# Ali Asif

> Ali Asif is a Kellogg MBA (Class of 2027), CPA and ACCA, ex-PwC, founder of Procul Solutions and general manager of Northlane Solutions, based between Chicago and Al Khobar.

Ali Asif is a Kellogg MBA student (Full-Time MBA, Class of 2027, Finance and Strategy), a CPA and ACCA member, and a former PwC assistant manager from Al Khobar. He is general manager of Northlane Solutions, an aviation infrastructure company in Al Khobar, and he founded and owns Procul Solutions, a Saudi company that sells AI systems and is building an agent-native accounting product. Both run on AI agents, with a person approving every price and every outbound document. He splits his year between Chicago and Al Khobar. He also keeps a daily log of AI releases, each item linked to its primary source, and writes about Saudi ventures and deals. Other people share the name Ali Asif; these details tell them apart.

## Quick facts
- Name: Ali Asif
- Roles: Founder, Procul Solutions. General Manager, Northlane Solutions.
- Education: Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University: Full-Time MBA, Class of 2027, Finance and Strategy. Oxford Brookes University: BSc Applied Accounting, 2018 to 2022.
- Credentials: CPA. ACCA member. CFA Level I candidate.
- Before: PwC, Al Khobar, 2022 to 2025, promoted to assistant manager. PKF, Dhahran. Marafie Consultancy, Riyadh.
- Companies: Northlane Solutions (Al Khobar, since March 2026). Procul Solutions (Al Khobar, since July 2026).
- Based in: Chicago, Illinois, and Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
- Writes about: New AI models and tools, AI agents and operating models, Saudi ventures and deals.
- Website: https://heyaliasif.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chaliasif
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heyaliasif
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heyaliasif
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heyaliasif
- Machine-readable pages: every URL below also answers with .md appended, or with Accept: text/markdown. Index: https://heyaliasif.com/md

## About
- [About Ali Asif](https://heyaliasif.com/about): Kellogg MBA 2027, ex-PwC, general manager of Northlane Solutions, and an AI-native operator who runs companies by directing AI agents.
- [Bio and press kit](https://heyaliasif.com/bio): Press kit for Ali Asif: bios at 1, 50, 150 and 300 words, facts, photos and contact. Kellogg MBA 2027, CPA, ex-PwC, Northlane Solutions, Procul Solutions.
- [Now](https://heyaliasif.com/now): What Ali Asif is working on in October 2026.

## Kellogg
- [Ali Asif at Kellogg](https://heyaliasif.com/kellogg): Ali Asif at the Kellogg School of Management: Full-Time MBA, Class of 2027, majors in Finance and Strategy, the Asset Management Practicum, and a year split between Chicago and Al Khobar.

## Work
- [Work with Ali Asif](https://heyaliasif.com/work): Founders, funds and operators who build in or look at Saudi Arabia: companies, deals, AI operating models, and the Chicago to Riyadh corridor.
- [Contact](https://heyaliasif.com/contact): Reach Ali Asif about a venture, a deal, a partnership, press or speaking. Use the form, LinkedIn or X and he replies himself.

## Builds
- [AI systems built by Ali Asif](https://heyaliasif.com/builds): Systems Ali Asif has shipped and runs today, from agent teams at work to this AI radar, with real numbers and sources.
- The Northlane agent organisation: 26 role-specialized AI agents that do the bid, estimating and compliance work of a small company.
- Northlane operating system: The dashboard that reads the inbox, tracks every RFQ and drafts the quotation.
- Estimating brain and price memory: Eight years of supplier emails turned into a priced, sourced memory the agents estimate from.
- Arabic tender reader and Etimad feed: Turns a scanned Arabic tender into structured line items, and watches the government tender portal daily.
- Drawing-to-costing system for an engineering group: My first outside client: estimators drop drawings in a folder and get a reviewed estimate back.
- ProCul, the agent-native ledger: An accounting product for Saudi companies where agents post, match and prepare the close, and a person approves every entry.
- @heyaliasif content engine: A daily video pipeline: raw clip in, reviewed and captioned edit out, posted only after I approve.
- Chief-of-staff morning brief: A bounded agent that reads every project each morning and hands me a short decision brief.
- The AI radar on this site: A publishing pipeline that turns primary AI sources into a short post with my take, up to three times a day.
- Saudi Tender Tagger: A small model that reads an Arabic Saudi government tender title and says what kind of work it is.

## AI log (newest 30)
- A continuously updated log of AI launches, open-weights releases, papers and tools. Every item links its primary source (model card, repo, lab post or paper page), followed by a short take from Ali.
- RSS: https://heyaliasif.com/feed.xml
- [AI log index](https://heyaliasif.com/ai): A continuously updated log of AI launches, papers and releases. Every item links the primary source, with Ali's own take.
- [AI topics](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/topics): Every lab, model family and tool that appears in more than one of Ali Asif's AI log posts, with each post and primary source listed.
- [Gemini 4 Argon lands, Run:ai goes open source](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-10-14-gemini-4-argon-lfm-runai) (2026-10-14): Google ships Gemini 4 Argon with self-reported results, Liquid AI releases a 24B on-device model, NVIDIA opens Run:ai, plus Molmo2Fish and ComfyUI VFX.
- [Muse Wonder ships without scores, Anthropic tests self-copying](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-10-13-muse-wonder-self-replication-radar) (2026-10-13): Meta launches Muse Wonder with no published numbers, Anthropic measures small-model self-replication on TV boxes, plus Qwen, MiniCPM and NVIDIA.
- [Mistral Large 4, Claude Haiku 5.5 and a wave of decision models](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-10-05-week-in-ai) (2026-10-05): Week of 5 October 2026: Mistral launches Large 4, Anthropic ships Haiku 5.5, FLUX 3 arrives, and OpenAI, Microsoft and Liquid release decision models.
- [Gemini 4 Argon debuts to cyber defenders, Sonnet 5.5, GPT-6.1 Sol](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-09-28-week-in-ai) (2026-09-28): Week of 28 September 2026: Google previews Gemini 4 Argon, Anthropic ships Sonnet 5.5, OpenAI updates GPT-6.1 Sol, and Anthropic funds engineer training.
- [Claude Opus 5.5 and GPT-6 Sol land, Claude finds a new enzyme](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-09-21-week-in-ai) (2026-09-21): Week of 21 September 2026: Anthropic releases Opus 5.5, OpenAI adds GPT-6 Sol and Luna, xAI ships Grok 4.7, and Claude agents find a new enzyme system.
- [Gemini 3.8 Live, open Qwen-Image-2.1 and Anthropic's Accenture pact](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-09-14-week-in-ai) (2026-09-14): Week of 14 September 2026: Google ships Gemini 3.8 Live, Qwen opens a 7B image model, StepFun previews Step 5, and Anthropic funds outside evaluation.
- [DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, Devin's SWE-2 and a petabyte of DNA predictions](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-09-07-week-in-ai) (2026-09-07): Week of 7 September 2026: DeepSeek opens V4.1 Flash under MIT, Cognition's SWE-2 nears Fable 5.1 at lower cost, and DeepMind publishes AlphaGenome Atlas.
- [Claude Fable 5.1 and GPT-6 Astra both land, plus Gemini 3.8 Flash](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-08-31-week-in-ai) (2026-08-31): Week of 31 August 2026: Anthropic ships Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1, OpenAI launches GPT-6 Astra, Google releases Gemini 3.8 Flash, and Arabic models appear.
- [Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash video, Tencent's Hy4 and GLM-5.3-Flash open up](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-08-24-week-in-ai) (2026-08-24): Week of 24 August 2026: Google ships a video model with native audio, Tencent opens a 770B Hy4 preview, and Z.ai releases GLM-5.3-Flash under MIT.
- [A quiet week: Qwen3.8-27B, DeepSeek adds vision, DeepMind on games](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-08-17-week-in-ai) (2026-08-17): Week of 17 August 2026: Qwen3.8-27B opens under Apache 2.0, DeepSeek tests image input on V4 Flash, and a 15-year look back at game-playing agents.
- [Grok 4.6, Gemini 3.7 Flash and GLM-5.3 arrive in four days](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-08-10-week-in-ai) (2026-08-10): Week of 10 August 2026: xAI, Google and Z.ai each ship a coding-focused model, Meta opens Muse Glimmer, and NVIDIA releases Nemotron 3.5 Lightning.
- [Qwen3.8-Max at 2.4T, Motif 3, and WeatherNext goes open](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-08-03-week-in-ai) (2026-08-03): Week of 3 August 2026: Alibaba ships the 2.4T Qwen3.8-Max, Motif Technologies opens a 314B model, and DeepMind publishes cyclone forecasting in Nature.
- [Gemini Robotics 2, plus Korean labs open 700B-class models](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-07-27-week-in-ai) (2026-07-27): Week of 27 July 2026: DeepMind releases Gemini Robotics 2 and ER 2, LG and SK Telecom open huge Apache 2.0 models, and the Kimi K3 report lands.
- [Claude Opus 5 arrives, Gemini 3.6 Flash and Solar Open 2 follow](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-07-20-week-in-ai) (2026-07-20): Week of 20 July 2026: Anthropic ships Claude Opus 5, Google releases Gemini 3.6 Flash, Upstage and Swiss AI open big models, and Google backs Genesis.
- [Grok 4.5 lands, Kimi K3 and Inkling open up huge models](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-07-13-week-in-ai) (2026-07-13): Week of 13 July 2026: xAI ships Grok 4.5, Moonshot opens Kimi K3, Thinking Machines releases Inkling under Apache 2.0, and a 27B model shrinks to 5.9 GB.
- [GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra and Luna, Muse Spark 1.1, Tencent Hy3](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-07-06-week-in-ai) (2026-07-06): OpenAI ships a three-model GPT-5.6 family, Meta upgrades Muse Spark, and Tencent opens a 295B Apache 2.0 model.
- [Claude Sonnet 5 at $2 and $10, Fable 5 returns, Nano Banana 2 Lite](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-06-29-week-in-ai) (2026-06-29): Anthropic's Sonnet 5 becomes the default for Free and Pro, access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 is restored, and Google adds Gemini Omni Flash.
- [Claude Tag in Slack, Sakana Fugu, Mistral OCR 4, Codex Remote](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-06-22-week-in-ai) (2026-06-22): Anthropic puts Claude into Slack channels, Sakana makes its orchestration system generally available, and Mistral ships OCR 4.
- [GLM-5.2 with a 1M window, Codex Record and Replay](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-06-15-week-in-ai) (2026-06-15): Z.ai releases GLM-5.2, OpenAI teaches Codex to learn from demonstrated workflows, and the research list tilts toward looped coding models.
- [Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 arrive, plus Kimi K2.7 Code](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-06-08-week-in-ai) (2026-06-08): Anthropic launches a Mythos-class model for general use at $10 and $50, Moonshot releases an open coding model, and agent exams multiply.
- [Nemotron 3 Ultra ships, MiniMax M3, Gemma 4 12B, Glasswing grows](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-06-01-week-in-ai) (2026-06-01): NVIDIA releases a 550B open agent model at Computex, MiniMax and Google add open models, and Anthropic widens Project Glasswing.
- [Claude Opus 4.8, NVIDIA's Cosmos 3 keynote, Codex on Windows](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-05-25-week-in-ai) (2026-05-25): Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 with a modest-sounding post, NVIDIA announces Cosmos 3 and a humanoid reference design, and Codex reaches Windows.
- [Gemini 3.5 Flash at I/O, Qwen3.7-Max, Cursor Composer 2.5](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-05-18-week-in-ai) (2026-05-18): Google opens the Gemini 3.5 family at I/O with Flash first, Alibaba announces Qwen3.7-Max, and Cursor ships its own coding model.
- [Claude Platform on AWS, Codex on your phone, Grok Build beta](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-05-11-week-in-ai) (2026-05-11): Anthropic's native platform arrives inside AWS accounts, Codex reaches ChatGPT mobile, and xAI opens a coding CLI in beta.
- [GPT-Realtime-2, Anthropic's SpaceX compute deal, MolmoAct2](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-05-04-week-in-ai) (2026-05-04): OpenAI ships a reasoning voice model, Anthropic doubles Claude Code limits after a compute deal, and Ai2 opens a robot action model.
- [Grok 4.3, Mistral Medium 3.5 weights, and the Qwen3.6 family](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-04-27-week-in-ai) (2026-04-27): xAI ships Grok 4.3 with a 1M window, Mistral releases a 128B open model, and Alibaba and NVIDIA add open mid-size models.
- [GPT-5.5, DeepSeek V4 preview and Kimi K2.6 in one week](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-04-20-week-in-ai) (2026-04-20): OpenAI ships GPT-5.5, DeepSeek opens a 1.6T-parameter V4 preview, and Moonshot's Kimi K2.6 targets 12-hour coding runs.
- [Claude Opus 4.7, Seedance 2.0 report, Gemini Robotics-ER 1.6](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-04-13-week-in-ai) (2026-04-13): Opus 4.7 ships at an unchanged price, Codex gets a browser and computer use, and DeepMind and Physical Intelligence both push robot models forward.
- [Anthropic gates Mythos Preview, Meta's Muse Spark, GLM-5.1](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-04-06-week-in-ai) (2026-04-06): Project Glasswing hands a withheld frontier model to defenders, Meta shows its first Superintelligence Labs model, and GLM-5.1 opens its weights.
- [Gemma 4 goes Apache 2.0, Qwen3.6-Plus, GLM-5V-Turbo](https://heyaliasif.com/ai/2026-03-30-week-in-ai) (2026-03-30): Google opens Gemma 4 under Apache 2.0, Alibaba ships Qwen3.6-Plus with a 1M window, and Z.ai releases a vision-first agent model.

## Deal log (newest 5)
- A daily log of Saudi venture rounds, private equity, M&A, listings and sovereign and fund moves. Every deal links its primary source (company or investor release, exchange announcement), followed by a short take from Ali. News and his own view, not investment advice.
- RSS: https://heyaliasif.com/deals/feed.xml
- [Saudi deal log index](https://heyaliasif.com/deals): Venture rounds, private equity, M&A and listings in Saudi Arabia, logged daily with Ali's read on each. Every deal links its primary source.
- [Foodics backs Funding Souq, SALIC moves grain, barq takes Beyon](https://heyaliasif.com/deals/2026-10-13-foodics-funding-souq-salic-barq) (2026-10-13): Three Saudi moves from 11 to 13 October: a restaurant-data lending tie-up, a grain consolidation and a fintech merger.
- [Aramco and NESR sign $200M lithium pilot, Autobia raises $12M](https://heyaliasif.com/deals/2026-10-05-week-in-saudi-deals) (2026-10-13): Saudi deals for October 5 to 11, 2026: a $200M lithium agreement, Neopay buys 65% of Noon Payments, and procurement and AI startups raise rounds.
- [EU clears SABIC Europe sale, erad raises $22M, Pinnacle backs Gathern](https://heyaliasif.com/deals/2026-09-28-week-in-saudi-deals) (2026-10-13): Saudi deals for September 28 to October 4, 2026: the EU clears Aequita's purchase of SABIC Europe, a $22M fintech Series A, a Rajhi-backed housing startup.
- [SAR lines up CHF 254M for Stadler trains, CMA opens IPO consultation](https://heyaliasif.com/deals/2026-09-21-week-in-saudi-deals) (2026-10-13): Saudi deals for September 21 to 27, 2026: rail financing from Swiss and German lenders, draft IPO rules and two pre-seeds.
- [Barq raises $329.5M, ADES closes Saipem, Tabby hits $6.5B](https://heyaliasif.com/deals/2026-09-14-week-in-saudi-deals) (2026-10-13): Saudi deals for September 14 to 20, 2026: a $329.5M fintech Series A, a $285M rig acquisition closed, a $233M Series F and three debt facilities.

## Newsletter
- Saudi deals in 60 seconds: a weekly email, every Sunday, with the week's Saudi venture, private equity, M&A and listings moves linked to the primary announcement. Public information only, not investment advice.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds, signup and archive](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter): Every Sunday: the week's Saudi venture, private equity, M&A and listings moves, sourced to the primary announcement, read in about a minute.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds: Funding Souq](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter/2026-w42) (week of 2026-10-12): 3 Saudi moves from 12 Oct 2026 to 18 Oct 2026, led by Funding Souq. Sourced to the primary announcement.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds: Autobia, USD 12M](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter/2026-w41) (week of 2026-10-05): 5 Saudi moves from 5 Oct 2026 to 11 Oct 2026, led by Autobia. Sourced to the primary announcement.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds: erad, USD 22M](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter/2026-w40) (week of 2026-09-28): 4 Saudi moves from 28 Sep 2026 to 4 Oct 2026, led by erad. Sourced to the primary announcement.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds: AREP](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter/2026-w39) (week of 2026-09-21): 4 Saudi moves from 21 Sep 2026 to 27 Sep 2026, led by AREP. Sourced to the primary announcement.
- [Saudi deals in 60 seconds: barq, USD 329.5M](https://heyaliasif.com/newsletter/2026-w38) (week of 2026-09-14): 5 Saudi moves from 14 Sep 2026 to 20 Sep 2026, led by barq. Sourced to the primary announcement.

## Notes
- [Writing index](https://heyaliasif.com/writing): Notes and essays by Ali Asif on building companies by directing AI agents, written when a post is too small for a book.
- [Why I keep a daily AI log](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-why-i-keep-a-daily-ai-log) (2026-10-13): Where the AI radar came from, why every item links a primary source, and what to take from it.
- [How I run my companies with 26 AI agents](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-how-i-run-companies-with-26-ai-agents) (2026-10-13): What the agent organisation behind Northlane actually does each day, what works, and what has broken.
- [Three signals I watch in Gulf AI](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-deals-three-signals-i-watch-in-gulf-ai) (2026-10-12): Compute build-out, local content rules and talent programs: the verified facts behind what I track in Saudi AI.
- [Why I'm building an agent-native ledger](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-why-im-building-an-agent-native-ledger) (2026-10-10): Why the monthly close is the bigger problem for Saudi companies, what an agent-native ledger means in plain words, and what I have and have not proven.
- [What I'm reading and watching to keep up with AI](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-life-what-im-reading-and-watching-to-keep-up-with-ai) (2026-10-10): My actual AI information diet: one YouTube channel, primary sources over tweets, and a daily radar that does the sorting.
- [Three loops: how I run my week](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-three-loops-how-i-run-my-week) (2026-10-08): A monthly vision pass, a weekly build pass and a Friday audit. The filters I use to decide what to build, and why I commissioned a control-tower system.
- [Questions founders ask me about Saudi Arabia](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-conversations-questions-founders-ask-me-about-saudi-arabia) (2026-10-08): The questions that come up most when foreign founders ask about selling into the Kingdom, with my plain answers.
- [Pricing power in a 25-agent company](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-deals-pricing-power-in-a-25-agent-company) (2026-10-06): What running on agents does to margins, and how a buyer should think about valuing a company built that way.
- [From PwC to founder: what an auditor's brain does in a startup](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-from-pwc-to-founder-what-an-auditors-brain-does) (2026-10-03): Years at PwC left me with one habit that matters more than any technique: asking where a number came from. It has saved me from my own pitch deck.
- [0 for 20-something on cold accelerators, and what finally worked](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-zero-for-twenty-something-on-cold-accelerators) (2026-09-29): I applied cold to somewhere between 20 and 30 startup accelerators and heard back from none. The warm paths did better. A plain account of both.
- [The Chicago to Riyadh corridor, as I see it from both ends](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-deals-the-chicago-to-riyadh-corridor) (2026-09-29): A market observation from someone at Kellogg and in Al Khobar: where Chicago venture and Saudi capital meet, and what kind of seats that creates.
- [What bidding on a giga-project helideck taught me](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-what-bidding-on-a-giga-project-helideck-taught-me) (2026-09-25): We priced an elevated helideck package on a giga-project with a small team and a set of agents. We submitted. Here's what the work actually felt like.
- [How I read a Saudi infrastructure tender like an investor](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-deals-how-i-read-a-saudi-infrastructure-tender) (2026-09-22): Scope, price, counterparties and risk: the four passes I make over a tender pack before I decide to bid.
- [Why I came back to Saudi Arabia to build an aviation company](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-moves-why-i-came-back-to-saudi-to-build) (2026-09-21): A gap that already exists in the UAE, the US or the UK and hasn't reached the Kingdom yet is the cheapest opportunity I know.
- [A day split between Evanston and Al Khobar](https://heyaliasif.com/writing/2026-10-13-life-a-day-split-between-evanston-and-al-khobar) (2026-09-19): How one working day stretches across two time zones, a classroom and a company that runs on agents.