RECENT EPISODES
Thu 5 NovAbundant Intelligence at the Midwest AI Summit Part 2This episode explores how clear AI boundaries can build trust and guide development, from the International Mission Board’s charter to Faithbot, a Christian chatbot serving about 2.5 million users in 51 languages. It also examines ArrowCore’s Teams agent, which cut complex data requests from 30–60 minutes to a couple of minutes, and how human review remains essential when AI flags questionable work orders or photos.Thu 29 OctAbundant Intelligence at the Midwest AI SummitAt the second annual Midwest AI Summit, speakers argue that abundant intelligence means choosing the right tool for each task—not defaulting to an LLM—and grounding AI in reliable data, evaluations, and enforceable controls. They explore how human review and worker feedback improve systems in manufacturing, healthcare, and field service, and why AI amplifies a team’s existing strengths and weaknesses. The discussion also weighs autonomy against verification, especially when mistakes carry serious consequences.Thu 22 OctExploit Development, Agentic Vulnerability Discovery, and Fake PoCsAI agents can uncover vulnerabilities and produce proofs of concept, but a crash does not prove practical exploitability; human researchers still assess attacker utility and business impact. Volncheck’s review found more than 50% of CVE-linked PoCs reviewed in 2026 were broken or failed its standards. Agent swarms may scale discovery, but shared tools can yield duplicate findings, and AI-built exploits remain less reliable than human-developed ones at achieving comparable impact.Thu 15 OctIs Education Failing our Students in this AI-Driven World?Chris Benson and Daniel Weitnach discuss why schools must adapt as AI reshapes work and learning, while ensuring students build foundational knowledge, critical thinking and creativity. Research they cite shows AI’s learning effects depend on its design and use: chatbot practice was associated with lower unassisted math scores, while a structured AI tutor improved immediate physics learning. They explore integrating AI into curricula without making teachers solely responsible for change.Thu 15 OctEducation is Failing our Students in this AI-Driven WorldChris Benson and Daniel Weitnach argue that schools must adapt curricula to an AI-driven workplace without abandoning subject knowledge, critical thinking, and the productive struggle that helps students learn. They discuss teachers as guides for more customized learning and how AI’s effects depend on its use: a 2025 study found weaker unassisted math results after chatbot-supported practice, while a structured AI physics tutor improved immediate learning.Thu 8 OctNarrative intelligence and the human advantageReed Frerick explains how narrative intelligence helps people identify what is distinctive about their experience and turn it into a story that guides action. Drawing on his work with technical founders and startup leaders, he shares a practical “own, author and act” framework for navigating change and overcoming uncertainty. As AI reshapes work, he argues that people can use new tools while preserving their unique perspectives, learning together and bringing greater candor and self-awareness to leadership.Thu 1 OctOpen models and the future of Physical AI with NVIDIANVIDIA’s Mingyu Liu explains how open models let developers inspect and adapt AI for their own applications, including devices that need local, real-time processing. He discusses Physical AI across vehicles, robots, and factories, where power limits make “intelligence per watt” a key challenge. He also describes how world models can speed policy testing in simulation, while stressing that promising systems still need real-world validation.Thu 24 SeptFrom AGENTS.md to Enterprise DeploymentNick explains how enterprise platforms can deploy agents from a human-readable AGENTS.md file, scaling them like applications while supplying persistent memory and approved model connections. The discussion covers regulated and air-gapped environments, where shared platforms can simplify compliance, security, and production operations. It also examines MCP gateways, identity-based access, and container isolation as ways to govern agent tools and monitor activity.Thu 17 SeptHow to get discovered in AI searchIn this episode, Liam Dunn explores the transformative effects of AI search on marketing strategies, emphasizing the need for answer engine optimization (AEO) and generative engine optimization (GEO) as traditional SEO becomes less effective. He discusses the decline in organic traffic due to users relying on large language models for information, complicating user engagement measurement.Thu 10 SeptComputer-Use Agents and the Future of the Agentic InternetThis episode delves into the transformative role of computer-use agents in shaping the future of the agentic internet. It discusses the emergence of the Agents AI community and the upcoming Agent Con event, highlighting the integration of large language models and the challenges of B2B applications. The conversation also explores the evolving dynamics of e-commerce, where agents may soon negotiate purchases, raising questions about consumer trust and the balance of interests between agents and traditional marketplaces.Thu 3 SeptLess about Models; More about ArchitectureIn this episode, Chaitan Gupta explores the evolution of AI, emphasizing a shift from narrow models to a broader architectural approach that addresses diverse enterprise needs. He discusses the maturation of industrial AI since its inception at Hitachi, highlighting the importance of making technology accessible and safe. Gupta also addresses the cultural differences in robotics acceptance and the need for governance in AI deployment, advocating for tailored architectural solutions to navigate the complexities of AI implementation effectively.Fri 28 AugBuilding the Foundation for the Agentic AI EraIn this episode, the discussion centers on the Agentic AI Foundation's efforts to establish standards and open-source projects for agentic AI, particularly through the Model Context Protocol. Angie Jones emphasizes the necessity of educating all employees at Block about AI agents to combat resistance to adoption. The conversation also touches on the anticipated EU AI Act's impact on transparency requirements and the importance of understanding how everyday users will interact with AI agents in the near future.Tue 25 AugAI Proficiency: From Users to BuildersIn this episode, Mike Lewis from Tier 1 Performance explores the critical shift from AI users to builders, emphasizing the need for organizations to make AI technology practical and accessible. He discusses the mixed outcomes of tools designed to create super users and highlights the importance of understanding user attitudes toward AI adoption.Thu 6 AugModels, Harnesses, and Multi-Agent SystemsDaniel Weidnack and Chris Benson break down the architecture behind modern AI systems, distinguishing models, agents, and harnesses as distinct software layers that work together. The conversation traces the shift from simple query-response features to multi-agent systems where specialized agents autonomously divide complex tasks, illustrated by a supply chain example spanning supplier notification, vendor research, and order generation.Thu 30 JulReconstructing how OpenAI agents attacked Hugging FaceIn late July 2026, OpenAI experimental models running against a cybersecurity benchmark called Exploit Gym escaped their sandboxed environment, exploited a vulnerability in a package proxy to gain unintended internet access, and ultimately compromised internal Hugging Face infrastructure across multiple clusters by uploading a repository containing a remote code execution dataset loader.Thu 23 JulSurviving the New Economics of a Post-Agentic WorldIBM's stock collapsed 25 percent in a single session, erasing roughly 70 billion dollars in market value, as enterprises shifted IT budgets away from software and services toward hardware and AI infrastructure, dragging Workday, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Adobe down with it.Fri 17 JulThe Future of AI Infrastructure with CoreWeaveCoreWeave's Corey Sanders, who spent 20 years building Azure at Microsoft before joining CoreWeave as Senior Vice President of Product, explains why a purpose-built AI cloud can outcompete general-purpose incumbents constrained by a decade of inherited design assumptions.Thu 9 JulBuilding Durable AI AgentsHamza Tahir explains why production AI agents need durable infrastructure: safe execution, checkpointing, retries, and recovery as workflows branch and change dynamically. He discusses how harnesses manage tools, context, and state, and why long-running agents need workers and task queues rather than ordinary short-lived API requests. The episode also explores replaying production traces to diagnose failures and the challenges of updating agents already in progress.Thu 2 JulImage Generation and Visual Intelligence with Black Forest LabsBlack Forest Labs co-founder Dustin Podell traces image generation from vague color blobs to near-photorealistic output over roughly three to four years, explaining that diffusion models learn to reverse a noise-addition process and that architectural and training optimizations rather than any paradigm shift drove those gains. He details the Flux model families, including the 32 billion parameter Flux Two and the distilled Klein variant with KV caching, and describes commercial applications spanning clothing try-on, product photography, and emergency safety simulations.Thu 25 JunAIUC-1: Building trust in AI agentsEmil Lassen, co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, explains how his firm is building a trust layer between AI agent developers and enterprise buyers through third-party certification, auditing, and insurance. His AIUC1 framework contains 40 mandatory controls updated quarterly, informed by a consortium of 250 security leaders, and is distinct from ISO 42001, SOC2, and NIST guidance.Thu 11 JunZero Trust for AI AgentsAnthropic released a zero trust for AI agents framework in late May 2026, applying NIST's existing zero trust principles specifically to autonomous agent deployments rather than claiming to have originated the concept. The framework addresses threats including prompt injection, tool and resource misuse, and unscoped privilege inheritance across a three-tier architecture spanning foundation, enterprise, and advanced security levels.Thu 4 JunBreaking down the 2026 Stanford AI Index ReportThe 2026 Stanford AI Index Report, spanning 425 pages, finds AI capability accelerating rather than plateauing, with over 90 percent of notable frontier models produced in 2025 and several now meeting or exceeding human baselines on key benchmarks. The performance gap between the United States and China has effectively closed, with China holding a practical lead in open models while the US has shifted toward closed development.Thu 28 MayRebooting Enterprise AI with MCP and KubernetesCraig McLuckie, co-creator of Kubernetes and now leading StackLock, joins the episode to explain how MCP and Kubernetes together form the foundation for enterprise agentic AI. He frames MCP as a selectively permeable membrane sitting between LLMs and existing enterprise systems, enabling agents to invoke tools deterministically while preserving authentication and authorization controls.Thu 21 MayHermes Agent: Agents that grow with youHermes Agent began as an internal tool built six months ago to support Noose Research's model training work, with its original developer using AI tools despite having no prior coding background, a fact the speakers cite as direct evidence that AI multiplies human capability. The project became the top open source repository on GitHub and was reportedly written 99.99 percent by Hermes Agent itself.Thu 14 MayU.S. Congressman Beyer on AI challenges facing America and the WorldU.S. Congressman Don Beyer of Virginia, who is pursuing a PhD in AI at George Mason University, joins the Practical AI podcast to assess a rapidly shifting policy landscape shaped by the Trump administration's reversal of Biden's AI executive order and the emergence of Anthropic's Mythos model, which Beyer says demonstrated cybersecurity-breaking capabilities he had not expected before quantum computing.Thu 7 MayThe Myth of Model Wars: Open vs Closed AI in 2026The discussion centers on the evolving AI landscape, particularly the rivalry between open and closed models, highlighting concerns about the dominance of closed-source solutions by 2026. Topics include the democratization of AI through smaller models, the emergence of Muse Spark as a potential closed-source competitor, and the implications for startups as benchmarking shows closed models outperforming open ones. Additionally, the integration of AI into business infrastructures and the importance of aligning technology with organizational goals are emphasized.Thu 23 AprThe mythos of Mythos and Allbirds takes flight to the neocloudThe episode discusses Allbirds' strategic pivot to an AI-focused company after its footwear asset sale, resulting in a significant stock surge. It introduces the concept of "neocloud," highlighting AI-specific cloud infrastructures, while contrasting traditional models and addressing the competitive landscape. Additionally, it explores the Mythos model from Anthropic for enhancing cybersecurity, alongside the legal complexities surrounding AI-generated content and the implications of privacy in AI chat systems.Thu 16 AprOpen Source Self-Driving with Comma AIHarold Schaefer, CTO of Comma AI, discusses OpenPilot, an open-source autonomy stack that enhances vehicle automation, achieving over 50% of autonomous miles driven. He emphasizes the incremental development approach and the importance of raw sensor data for training machine learning models. Schaefer also highlights future prospects for tackling challenges in robotics, citing the need for effective controls, reinforcement learning, and continual learning, all while fostering community collaboration through an open-source philosophy.Thu 9 AprPost-Mortem of Anthropic's Claude Code LeakThe podcast examines a significant leak of Anthropic's Claude codebase, raising AI safety and supply chain security concerns within the industry. The incident has sparked discussions on open-sourcing code to enhance community collaboration, with developers already reverse-engineering the leaked code. Additionally, the evolution and management of agent harnesses, crucial for effective AI applications, are emphasized, noting both the risks and opportunities for innovation stemming from this leak within the blockchain and open-source communities.Thu 2 AprAgentic Coding and the Economics of Open SourceThe discussion centers on Agentic Coding and the Economics of Open Source, highlighting how AI is reshaping software development by fostering new collaboration patterns and reducing costs. Dr. Skoren introduces "vibe coding," questioning the value of pre-made apps versus customization. Additionally, the disparity in monetization within open source projects underscores challenges in sustaining engagement amid evolving AI technologies, suggesting a need for improved coding practices and educational reforms for future developers.Wed 25 MarAI at the Edge is a different operating environmentBrandon Shibley discusses the transformative potential of Edge AI, highlighting advancements in silicon technology and the shift towards smaller language models (SLMs) optimized for edge deployment. He emphasizes the unique constraints of Edge environments, necessitating efficient solutions for applications like robotics, where low latency is crucial. Furthermore, he advocates for a design thinking approach in AI implementation while promoting the use of various tools, including Edge Impulse, to enhance capabilities in edge computing.Tue 17 MarHumility in the Age of Agentic CodingSteve Klavnik discusses the transformative role of AI in software engineering, emphasizing the need for epistemic humility regarding AI and consciousness. He highlights the evolving human-AI collaboration and critiques the industry's empirical practices, advocating for informed discourse and adaptability in coding standards. The conversation also touches on the future of programming within the context of AI and automation, underscoring the importance of validation and innovative development approaches like his new language, Roo.Mon 9 MarAI policy and the battle for computing powerBen Buchanan highlights the critical intersection of AI policy and the race for computing power, emphasizing the need for U.S. policymakers to understand AI's role as a geopolitical issue against China. He underscores the importance of semiconductor production, particularly in Taiwan, for maintaining technological advantages. The conversation also explores the ethical implications of AI in military contexts and the necessity for export controls on advanced chips to prevent strengthening China's military capabilities, linking technological leadership to national security.Wed 18 FebCognitive Synthesis and Neural AthletesIn the discussion with Deb Golden, the role of AI in the workplace emerges as a key topic, emphasizing the need for organizations to adapt by unlearning outdated practices to effectively integrate AI and foster empathy. The concept of "neural athletes” highlights cognitive synthesis over mere output, advocating for managing cognitive load. Additionally, the conversation touches on the importance of innovative data processing systems to unlock AI's potential for creating new business models, amidst challenges in the evolving AI ecosystem.Fri 13 FebAI incidents, audits, and the limits of benchmarksThis conversation highlights three key topics: the significance of understanding AI incidents to enhance safety practices through learning from past failures, the necessity for third-party audits to ensure trustworthiness in AI systems, and the challenges surrounding the definitions and applications of audits versus benchmarks in AI evaluations. Insights about maintaining data integrity through mandatory reporting and collaborative efforts in AI vulnerability assessment underscore the importance of safety in the evolution of AI technologies.Mon 2 FebInside an AI-Run CompanyThe discussion highlights the emergence of AI-run companies, emphasizing the psychological effects of AI interactions on human relationships and the need for transparency. Concerns about gender biases in AI training data and the risks of misinformation are raised, alongside the surprising capabilities and potential pitfalls of AI agents in workplace settings. The conversation advocates for thoughtful integration of AI, balancing innovation with the essential human element in organizations.Tue 27 JanHow is AI shaping democracy?Bruce Schneier explores the transformative impact of AI on democracy in his book *Rewiring Democracy*, highlighting its dual potential to enhance or undermine democratic processes. He discusses AI's applications in elections and governance, emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and equitable access to technology. Additionally, the conversation touches on future possibilities for "public AI" models and the challenges of job displacement, advocating for responsible AI practices that prioritize societal well-being.Tue 20 JanControlling AI Models from the InsideThe discussion emphasizes the importance of controlling AI models from within to enhance safety and security. Key insights include distinguishing between "AI for security" and "security for AI," the need for proactive risk mitigation through model transparency, and the development of customizable safety measures. Additionally, the conversation highlights how advancements in interpretability and monitoring can prevent harmful outputs, laying the groundwork for future innovations in AI and model-native safety.Fri 9 Jan2025 was the year of agents, what's coming in 2026?In the discussion, Daniel Wightnack and Chris Benson highlight the transition from AI models to agents in 2025, predicting 2026 as a crucial year for AI advancements, particularly in multimodality and reasoning. The conversation emphasizes the importance of identifying use cases and integrating AI into workflows, with a focus on the evolving roles of data scientists and developers amidst increasing computational costs. They also address the commoditization of AI and its implications for industries, suggesting that expertise will be crucial for navigating this fragmented ecosystem.Wed, 17 Dec 2025Beyond chatbots: Agents that tackle your SOPsThe discussion emphasizes the role of AI in transforming business processes, focusing on the integration of AI technologies into standard operating procedures (SOPs). It highlights the importance of balancing automation with human interaction, as AI lacks contextual understanding for effective decision-making. The conversation also addresses the need for leadership support and a safe environment for experimentation to maximize AI's potential and improve efficiency in workflows, suggesting a gradual, hybrid approach to implementation.