In this episode of "Exploring the AI Rainforest," host Derek E. Silva interviews Himanshu Udupi, a sophomore at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Himanshu is making significant contributions to Zeru's zScore research, working on merging onchain and offchain reputation systems into a portable value metric. His fresh perspectives on the intersection of AI and blockchain technology are helping shape the evolving landscape of decentralized technologies.

In a world where bots farm incentives, whales skew governance, and trust is increasingly difficult to verify, reputation has become the most critical missing primitive in Web3.

In a world rapidly reshaped by artificial intelligence, decentralized finance, and digital coordination, the most fundamental missing primitive is trust. Today, we’re proud to announce that Zeru has secured strategic support and angel investments to build zScore – the universal, decentralized reputation layer designed for the agentic era.

In 2025, the digital landscape is undergoing a seismic shift. The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI), decentralized finance (DeFi), and escalating concerns over identity theft has underscored the urgent need for robust, onchain reputation systems. Zeru’s zScore emerges as a pioneering solution, offering a decentralized, privacy-preserving reputation protocol poised to redefine trust in the digital realm.

We’re excited to announce that Zeru has been accepted into the Sentient Builder Program, joining a cohort of pioneering projects redefining the role of AI agents in Web3.

In this episode of Exploring the AI Rainforest, host Derek E. Silva speaks with Parag Paul, Chief Technology Officer at Rig AI and advisor to Zeru. With a strong background in statistics, swarm algorithms, and computational intelligence, Parag shares insights on AI's evolution, decentralized systems, reputation management, and the changing economic landscape.

The rise of AI is reshaping the internet, quickly. From deepfake videos and synthetic influencers, to AI-generated tweets and autonomous agents, it’s getting harder and harder to know who or what you’re interacting with.

As Web3 matures, one thing is clear: wallets need more than transaction history to be trusted.

We’re thrilled to launch Exploring the AI Rainforest, a podcast dedicated to the thinkers, builders, and dreamers reshaping our world at the intersection of artificial intelligence, decentralized finance, verifiable data, and reputation systems. Each episode features deep conversations with guests pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and our very first guest is the perfect embodiment of that spirit.