies.
You learn AI by using it, not by selling it.
I run my own work on these tools every day, so I can tell a team where the real value is and where the hype starts. I have usually hit the walls they are about to hit.
AI is becoming part of how companies are built, not a feature they add.
It is moving from what a tool does in a demo to what a business rebuilds around it. That is a leadership call, and most companies are still deciding who owns it.
The work
At Meta, I take emerging AI products from concept to paying customers, across enterprise and small business. The seat gives me an honest view of how companies actually adopt this.
I use what I sell.
I am not the engineer who ships the product. I am the heavy user who lives in these tools and automates my own work with them, so I sit across from a customer as someone who actually uses this, not someone reading from a deck.
No playbook yet.
Emerging AI does not come with a manual. I work it from the first conversation to real adoption, turning what a product can do into what a business will actually change in order to use it.
Both sides of the table.
I have carried large enterprise relationships on the sell side, and I run my own paid acquisition on the buy side: the ads, the analytics, the unit economics. I read what the customer reads, because I am one.
Helped open a new category.
I was part of the team that brought WhatsApp Business to the US, a category that did not exist here when we started. It taught me how a genuinely new product earns its way into real companies.
Before Meta, TIM in Brazil. Nine years at Meta since, the first two in Sao Paulo before I relocated to New York. Fifteen-plus years in total across tech, telecom, and e-commerce in Latin America and North America, a move I earned on results.
Speaking and judging
I speak and judge when the work is worth sharing, usually about how AI actually gets adopted, not how it demos.
Watch the talk NY Tech Week 2026
Beyond Automation: How AI Is Unlocking a New Era of Human Potential
Listen to the conversation Podcast, July 2026
The End of the All-Knowing Leader
In the room drag to explore
AI That Converts, Business AI session 
BTE Hackathon judge, Stern and Microsoft Garage 
Beyond Automation panel, NY Tech Week 2026 
Leadership at the Edge of AI podcast, with Shivangi Walke 
Meta Business AI, Early Adopters Forum 
Business AI Insider Forum, Meta 
AI workshop, New York 
NYU Stern, Leadership Storytelling Summit 
AI-enhanced browsing, Business AI session 
NY Tech Week 2026, Washington Square 
NotebookLM workshop, NYU Stern 
Meta Business AI, Early Adopters Forum 
The Business AI team, Meta 
With the winning team, BTE Hackathon 
Ray-Ban Meta Display, hands-on 
NYU Stern Executive MBA, global residency 
Business AI Forum, Meta
- BTE Hackathon, NYU Stern and Microsoft Garage Invited judge, 2026
- Leadership at the Edge of AI, podcast Guest, with Shivangi Walke, 2026
- NY Tech Week 2026, Beyond Automation Panel with NYU Stern, C3 AI, and Cisco
- NY Tech Week 2026, in conversation AI: the next decade of work, capital, and culture
- NYU Stern Leadership Storytelling Summit NotebookLM workshop, 2025
- Meta Business AI sessions Recurring, on how AI actually gets adopted
Beyond the day job
Building and advising Embedwise
An independent practice I run, helping small businesses and entrepreneurs adopt AI well. The same work I do at scale, brought to owners who do not have a team to do it for them.
embedwise.ai ↗
Author
Pagina Internacional
Perceptions of a World in Motion
It started as a blog I co-wrote at university, while I was studying International Relations. In 2010 a public vote named it the best politics blog in Brazil. The book gathers the best of those posts, a record of how the world looked and felt through the 2010s.
Mentoring
I mentor operators and founders working AI into their companies, the people doing the unglamorous work of real adoption.
NYU Stern Executive MBA
Second year, on the AI track. A Business Strategy postgraduate from FIA before that.
Contact
Thinking about how your company adopts AI, or building a team or a product around it? Let's talk.
I am open to the right conversations: senior and leadership roles, advisory and board work, and speaking. Not a pitch, a conversation.