Another Podcast
- Episodes
- 104
- Released
- monthly
- Latest episode
- Nov 10, 2026
About the podcast
If you're looking for another over-scripted and edited podcast, this is not it. But if you want to listen to honest and unfiltered discussions about the latest in tech and its impact on society, welcome, you have come to the right place. This is Another Podcast where two friends and colleagues discuss their overlapping experiences and perspectives on what happens in technology. We might know some of the same things, yet we also have different backgrounds and expertise, or at least, we ask different questions. Benedict Evans has worked in equity research, strategy and venture capital and owns lots of old phones; Toni Cowan-Brown works at the intersection of tech, policy and politics.
Episodes 104
The points of leverage
For some industries, a world-changing new technology really is just a useful tool, and for others it changes everything. How did that work for the internet, and how will it work for AI? Where's the point of leverage?
Anthropic
Anthropic’s S1 is a Rorschach test - what do you want to see? And does this have any predictive value?
Looking for friction
How much consumer spending and how many business models are locked up by friction, inertia and complexity that AI might reduce or remove? How many businesses depend on making it too hard to bother? What happens …
Show notes
How much consumer spending and how many business models are locked up by friction, inertia and complexity that AI might reduce or remove? How many businesses depend on making it too hard to bother? What happens if ‘the marginal cost of arguing goes to zero’?
AI deployment
Every big company deployed Copilot. Hmm. That doesn't seem to have changed everything, so now what? How does this work, how do change management and 'AI deploycos' turn out, and how does this fit into 'normal …
Show notes
Every big company deployed Copilot. Hmm. That doesn't seem to have changed everything, so now what? How does this work, how do change management and 'AI deploycos' turn out, and how does this fit into 'normal technology'?
Most people and companies aren't tool-builders
AI makes it easy for anyone to build tools to automate their work... except most people and most companies aren't tool-builders, don't think like that, and can't and won't do that. This is why software …
Show notes
AI makes it easy for anyone to build tools to automate their work... except most people and most companies aren't tool-builders, don't think like that, and can't and won't do that. This is why software companies and consultants exist - AI changes the thresholds but not the problem.
Token pricing
AI is in a supply crunch today, but what happens when we come out of it? How and where will supply, demand, price, capacity and capex get back into equilibrium? Today, model labs can name their price, but why …
Show notes
AI is in a supply crunch today, but what happens when we come out of it? How and where will supply, demand, price, capacity and capex get back into equilibrium? Today, model labs can name their price, but why won’t they end up as low-margin commodity infrastructure?
The spring updates on AI
Twice a year, Benedict publishes a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry, and the latest came out a few weeks ago. These days, that means AI. What's new and what are the big …
Show notes
Twice a year, Benedict publishes a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry, and the latest came out a few weeks ago. These days, that means AI. What's new and what are the big questions?
What jobs are AI jobs?
How do you know what AI will do to your industry? Your company? Your job? The easy, obvious answer is to add up the things you do that can be automated, but it’s probably better to ask how the job will change …
Show notes
How do you know what AI will do to your industry? Your company? Your job? The easy, obvious answer is to add up the things you do that can be automated, but it’s probably better to ask how the job will change, and to ask what your job really means. Is AI tackling the easy part or the hard part? What are your customers really buying?
The end of the network effect
OpenAI has some big questions. It doesn’t have unique tech. It has a big user base, but with limited engagement and stickiness and no network effect. The incumbents have matched the tech and are leveraging …
Show notes
OpenAI has some big questions. It doesn’t have unique tech. It has a big user base, but with limited engagement and stickiness and no network effect. The incumbents have matched the tech and are leveraging their product and distribution. And a lot of the value and leverage will come from new experiences that haven’t been invented yet, and it can’t invent all of those itself. What’s the plan?
AI and SaaS
What does AI do to software? What's a more interesting answer than 'no, this won't kill SaaS'? And what comes after the euphoria?
How does OpenAI compete?
OpenAI has all the mindshare and 800m weekly active users, but the models remain commodities and platforms with their own distribution are coming up fast. How will it compete? How will any of this work? How can …
Show notes
OpenAI has all the mindshare and 800m weekly active users, but the models remain commodities and platforms with their own distribution are coming up fast. How will it compete? How will any of this work? How can you differentiate AI?
The AI presentation
It's time for Benedict's annual Tech Trends presentation. What's new, what's boring, what are the new questions?
A double episode: AI differentiation, and Apple does F1
How can billion dollar chatbots differentiate when they're all doing the same thing in the same way?- and -Why is tech into F1, and why is F1 into tech?
Looking for AI strategies
It's easy to say what tech companies want from AI, but much harder to talk about the product strategy - they're all pretty much the same. "Just build a better model!" Where does that go? Can they differentiate? …
Show notes
It's easy to say what tech companies want from AI, but much harder to talk about the product strategy - they're all pretty much the same. "Just build a better model!" Where does that go? Can they differentiate? What would it mean to differentiate a product that can do 'everything' - what would different everythings be?
Ai eats the world
For the past decade, Benedict has given an annual presentation on the state of technology, and he did the latest at Slush in Helsinki last month. In this episode we discuss some of the challenges and issues …
Show notes
For the past decade, Benedict has given an annual presentation on the state of technology, and he did the latest at Slush in Helsinki last month. In this episode we discuss some of the challenges and issues that he tried to cover.
You can find the full presentation here - https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations
From SAAS software to Formula 1
Benedict went from being a consultant to an analyst to having his own business, but in essence, he's always been an analyst. Toni went from policy to consultancy, then from B2B sales to Formula 1. After four …
Show notes
Benedict went from being a consultant to an analyst to having his own business, but in essence, he's always been an analyst. Toni went from policy to consultancy, then from B2B sales to Formula 1. After four years of doing the podcast, we thought it would be interesting to sit down and discuss how we got here and talk all things Formula 1.
Google's Antitrust case
A quarter century after 'don't be evil', a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in search. But no-one knows what happens next, and whether this ruling will change anything. Will Apple build a …
Show notes
A quarter century after 'don't be evil', a judge has found that Google is abusing its monopoly in search. But no-one knows what happens next, and whether this ruling will change anything. Will Apple build a search engine? Will ChatGPT change search? Does it matter? There are many more questions than answers.
The AI summer
As we go into the summer, we know a lot more about generative AI than we did six or nine months ago - or at least, we have better questions.
Looking for AI use-cases
Generative AI is the thing, and all new software will be built around it. But while everyone is experimenting and some people are getting huge value out of ChatGPT or Midjourney right now, others haven't worked …
Show notes
Generative AI is the thing, and all new software will be built around it. But while everyone is experimenting and some people are getting huge value out of ChatGPT or Midjourney right now, others haven't worked out how to make it useful. Yet. So how do we find use-cases for a universal, general purpose, magical technology, and is that a crazy question?
Tiktok, Apple and Temu
Will the US finally break up Tiktok? Will the EU break up the App Store? And why does Temu want to keep your orders under $800?
Google Gemini and AI bias
Are there questions that an AI chatbot shouldn't answer? Should it always give the 'right answer'? Are you sure? Google has egg on its face this week, but this isn't easy, and with generative AI, we're going to …
Show notes
Are there questions that an AI chatbot shouldn't answer? Should it always give the 'right answer'? Are you sure? Google has egg on its face this week, but this isn't easy, and with generative AI, we're going to re-run all the arguments and panics we had over content moderation in the last decade.
Breaking and remaking media
We’re past peak TV, the charts are curving down, and Hollywood is pretty sure that streaming was a bad idea. On the other hand, music is growing strongly and might even end up bigger than CDs. Why have …
Show notes
We’re past peak TV, the charts are curving down, and Hollywood is pretty sure that streaming was a bad idea. On the other hand, music is growing strongly and might even end up bigger than CDs. Why have newspapers, books, movies, TV and music coped so differently with the internet?
Apple's Vision Pro
Yes, we bought one. What’s it like and what can we say that we didn’t say last summer? What has Apple built, what is it for, what does it mean for Meta, and why does it cost $3,500?
What's your AI strategy?
Everyone needs an AI strategy (there was an email from the CEO!) but what would that mean? How does a big company work out how to deploy a new technology? How is this the same as every other platform shift, and …
Show notes
Everyone needs an AI strategy (there was an email from the CEO!) but what would that mean? How does a big company work out how to deploy a new technology? How is this the same as every other platform shift, and how might it be different?
AI and Everything Else
Every year, Benedict produces a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. Here are some of the key takeaways from this year's presentation - AI, and everything …
Show notes
Every year, Benedict produces a big presentation exploring macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. Here are some of the key takeaways from this year's presentation - AI, and everything else.
Presentation - https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations
LLMs, links, and the death of links
We spent the last 30 years building structures on top or instead of the raw links of the web, from Google to TikTok… but now LLMs might read all the links for us.
Bundling/Unbundling AI
ChatGPT and LLMs can do anything (or look like they can), so what can you do with them? How do you know? Do we move to chat bots as a magical general-purpose interface, or do we unbundle them back into …
Show notes
ChatGPT and LLMs can do anything (or look like they can), so what can you do with them? How do you know? Do we move to chat bots as a magical general-purpose interface, or do we unbundle them back into single-purpose software?
The magic customer
A conversation with Leonard Brody, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Caravan. How do you build brands and consumer products in a world of infinite choice and infinite media? And how does celebrity fit into …
Show notes
A conversation with Leonard Brody, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Caravan. How do you build brands and consumer products in a world of infinite choice and infinite media? And how does celebrity fit into that?
Unbundling ChatGPT
Nine months on, everyone is still trying to understand where ChatGPT will go, but one big question for us: how is this useful, for us, today? What's the product? How does this get unbundled?
These are the latest 40 of 104 episodes. You’ll find older episodes in the podcast’s feed.
Similar podcasts
More Government podcasts
Is this your podcast?
Confirm it with an entry in your feed: you get a code here, add it as podcast:txt to the channel of your feed, and we check it. Your podcast is then shown as “verified” on SoundNode.