Hartford Business Journal

8 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | MAY 19, 2025 Politics & Policy IMAGE CREATED BY CHATGPT AI Debate Meet the owner of a Calif.-based AI firm that's helped shape CT's controversial artificial intelligence regulation bill can put a document into Dropbox or OneDrive or even your email; EasieOps pulls the data out of the file." Once the data is extracted, it can then be used with other business tools, such as Salesforce or an enterprise resource planning system, he said. In addition to extracting the data, a customer can apply business rules on top of it. "So, for example, if a financial figure is below a certain amount, you can tell it to do this, versus if it's above an amount, to do this," Vitale said. He added that the software is built into a client's existing system, "so you don't have to have people rip and replace or install a bunch of whole new software systems. It's really able to be built into your process." The uses for EasieOps are widely varied. Vitale says his company has clients in 38 states, including Connecticut, and 40 industry sectors. "We've got a client in the insurance sector using it to process compliance documentation," he said. Another Connecticut client is considering using it to process utility bills, while the University of California, Los Angeles, is using it to process historical Japanese protest records from the 1500s. While he declined to discuss his company's finances, Vitale did say its revenue is in "the seven-figure range." 'Sensible regulation' With many clients in Connecticut, as well as working with business students at Southern Connecticut State University and assisting the CT Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs, Vitale has spent time in the state. He became involved with the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, particularly its technology council, which he now chairs. By David Krechevsky davidk@hartfordbusiness.com R ock Vitale is a Pennsylvania native who grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He went on to earn an international business degree from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont. After grad- uation, he moved to California and worked in the energy industry for a company that recycled industrial lithium metal batteries. That raises a question: How did Vitale end up consulting with the Connecticut legislature's Artificial Intelligence Working Group, a task force created in 2023 and charged with studying AI and developing an artificial intelligence bill of rights? The 21-member working group issued a report in February 2024 that served as a guide to create a bill to regulate AI in Connecticut. That legis- lation stalled in the General Assembly last year, in large part because Gov. Ned Lamont opposed it. Two AI-related bills have been proposed in the 2025 legislative session, including Senate Bill 2, with the low number demonstrating the high priority given to the legislation by Democratic leadership. The bill's focus and goals were developed by the working group, which consulted with a variety of experts in the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry. That's where Vitale, who now lives in New York, enters the story. He and his business partner, Jack Marchese, devel- oped and founded an AI-related busi- ness based in San Diego called Easie. Vitale's shift into the AI industry offers some insight into how artifi- cial intelligence uses can be found almost anywhere, and explains how a Keystone State native who lives in New York and has a business in California, can play a role in shaping Connecticut's AI regulations. EasieOps Vitale said his college degree in busi- ness was supplemented with courses in computer programming, computer science, math and chemistry. He put all of that to use with the lithium battery recycling company in California. "We were working with large corpo- rate clients across 80 different coun- tries to recycle lithium metal batteries, so we had created a lot of automated tracking systems," he said. He would later go to work for a biotechnology company in operational excellence. That ultimately led to the development of his own company. "When I founded Easie in 2018, this idea of what we call tech-enabled operational excellence was really one of our primary focuses," Vitale said. "In the early stages, it was using AI to process audio files for academic research or public policy." Eventually, that shifted into focusing on language processing. The result was EasieOps, AI-enabled software developed in 2022 that can extract data from large documents without the need for manual entry. "We're able to reduce manual entry for organizations by, in some cases, up to 99%," Vitale said. "It's basically an integrated system where you pass documents through it — whether that's a PDF or images or other types of files," he said. "You ROCK VITALE Chief Executive Officer Easie Age: 34 Education: Bachelor's degree in international business, Champlain College Rock Vitale

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