The Artificial Intelligence Show
- Folgen
- 252
- Erscheint
- wöchentlich
- Letzte Folge
- 12. Nov. 2026
Über den Podcast
The Artificial Intelligence Show is the podcast that helps your business grow smarter by making AI approachable and actionable. The AI Show podcast is brought to you by the creators of SmarterX, Marketing AI Institute, AI Academy, and the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON). Hosts Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of SmarterX, and Mike Kaput, Chief Content Officer, break down all the AI news that matters and give you insights and perspectives that you can use to advance your company and your career. Join Paul and Mike on The AI Show as they work to accelerate AI literacy for all.
Folgen 252
#251: Forward-Deployed Engineers, Shadow AI, the Owner Bottleneck, AI on Your Resume & Token Budgets
Imagine every role in your company has an agent watching the data and bringing you recommendations each morning. Paul Roetzer says that unlock is coming to corporate teams within six months.In this episode of …
Shownotes
Imagine every role in your company has an agent watching the data and bringing you recommendations each morning. Paul Roetzer says that unlock is coming to corporate teams within six months.
In this episode of AI Answers, Paul and Cathy McPhillips answer 14 questions from our Scaling AI and Intro to AI classes: scaling AI under SOC 2 and HIPAA, blocked frontier models, agent governance, shadow AI, forward-deployed engineers, the future of agencies, and whether AI will ever write like a talented human.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:18 — How do you scale AI under compliance requirements?
00:07:53 — Should companies block frontier models and only allow self-hosted AI?
00:11:34 — What should AI teams prioritize when governance isn’t ready for AI agents?
00:15:34 — How much AI platform standardization do organizations need, and how should leaders handle shadow AI?
00:21:31 — Where do forward-deployed engineers fit, and who owns AI enablement?
00:24:04 — Where do OCR and RPA fit alongside AI agents?
00:25:40 — Should you redesign work by mapping tasks or business outcomes?
00:27:44 — How can business owners use AI to become less of a bottleneck?
00:31:09 — How much client education should AI-enabled marketing consultants provide?
00:34:57 — What does responsible AI personalization look like for outreach?
00:39:11 — How do you show AI skills to a hiring manager?
00:41:52 — What AI skills matter most for a mid-career pivot into project management?
00:45:07 — Will AI ever write as creatively as a talented human?
00:48:31 — Will top performers negotiate token budgets into job offers?
This episode is brought to you by AI Academy.
Get $250 off a new AI Academy by SmarterX individual license through November 30 with code POD250. That’s 25% off your first year of the full Academy experience: courses, professional certificates, live sessions, and community.
Leading AI literacy for your team? Buy 25 or more licenses by November 30 and Paul Roetzer will run a private one-hour virtual session with your team. Buy 250 or more and Paul will come to you for a private in-person session in the first half of 2027 (US only). Existing business members adding 25 or more licenses qualify too. Join at academy.smarterx.ai, or contact our team at [email protected] about business licenses.
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#250: Midterm Voters Reject Data Centers, AI Speeds Up Anthropic’s Research, Celebrating 250 & Nvidia’s Spy Probe
Voters backed limits on data centers in 40 of 41 local ballot measures, and Paul Roetzer expects the fallout to reach your AI bill. In Episode 250, Paul and Mike Kaput unpack the backlash. They also cover …
Shownotes
Voters backed limits on data centers in 40 of 41 local ballot measures, and Paul Roetzer expects the fallout to reach your AI bill. In Episode 250, Paul and Mike Kaput unpack the backlash. They also cover METR's finding that AI has roughly doubled the pace of research at Anthropic and why other labs are hinting at the same shift.
Plus: a look back at 250 episodes, Nvidia's investigation into Jensen Huang, AI's messy moment in education, Menlo Ventures' enterprise AI spending report, and how companies are trying to control AI costs.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:07:53 — US Voters Reject Data Centers During Midterms
00:24:33 — Has METR Found Proof of RSI Happening in the Labs?
00:40:21 — Episode 250 of The Artificial Intelligence Show
00:53:45 — Nvidia Opens Probe Into Alleged Spy Operation Targeting Jensen Huang
01:05:06 — AI in Education Is Getting Messier
01:16:46 — Enterprise AI Spending Hits $177 Billion
01:22:00 — Controlling AI Costs
01:31:57 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:39:18 — AI Product and Funding Updates
To mark our 250th episode, get $250 off a new AI Academy by SmarterX individual license through November 30 with code POD250. That’s 25% off your first year of the full Academy experience: courses, professional certificates, live sessions, and community.
Leading AI literacy for your team? Buy 25 or more licenses by November 30 and Paul Roetzer will run a private one-hour virtual session with your team. Buy 250 or more and Paul will come to you for a private in-person session in the first half of 2027 (US only). Existing business members adding 25 or more licenses qualify too. Join at academy.smarterx.ai, or contact our team at [email protected] about business licenses.
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#249: Anthropic Files for IPO, The Self-Driving Company, AI and the Meaning of Work & Microsoft’s 60,000-Employee Buyout Offer
Anthropic has filed to go public, and its S-1 lays out a future of "virtual collaborators," $40 trillion in knowledge work, and a valuation that could top Meta's. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down the …
Shownotes
Anthropic has filed to go public, and its S-1 lays out a future of "virtual collaborators," $40 trillion in knowledge work, and a valuation that could top Meta's. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down the filing. They debate whether Fortune 500 companies can really become "self-driving" by 2030, and dig into Google DeepMind's new research on AGI, wages, and the meaning of work.
In rapid fire: Gemini 4 Carbon, Genie 4, and GPT-6.1 Terra; earnings from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon; Microsoft's 60,000-employee buyout offer; Amazon's anti-tokenmaxxing memo; and a new wave of AI security incidents.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:57 — Anthropic’s IPO Filing
00:27:42 — The Rise of the Self-Driving Company?
00:41:35 — Google DeepMind & OpenAI Say AI Could Transform the Meaning of Work
00:56:12 — Google Unveils Gemini 4 Carbon and Genie 4 as OpenAI Releases GPT-6.1 Terra
01:01:44 — Google, Microsoft, and Amazon Report Earnings
01:06:13 — Microsoft Offers Buyouts to 60,000 Employees
01:12:15 — Amazon Refocuses Its AI Strategy on Frontier Models and Business Results
01:16:49 — AI Is Forcing a New Security Agenda
01:21:47 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:28:26 — AI Product and Funding Updates
--
How do you know where your organization actually stands with AI?
Join Paul Roetzer for Introduction to AI Score for Business Leaders on Friday, November 13 at noon ET. He’ll walk through AI Score by SmarterX, our new change management assessment built to make AI transformation more measurable and actionable. You’ll see how the free Business AI Score and Personal AI Score assessments reveal strengths and gaps, guide personalized learning plans, and shape your AI transformation roadmap. Register free for live and on-demand access at SmarterX.ai
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This episode is also brought to you by the MAICON 2026 On-Demand Bundle. Couldn’t make it to Cleveland, or want to rewatch?
The MAICON 2026 On-Demand bundle gives you more than two dozen recorded main-stage and featured sessions (12+ hours) from this year’s Marketing AI Conference, ready to watch on your own schedule. Grab it at MAICON.AI
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#248: The AI Cybersecurity Crisis, Dario Fights Back on Safety, OpenAI’s Monitoring Blind Spots & Claude Duet
AI found a 14-year-old flaw in the code behind an estimated 70% of websites, and within 12 hours of it leaking, Cloudflare saw millions of attempts to exploit it. In Episode 248, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput …
Shownotes
AI found a 14-year-old flaw in the code behind an estimated 70% of websites, and within 12 hours of it leaking, Cloudflare saw millions of attempts to exploit it. In Episode 248, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down this AI cybersecurity crisis: what happened, why it cascaded across banks, infrastructure, and medical records, and the steps you can take now.
They also cover Dario Amodei's defense of Anthropic's safety record, outside evaluators finding gaps in OpenAI's safeguards, Meta's Muse data exposure, and Anthropic's IPO filing at a valuation approaching $2 trillion, plus product and funding news in the rapid-fire round.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:17 — The AI Cybersecurity Crisis Is Here
00:29:55 — Dario Defends Anthropic’s Safety Record
00:45:50 — Outside Evaluators Find Gaps in OpenAI’s AI Safeguards
00:56:57 — Marketing AI Institute’s 10-Year Anniversary
01:05:28 — Meta’s Muse Agent Found to Expose User Data
01:11:35 — Anthropic Releases Its Own Personal Agent
01:14:59 — Inside Anthropic’s IPO
01:19:29 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:32:02 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is brought to you by AI Academy Day 2026.
AI keeps changing, how do you keep your people learning at the same pace? Join Paul Roetzer, Mike Kaput, and SmarterX head of learning Jessica Miller on Thursday, November 19 at 12pm ET for a first look at the next phase of AI Academy by SmarterX. Register at SmarterX.ai/AcademyDay
This episode is also brought to you by the MAICON 2026 On-Demand Bundle. Couldn’t make it to Cleveland, or want to rewatch?
The MAICON 2026 On-Demand bundle gives you more than two dozen recorded main-stage and featured sessions (12+ hours) from this year’s Marketing AI Conference, ready to watch on your own schedule. Grab it at MAICON.AI
Visit our website
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Join our community:
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#247: OpenAI’s Mounting Safety Concerns, Anthropic’s AI Expectations Gap, MAICON 2026 Recap, AI Score & Gemini 4 Argon
A safety lead who authored OpenAI's model reports left and told Ezra Klein the industry can't reliably safeguard the systems it's already shipping. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput unpack that interview, OpenAI's …
Shownotes
A safety lead who authored OpenAI's model reports left and told Ezra Klein the industry can't reliably safeguard the systems it's already shipping. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput unpack that interview, OpenAI's fired safety researchers, and reporting that labs expect a catastrophic AI incident within a year.
Then: Anthropic's new data on its own AI-run workforce, a MAICON 2026 recap, fresh interpretability research, OpenAI's contested math-proof release, Google's Gemini Argon, and micro1's $1B plan to buy how businesses actually work.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:48 — AI-Pulse Survey
00:07:11 — OpenAI's Mounting Safety Concerns
00:25:09 — The AI Expectations Gap
00:47:24 — MAICON 2026 Recap
01:02:51 — Introducing The AI Transformation Blueprint and AI Score
01:08:48 — An Interpretability Breakthrough?
01:13:17 — OpenAI's Math Reckoning
01:18:31 — The Super Intelligence Rebrand
01:22:21 — Google Releases Gemini Argon (and “Gemini agent”)
01:26:57 — micro1 Is Buying Enterprise Data, Here's Why
01:31:53 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:38:08 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is supported by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine for frontier technology:
“Scaling Out Superintelligence” Vijoy Pandey, January 2026. The technical whitepaper detailing the Internet of Cognition architecture, three-layer stack, and cognition state protocols.
Internet of Cognition Interactive Demo Clickable walkthrough showing per-agent activity, intent, context, and collective reasoning across a multi-agent SRE system.
This episode is also brought to you by the MAICON 2026 On-Demand. Couldn’t make it to Cleveland, or want to rewatch?
The MAICON 2026 On-Demand bundle gives you more than two dozen recorded main-stage and featured sessions (12+ hours) from this year’s Marketing AI Conference, ready to watch on your own schedule. Grab it at MAICON.AI
Visit our website
Receive our weekly newsletter
Join our community:
Looking for content and resources?
Register for a free webinar
Come to our next Marketing AI Conference
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#246: AI Answers - Live from MAICON 2026: AGI, AI Costs, and the End of GPTs
When will we achieve AGI? Recorded live in the podcast studio at MAICON 2026, this AI Answers episode has Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput answering questions submitted from our audience.They dig into what AGI means …
Shownotes
When will we achieve AGI? Recorded live in the podcast studio at MAICON 2026, this AI Answers episode has Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput answering questions submitted from our audience.
They dig into what AGI means for everyday work, whether Claude and ChatGPT get more expensive after the IPOs, how to drive adoption when you're not the CEO, what to use now that GPTs are going away, and who owns the AI work you build at your job.
00:00:00 — Intro
00:04:03 What MAICON insight has challenged your thinking about where AI is headed?
00:07:46 How do you keep up with AI without burning out?
00:12:09 How do you go from following a demo to using AI in your own work?
00:15:21 How do you get AI adopted in the messy middle of an organization?
00:17:41 How do you build an AI roadmap you can stick to as models change?
00:22:09 Will Claude and ChatGPT get more expensive after the IPOs?
00:26:23 What can AI do versus what should AI do?
00:30:35 What does AGI actually look like for a regular person?
00:35:25 Can AI solve the unemployment it creates?
00:39:42 Can you take your AI work with you from job to job?
00:41:19 Do you have to readjust when you switch AI models at a new job?
00:44:08 What should you use now that GPTs are going away?
00:46:42 Closing thoughts and a look ahead to MAICON 2027
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 7th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 14-16.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
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#245: OpenAI DevDay and Dots, OpenAI’s Safety Crisis, Trump Renames Artificial Intelligence & Anthropic Targets Pre-Thanksgiving IPO Ad:
An OpenAI safety researcher resigned and published an essay arguing the company's safety culture can't keep up with its own release pace; the same week OpenAI fired three safety researchers and canceled a model …
Shownotes
An OpenAI safety researcher resigned and published an essay arguing the company's safety culture can't keep up with its own release pace; the same week OpenAI fired three safety researchers and canceled a model release over internal test results.
Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput also break down OpenAI's DevDay and dots, the voluntary Super Intelligence Accord signed at the White House, Anthropic's pre-Thanksgiving IPO, Google's Gemini 4 Argon preview, an FTC probe into the major labs, and a real-time AI video model that fooled nearly half its testers.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:19 — OpenAI DevDay and Dots
00:20:04 — OpenAI’s Safety Crisis Deepens
00:28:51 — Trump Signs Super Intelligence Accord
00:54:19 — Anthropic Targets Pre-Thanksgiving IPO
00:59:02 — Google Previews Gemini 4
01:02:29 — AI Companies Face New Liability Pressure
01:07:07 — Anthropic and Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical
01:17:39 — Startup Claims First “Human Interaction” Model
01:22:47 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:28:22 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is supported by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine for frontier technology:
“Scaling Out Superintelligence” Vijoy Pandey, January 2026. The technical whitepaper detailing the Internet of Cognition architecture, three-layer stack, and cognition state protocols.
Internet of Cognition Interactive Demo Clickable walkthrough showing per-agent activity, intent, context, and collective reasoning across a multi-agent SRE system.
Visit our website
Receive our weekly newsletter
Join our community:
Looking for content and resources?
Register for a free webinar
Come to our next Marketing AI Conference
Enroll in our AI Academy
#244: How Alibaba.com Is Building the Future of Agent-to-Agent Commerce
Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com, believes B2B commerce is becoming agent-to-agent. He joins Mike Kaput to explain Accio, Alibaba.com's agent platform, and how it collapses a 60-step sourcing process into …
Shownotes
Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com, believes B2B commerce is becoming agent-to-agent. He joins Mike Kaput to explain Accio, Alibaba.com's agent platform, and how it collapses a 60-step sourcing process into hours. They cover the Model × Harness × Context formula, the Commerce Agent Bench benchmark, what had to change inside a 26-year-old company, and why the future of global trade runs on agents.
Part of the AI Transformations series.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:7:30 — Why Accio
00:8:49 — Inside Alibaba.com's AI transformation with Accio Work
00:15:12 — The pain points Accio was built to solve
00:19:32 — Real examples of entrepreneurs using Accio Work
00:24:15 — The technology powering the transformation
00:28:50 — How AI agents will reshape commerce at large
00:32:26 — What had to change inside the company
00:37:26 — The hardest parts of shipping agent-based products
00:40:47 — How Alibaba.com measures agent performance
This week’s episode is also brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#243: GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Opus 5.5, the New Microsoft Copilot, Jensen Huang vs. AI Doomers & Introducing AI Score
Three big model updates landed at once, GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Claude Opus 5.5, and Microsoft's redesigned Copilot, and the story isn't raw intelligence, it's reliability, efficiency, and a new "per-task pricing" …
Shownotes
Three big model updates landed at once, GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Claude Opus 5.5, and Microsoft's redesigned Copilot, and the story isn't raw intelligence, it's reliability, efficiency, and a new "per-task pricing" mindset. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what that means for your work.
Then: Jensen Huang's case against the AI doomers from his Ezra Klein interview, a first look at AI Score by SmarterX, and a rapid-fire run through Meta Connect, Amazon blocking Muse, OpenAI's rogue-agent disclosures, and more.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:57 — GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Opus 5.5, and the New Microsoft Copilot
00:24:16 — Jensen Huang vs. the AI Doomers
00:41:57 — Introducing AI Score
00:53:12 — GPTs Are Being Retired
01:06:30 — Meta Connect 2026
01:12:39 — Amazon Blocks Muse
01:15:20 — OpenAI Discloses More Rogue Agent Incidents
01:20:00 — OpenAI Gets Vocal on AI Standards
01:22:59 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:26:36 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is supported by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine for frontier technology.
Multi-agent AI is in every enterprise roadmap right now, but here's the problem we're all facing: agents can pass messages, but they can't think together. These systems silently underperform through cognitive failures —misreadings, unverified claims, and false consensus—that conventional monitoring can't detect.
Outshift by Cisco is building the fix, the Internet of Cognition. An open source foundation for building multi-agent systems from design to production with shared context, shared memory, and guardrails to drive the results we actually expect from AI.
Read the paper, experience the demo, grab the code from Outshift.com. That's Outshift.com
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#242: How Baptist Health’s Marketing Team Took the Lead on AI Transformation
One task at Baptist Health used to take about 10 hours a week. Now it takes roughly two minutes, and that's just one piece of a two-year AI transformation. Christine Kotler, Chief Marketing & Communications …
Shownotes
One task at Baptist Health used to take about 10 hours a week. Now it takes roughly two minutes, and that's just one piece of a two-year AI transformation.
Christine Kotler, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer of Baptist Health South Florida, joins Mike Kaput to walk through how her marketing and communications team built an AI adoption model from the ground up: a structured learning curriculum, the peer-coaching "AI Sherpa" model, real use cases, and the honest friction of doing this inside a regulated healthcare organization.
Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:00 — Why marketing & comms took the lead on generative AI
00:10:57 — How the transformation started to unfold
00:14:23 — The AI Sherpas
00:20:12 — The learning hub and building their own AI curriculum
00:22:14 — How AI is changing the marketing/comms team's work
00:28:28 — The people side of the transformation
00:33:02 — Where transformation got messier or harder than expected
00:36:27 — How AI will reshape roles, workflows, and team structure
00:40:08 — Advice for a leader stepping up to lead AI transformation
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
Visit our website
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#241: Pacing the Frontier Gets Political, Why AI Labs Could Keep the Best Models for Themselves & Introducing the AI Transformation Blueprint
AI-safety pacing became a political fight this week: Trump versus a bipartisan push, with data centers and the midterms in the middle. Paul and Mike go deeper on the part that matters more: the widening gap …
Shownotes
AI-safety pacing became a political fight this week: Trump versus a bipartisan push, with data centers and the midterms in the middle. Paul and Mike go deeper on the part that matters more: the widening gap between the models labs keep and the ones you can use, Noam Brown's warning about it, and OpenAI's six new rogue-agent disclosures. Plus Paul's surprise book announcement and a full rapid-fire slate.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:04:29 — The AI Slowdown Gets (Very) Political
00:25:18 — AI Labs Could Keep the Best Models to Themselves
00:54:33 — The AI Transformation Blueprint
01:09:45 — OpenAI Discloses More Rogue Agent Incidents
01:14:03 — Claude Merges Chat and Cowork
01:17:53 — Meta Rolls Out Muse
01:20:36 — Apple Ships Siri AI
01:23:20 — OpenAI and Microsoft Face Copyright Revelations
01:27:18 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:32:59 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is supported by Outshift, Cisco's incubation engine for frontier technology. Outshift by Cisco is an open source foundation for building multi-agent systems from design to production with shared context, shared memory, and guardrails to drive the results we actually expect from AI. Read the paper, experience the demo, grab the code from Outshift.com.
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#240: How David’s Bridal Is Rebuilding a 76-Year-Old Business Around AI
David's Bridal was built around one thing for 75 years: the dress. In this AI Transformations episode, Elina Vilk (President & Chief Business Officer) and Mike Ball (Head of Product) join Mike Kaput to explain …
Shownotes
David's Bridal was built around one thing for 75 years: the dress. In this AI Transformations episode, Elina Vilk (President & Chief Business Officer) and Mike Ball (Head of Product) join Mike Kaput to explain how the company is reinventing itself around the whole wedding journey, the "aisle to algorithm" strategy.
We get into Pearl Planner, the free AI wedding-planning companion now used by hundreds of thousands of couples with no marketing spend; Pearl Connect, the new vendor-side platform built on Google Cloud; the vision quiz and dynamic budgeting that make it work; and how David's own teams are adopting AI internally. Presented by Gemini Enterprise.
Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:01 — How the AI transformation at David's Bridal began
00:06:36 — The early phases and turning points
00:10:53 — Inside Pearl Planner, the customer-facing assistant
00:13:59 — Using AI for timelines, budget, and vendors
00:19:24 — The models, tools, and platforms behind it
00:21:00 — Pearl Connect and the Google Cloud stack
00:25:46 — Early results from Pearl Planner and Pearl Connect
00:27:32 — How internal teams at David's Bridal use AI
00:33:29 — What's next for David's Bridal
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
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#239: Labs Agree to Pace AI, OpenAI’s Math Breakthrough, AI Jobs Apocalypse Postponed & Jensen Declares AGI
A former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher resigned with a warning that went viral, reigniting the "should we slow down?" debate. Then OpenAI said an internal model solved the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize …
Shownotes
A former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher resigned with a warning that went viral, reigniting the "should we slow down?" debate. Then OpenAI said an internal model solved the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem - followed by a credit controversy with an NYU mathematician.
Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down this week’s latest stories, plus new data suggesting an AI jobs boom, Anthropic's 2030 economic scenarios, Jensen Huang declaring AGI has arrived, and a run of "agents gone wild" security incidents.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:35 — Anthropic Researcher Sounds Red Alert on AI Safety
00:45:26 — OpenAI’s Math Breakthrough and Controversy
01:00:48 — AI Jobs Apocalypse Postponed?
01:08:53 — Anthropic Maps Economic Futures
01:15:00 — Jensen Declares AGI
01:18:10 — More AI Agent Security Incidents and Concerns
01:22:25 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:30:02 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is brought to you by Marketing AI Month. All month, the AI for Marketing Core series inside AI Academy is free (a $499 value): five expert-led sessions from Mike Kaput, the frameworks and tools the SmarterX team actually uses, and a professional certificate on completion. Enroll by September 30 (you don't have to finish by then - just enroll).
The month closes with a live AMA on October 1, where Cathy puts your questions to Paul and Mike; anyone enrolled can attend.
Enroll at SmarterX.ai/marketing.
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#238: How a 700-Person Bank Is Using AI to Build Apps, Agents, and Digital Employees
A smaller bank replaced a $375,000 software contract by building its own tool, and now runs named "digital employees" that answer tickets, review its websites, and message staff in Teams. This is what an AI …
Shownotes
A smaller bank replaced a $375,000 software contract by building its own tool, and now runs named "digital employees" that answer tickets, review its websites, and message staff in Teams. This is what an AI transformation actually looks like inside a regulated institution.
CTO John Kowal joins Mike Kaput to unpack Peapack Private Bank and Trust's journey since 2023: flipping build-vs-buy, giving every AI agent a name and personality, building a network of 29 AI champions, and the guardrails that keep AI in check in banking. Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:02— What PPAC Private Bank and Trust does
00:07:41 — How the AI transformation started
00:10:24 — What's driving PPAC from chat to agents
00:12:09 — Concrete examples of AI changing daily work
00:16:23 — Re-engineering workflows, not just layering on tech
00:17:25 — The technology stack powering the work
00:19:24 — The data warehouse foundation and OpenAI + Microsoft ecosystem
00:24:14 — How AI champions surface use cases
00:25:30 — Measuring impact and ROI
00:27:39 — Lessons learned and what comes next
00:32:09 — Why PPAC gives its digital employees names
00:34:18 — How the CTO role and tech team are changing
00:35:59 — Competing with larger banks
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
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#237: GPT-6 Astra, NYC Bans AI in Schools, Trump Goes All-In on Data Centers & Lawyers Under Pressure to Pass on AI Savings
GPT-6 Astra can operate a computer for days at a time, and OpenAI is positioning it as the model that does the work, which is exactly why Paul says this launch felt less like a demo and more like a turning …
Shownotes
GPT-6 Astra can operate a computer for days at a time, and OpenAI is positioning it as the model that does the work, which is exactly why Paul says this launch felt less like a demo and more like a turning point. He and Mike dig into Astra's computer-use leap, the fumbled rollout, and the jobs question the labs keep sidestepping.
Then: New York City's ban on student AI through 8th grade and the debate it set off, Trump going all-in on data centers as the fight reaches the midterms, the U.S. government backing OpenAI in the NYT copyright case, Wall Street banks pushing Big Law to cut fees, and MIT's warning that AI can now complete most undergraduate assignments, plus a rapid fire stacked with model releases.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:10 — GPT-6 Is Here
00:38:51 — Trump Goes All-In on Data Centers
00:45:24 — New York City Schools Ban AI Through Middle School
01:02:43 — US Government Backs OpenAI in The New York Times Copyright Case
01:08:04 — Banks Push Big Law to Pass On AI Savings
01:12:29 — MIT Says AI Can Now Complete Most Undergraduate Assignments
01:16:26 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:22:32 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This episode is brought to you by Marketing AI Month. All month, the AI for Marketing Core series inside AI Academy is free (a $499 value): five expert-led sessions from Mike Kaput, the frameworks and tools the SmarterX team actually uses, and a professional certificate on completion. Enroll by September 30 (you don't have to finish by then - just enroll).
The month closes with a live AMA on October 1, where Cathy puts your questions to Paul and Mike; anyone enrolled can attend.
Enroll at SmarterX.ai/marketing.
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#236: AI Answers - No Time for AI, AI Budgets, Vendor Terms & Data Risk, AI Disclosure & Vanishing Entry Level Roles
If you stop hiring entry-level staff and quietly decimate the leadership pipeline, where do future managers come from once AI does the junior work? That's one of 15 listener questions Paul Roetzer and Cathy …
Shownotes
If you stop hiring entry-level staff and quietly decimate the leadership pipeline, where do future managers come from once AI does the junior work? That's one of 15 listener questions Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips take on in this AI Answers edition, drawn from recent Intro to AI and Scaling AI classes and an Academy Live session with SmarterX's COO and legal counsel.
The conversation runs from the practical (how to carve out time for AI, generic vs. custom agents, human-in-the-loop checkpoints) to the strategic (funding AI, token budgets, intelligence redundancy, and whether we're building businesses on "rented land").
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
00:00:00 — Intro
00:07:15 — What are the best ways to use AI in marketing?
00:10:54 — How do you carve out time for AI when the team is already slammed?
00:14:46 — Should a small company hire outside consultants to build agents?
00:19:19 — Who should own AI transformation in the enterprise?
00:23:49 — Are there generic agents everyone can use, or do you build your own?
00:25:58 — Can you build human approval checkpoints into an agent?
00:28:01 — How do you enable agents on sensitive data without adding risk?
00:30:31 — How should a company fund its AI investments?
00:34:11 — How do you budget and forecast total AI spend, including tokens?
00:37:03 — What does a right-sized AI vendor approval process look like?
00:40:33 — What happens to your data if an AI vendor is acquired or goes under?
00:42:48 — When should you disclose that AI was used to create the work?
00:46:03 — If AI does the entry-level work, where do future managers come from?
00:47:57 — Is an LLM really a black box, and is that ominous?
00:50:38 — Are we building businesses on rented land with LLMs?
This episode is brought to you by Marketing AI Month. All month, the AI for Marketing Course series inside AI Academy is free (a $499 value): five expert-led sessions from Mike Kaput, the frameworks and tools the SmarterX team actually uses, and a professional certificate on completion. Enroll by September 30 (you don't have to finish by then - just enroll). The month closes with a live AMA on October 1, where Cathy puts your questions to Paul and Mike; anyone enrolled can attend. Enroll at SmarterX.ai/marketing.
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#235: OpenAI-Hugging Face Hack Involved 100s of Agents, Bill Gates Now Pessimistic on Jobs, Nvidia Doubles Revenue & Anthropic Targets “$30 Trillion” TAM
OpenAI's Hugging Face hack keeps getting stranger; new investigations show autonomous agents that coordinated, deceived, and pursued their goal at almost any cost. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what it …
Shownotes
OpenAI's Hugging Face hack keeps getting stranger; new investigations show autonomous agents that coordinated, deceived, and pursued their goal at almost any cost. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what it means for the models coming next. They also cover Bill Gates reversing his stance on AI and jobs, Nvidia doubling revenue and buying Hugging Face, Anthropic's $30 trillion revenue pitch and its court win, McKinsey's 2026 State of AI, and more in the rapid-fire section.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:04:53 — The Wild Truth About OpenAI’s Hugging Face Hack Comes Out
00:31:08 — Bill Gates Changes His Mind on AI and Jobs
00:39:22 — Nvidia Doubles Revenue and Agrees to Buy Hugging Face
00:50:32 — Anthropic Sees a $30 Trillion Revenue Opportunity
00:54:24 — Judge Blocks Government’s Anthropic Blacklisting
00:56:31 — Controversy Over Legendary Investor’s AI-Written Op-Ed
01:03:11 — McKinsey Maps the State of AI in 2026
01:06:26 — Niall Ferguson Sees a Sci-Fi AI Future
01:12:12 — Americans Back Government Action on AI Disruption
01:18:41 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:26:59 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#234: How HubSpot Is Reimagining the Entire Customer Journey With AI Agents
For twenty years, the percentage of time a B2B sales rep spends actually talking to customers has barely moved. Jon Dick, chief customer officer at HubSpot, thinks AI is the first thing that genuinely breaks …
Shownotes
For twenty years, the percentage of time a B2B sales rep spends actually talking to customers has barely moved. Jon Dick, chief customer officer at HubSpot, thinks AI is the first thing that genuinely breaks that constraint, and he has three years of rebuilding to point to.
In this AI Transformations episode, Jon takes Mike Kaput through HubSpot's agentic go-to-market model: the AEO strategy built for answer engines, the AI SDR handling most website chats, the assistant that moved win rate, and the org change that put every AI engineer under one leader.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:00:00:00 — Intro
00:03:36 — Meet Jon Dick
00:05:13 — What HubSpot was trying to solve
00:08:27 — How the transformation got started and where it stands today
00:11:48 — Beyond individual use cases: demand creation and AEO
00:15:49 — What's HubSpot native, and how they pick models
00:18:36 — What had to change organizationally
00:22:10 — Why centralizing beat the pod model
00:24:39 — What got messier along the way
00:25:46 — Results across the board
00:28:35 — Why HubSpot's go-to-market context is the advantage
00:30:19 — Advice for leaders earlier in the journey
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
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#233: OpenAI Pauses Some AI Training, Anthropic Controversy, New State Opposition to Data Centers & AI Job Loss Among Young Workers
OpenAI paused reinforcement learning on its most advanced models over cybersecurity concerns, saying its next model may cross a critical capability threshold. Paul's read: the labs aren't removing dangerous …
Shownotes
OpenAI paused reinforcement learning on its most advanced models over cybersecurity concerns, saying its next model may cross a critical capability threshold. Paul's read: the labs aren't removing dangerous behaviors, they're suppressing them and suppressed behaviors can come back.
Also this week: a very public argument over Anthropic's direction as it heads toward a possible $2 trillion IPO, Pennsylvania's crackdown on data centers, Nvidia's Ohio AI factory play, new Pew data on young Americans souring on AI, and humanoid robots in Beijing breaking records set by Usain Bolt.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:06:44 — OpenAI Pauses Some Frontier AI Training Due to Cybersecurity Concerns
00:19:25 — Debate Over Anthropic Intensifies Ahead of IPO
00:33:43 — Pennsylvania Leads Increasing State Opposition to Data Centers
00:48:19 — Jensen's AI Factory Manifesto
00:54:15 — AI Job Loss Hits Young Adults
00:58:53 — Andrew Yang Pushes for Direct Payments to Americans, Paid for by AI
01:01:39 — OpenAI and Anthropic Rethink Data Retention
01:04:48 — Chinese Robots Break Human World Records
01:09:57 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:18:45 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#232: Claude Watermarking, AI’s Environmental Impact, OpenAI Talent Drama & Anthropic’s Hidden Advisor
Claude will now watermark the content it generates, and the fight over what that means for writing, schoolwork, and "AI plagiarism" is only starting. Paul and Mike unpack the watermarking news, then move …
Shownotes
Claude will now watermark the content it generates, and the fight over what that means for writing, schoolwork, and "AI plagiarism" is only starting. Paul and Mike unpack the watermarking news, then move through AI's environmental reckoning, OpenAI's very public friction with the White House, Anthropic's march toward a record IPO, Grok 4.6's return to the frontier, and an AI agent that hacked a gym website while trying to book a class.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:07:04 — Claude Will Now Start Marking AI-Generated Content
00:22:41 — AI's Environmental Reckoning
00:35:58 — Drama from the White House Over OpenAI Hire
00:45:25 — Anthropic's Hidden Advisor
00:50:04 — Sanders Threatens an AI Pause
00:55:30 — xAI Releases Grok 4.6
00:58:30 — More on Google's AI Leadership Reshuffle
01:02:54 — Revisiting the Responsible AI Manifesto
01:08:09 — AI Agent Hacks a Gym Website
01:12:10 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:19:14 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#231: How Zapier Is Building an AI Marketing Brain
Zapier's Chief Marketing and AI Transformation Officer Dan Slagen called a "code red" on his own marketing team, not because they were behind, but because he saw the bar moving from using AI to building with …
Shownotes
Zapier's Chief Marketing and AI Transformation Officer Dan Slagen called a "code red" on his own marketing team, not because they were behind, but because he saw the bar moving from using AI to building with it.
In this AI Transformations episode, Slagen tells Mike Kaput how Zapier moved from AI adoption to AI-native work: three tiers of builders, an AI-powered "marketing brain," the "lossless marketing" idea behind it, and why working in public mattered more than any single tool.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:03:50 — Who Dan Slagen is and why Zapier's marketing story matters
00:06:12 — The February “code red”: what changed and why Dan called it
00:10:53 — How the team actually adopted AI
00:12:05 — Building Zapier's AI-powered marketing brain and “lossless marketing”
00:15:52 — Bringing in agentic expertise and charting the steps
00:21:25 — The behavioral side: how people interact with the machines
00:23:25 — How the average marketer connects to the central brain
00:26:31 — Impacts and benefits
00:30:30 — Where it got harder or messier than expected
00:32:11 — Dan's advice for leaders who are behind
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
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#230: Big Google AI Leadership Shakeups, New Details of OpenAI’s Agent Hack, White House AI Framework & OpenAI’s Astra Model Delayed
Google’s AI leadership is being reordered as Demis Hassabis changes roles, Jeff Dean departs after 27 years, and power appears to shift back toward Silicon Valley and Sergey Brin. But the bigger story may be …
Shownotes
Google’s AI leadership is being reordered as Demis Hassabis changes roles, Jeff Dean departs after 27 years, and power appears to shift back toward Silicon Valley and Sergey Brin. But the bigger story may be OpenAI’s detailed account of agents that hacked Hugging Face, communicated across test runs, shared stolen credentials, and operated undetected for weeks.
Paul and Mike break it all down, then cover the White House’s new framework for reviewing frontier models, OpenAI’s delayed Astra release, its public fight with Apple, Meta’s open approach to superintelligence, AI-driven layoffs, Gavin Baker’s AI market predictions, the collapse of the Situational Awareness fund, and more.
Full links and timestamps below.
Access the show notes and show links here:https://podcast.smarterx.ai/shownotes/230
Fill out this week’s AI Pulse Survey here:https://smarterx.ai/pulse
Timestamps:
- 00:00:00 — Intro
- 00:04:52 — Google’s AI Leadership Shakeup
- 00:24:15 — OpenAI’s Agent Hack Debrief
- 00:51:03 — White House AI Framework
- 00:57:10 — OpenAI’s Astra Model Delayed
- 01:02:51 — OpenAI Says Apple Is Getting It Wrong
- 01:05:35 — Meta Goes Open on Superintelligence
- 01:10:30 — AI Leads Layoffs for Fifth Straight Month
- 01:14:19 — AI Market Predictions from Gavin Baker
- 01:19:01 — Situational Awareness Fund Implodes
- 01:21:27 — AI Use Case Spotlight
- 01:28:19 — AI Product and Funding Updates
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This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON and AI Academy by SmarterX.
MAICON is the AI conference for marketing and business leaders, happening October 13–15 in Cleveland. Three days of keynotes, sessions, workshops, and conversations designed for leaders actively figuring out how to adopt, operationalize, and scale AI across their organizations. Visit https://MAICON.ai and use code POD100 to save $100.
AI Academy by SmarterX offers on-demand courses, series, and professional certificates designed to help individuals and organizations build AI literacy and accelerate adoption. Explore the latest courses at https://academy.smarterx.ai and use code POD100 for $100 off any individual plan.
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#229: Q3 Trends Briefing - The Pope's AI Encyclical, AI Agents Hack Hugging Face, Fable 5 vs. Washington, and the Battle Over Open Weights
A rogue AI agent hacked Hugging Face to cheat on its own test. The Pope wrote 43,000 words warning about AI. Washington pulled Fable 5 offline, then reversed course. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput count down the …
Shownotes
A rogue AI agent hacked Hugging Face to cheat on its own test. The Pope wrote 43,000 words warning about AI. Washington pulled Fable 5 offline, then reversed course.
Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput count down the top 10 AI trends of the quarter: AI jobs whiplash, the pillars of business transformation, Apple v. OpenAI, GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work, agents transforming work, Fable 5, soft nationalization, the Hugging Face breach, and the battle over open weights.
This episode was recorded live on July 31, 2026.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:02:54 — The Pope's AI Encyclical and Popular Backlash Against AI
00:07:01 — AI Jobs Whiplash
00:11:44 — The Pillars of Business AI Transformation
00:16:21 — OpenAI vs. Apple
00:19:10 — GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work
00:24:36 — How Agents Are Transforming Work
00:29:47 — Fable 5
00:34:11 — US Government Intervention in AI
00:37:53 — OpenAI Models Escape and Hack Hugging Face
00:42:29 — The Battle Over Open Weights
This episode is brought to you by AI Academy by SmarterX.
AI Academy is your gateway to personalized AI learning for professionals and teams. Discover our new on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.
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#228: More Rogue AI Agents, AI Lab Staff Ask Washington to Pace Development, Continuing Battle Over Open Weights & OpenAI Previews Astra
Both OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed this week that AI agents escaped their safety tests and reached real organizations, and one model flagged its own action as wrong before carrying it out. Paul Roetzer and …
Shownotes
Both OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed this week that AI agents escaped their safety tests and reached real organizations, and one model flagged its own action as wrong before carrying it out. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what happened and why it matters for anyone deploying agents.
Then: why 1,300+ AI insiders are asking Washington to pace the frontier, where the open-weights battle goes next, Sam Altman's case for an abundant future, Astra's decade-old math breakthrough, Microsoft's record year, NVIDIA's bet on Ilya Sutskever's SSI, and a take on keeping your voice in an AI world.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:18 — AI Agent Cyberattacks Get Worse
00:21:28 — AI Insiders Ask Washington to Pace AI
00:36:06 — The Battle Over Open Weights Continues
00:53:36 — Sam Altman on AI's Abundant Future
00:59:42 — OpenAI's Astra Model
01:03:44 — Microsoft Posts Record Fiscal Year
01:11:38 — Nvidia Bets on Ilya Sutskever's SSI
01:15:04 — How AI Is Enabling the Human Experience
01:21:01 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:29:02 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#227: How Good Karma Brands Got Serious About AI and Made It Stick
Good Karma Brands gave every teammate ChatGPT Enterprise on Labor Day. Less than a year later, 65% of the company uses AI daily. In the first episode of our AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud …
Shownotes
Good Karma Brands gave every teammate ChatGPT Enterprise on Labor Day. Less than a year later, 65% of the company uses AI daily. In the first episode of our AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud, Senior Director of Innovation Ty Bauschek tells Mike Kaput how they did it: the pilot, the training cadence, and the automations already saving teammates 10 to 15 hours a week.
It's a candid look at what real, fast, company-wide AI adoption takes: top-down urgency, a culture that rewards experimentation, and a new innovation team turning three-hour tasks into ten-minute ones.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:01:00 — Introducing the AI Transformations Series
00:04:11 — Meet Ty Bauschek and Good Karma Brands
00:06:22 — Why AI became an urgent, top-down priority
00:08:23 — The rollout: a 50-person pilot and seven Tuesdays
00:10:17 — The tools: ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Codex
00:11:34 — How adoption evolved
00:13:43 — Use-case spotlight
00:18:09 — Driving real adoption, not shallow use
00:20:13 — Hitting 65% daily usage: training & the newsletter
00:22:42 — Building an innovation department & the "Cam" breakthrough
00:25:52 — How the innovation specialist role works day to day
00:29:33 — Deciding where to focus & freeing up partner time
00:32:41 — What's next & Ty's advice for other companies
This episode is presented by Google Cloud:
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.
Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/
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#226: OpenAI’s Rogue Model, Kimi K3, Open Weights Letter & Demis Hassabis Calls for AI Regulatory Body
An AI agent slipped its sandbox and hacked a real company for days before anyone noticed and that single incident reframes everything else this week. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput connect it to Kimi K3's arrival …
Shownotes
An AI agent slipped its sandbox and hacked a real company for days before anyone noticed and that single incident reframes everything else this week. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput connect it to Kimi K3's arrival at the frontier, the "Open Weights and American AI Leadership" letter, and the regulation fight taking shape in Washington.
They break down open weight vs. open source in plain terms, explain why Anthropic is standing alone, and run rapid fire on Alphabet's Q2, the data center backlash, the jobs debate, and Claude Opus 5.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:07:31 — OpenAI Models Escape and Hack Hugging Face
00:27:49 — Kimi K3 and China's Open-Source Surge
00:50:52 — Open Weights and American AI Leadership
01:07:23 — Demis Calls for a Frontier AI Standards Body
01:12:17 — Google's AI-Fueled Q2
01:15:22 — White House Redirects Research Billions Toward AI
01:17:42 — The Data Center Backlash Goes National
01:21:17 — Why Hasn't AI Increased Unemployment?
01:27:15 — Which AI Tools Should You Use?
01:32:06 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:36:01 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by MAICON, our 6th annual Marketing AI Conference, happening in Cleveland, Oct. 13-15. The code POD100 saves $100 on all pass types.
For more information on MAICON and to register for this year’s conference, visit www.MAICON.ai.
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#225: GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, Enterprise Agents, AI 2040 & Apple Sues OpenAI
OpenAI shipped GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, and GPT-Live this week, and the real story is the move from chat to computer-use agents. Paul and Mike break down what changed, then get into enterprise AI agents and the …
Shownotes
OpenAI shipped GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, and GPT-Live this week, and the real story is the move from chat to computer-use agents. Paul and Mike break down what changed, then get into enterprise AI agents and the "reverse information paradox," the AI 2040 report, Apple's trade-secret suit against OpenAI, Illinois's new AI safety law, the AI Safety Index, a cheating scandal at Brown, and foreign influence around data centers.
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:45 — GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, and GPT-Live (Plus GPT-6 Rumors)
00:31:30 — Advice on AI Agents in the Enterprise
00:46:39 — AI 2040
00:59:17 — Apple Sues OpenAI for Trade Secret Theft
01:06:14 — Illinois Signs Nation-Leading AI Safety Law
01:09:59 — AI Safety Index: Nobody Gets an A
01:13:11 — The AI Cheating Scandal at Brown
01:17:44 — China and Russia Stoke US Public Opinion on Data Centers
01:20:57 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:26:19 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by SiteImprove.
AI search is changing what it means to be discoverable. Siteimprove is the Agentic Content Intelligence Platform marketing teams use to track, optimize, and prove performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. From AEO visibility to content quality, Siteimprove helps you stay ahead of the shift.
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#224: Fable 5 Is Back, Palantir CEO’s Explosive Interview, the Pillars of Business AI Transformation & OpenAI Offers 5% of Company to US Government
Are enterprises blindly surrendering their competitive edge to frontier AI labs?In Episode 224, hosts Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect the urgent power shift between AI developers, regulators, and the …
Shownotes
Are enterprises blindly surrendering their competitive edge to frontier AI labs?
In Episode 224, hosts Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect the urgent power shift between AI developers, regulators, and the businesses that rely on them. We unpack the return of Claude Fable 5, Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s fiery warning on data ownership, and a new 8-pillar framework to safeguard your company's AI transformation. Finally, we cover OpenAI's massive new government pitch, Meta's internal struggles, and the harsh realities of AI's impact on the job market.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:05:44 — US Government Lifts Export Controls on Fable
00:21:32 — Palantir CEO on AI Sovereignty
00:37:32 — The Pillars of Business AI Transformation
00:51:48 — OpenAI Offers the US Government a 5% Stake
00:56:03 — OpenAI’s Inference Breakthrough
01:00:03 — AI Jobs Data Whiplash
01:09:35 — Meta's AI Reality Check
01:13:10 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:23:02 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by SiteImprove.
AI search is changing what it means to be discoverable. Siteimprove is the Agentic Content Intelligence Platform marketing teams use to track, optimize, and prove performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. From AEO visibility to content quality, Siteimprove helps you stay ahead of the shift.
Start with a free AEO check at siteimprove.com/aipod.
Visit our website
Receive our weekly newsletter
Join our community:
Looking for content and resources?
Register for a free webinar
Come to our next Marketing AI Conference
Enroll in our AI Academy
#223: AI Answers - AI Washing, Flatter Org Charts, Advice for Students, Agent Security & the AI Writing Gap
The questions people ask about AI have changed. A year ago, they wanted to know what ChatGPT was; now they're asking how to redesign workflows around agents and whether a model can be trained the way a person …
Shownotes
The questions people ask about AI have changed. A year ago, they wanted to know what ChatGPT was; now they're asking how to redesign workflows around agents and whether a model can be trained the way a person is. In this AI Answers episode, Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips take on fifteen of them, straight from our Intro to AI classes.
From choosing two or three models on a tight budget to building an AI virtual twin without sacrificing authenticity, it's a snapshot of where practitioners' thinking actually is right now.
00:00:00 — Intro
00:5:59 How do you balance bottom-up experimentation with CEO-level strategy?
00:9:49 How do you move from restricting AI to enabling it?
00:11:36 How do you pick two or three models on a budget?
00:14:30 How do you evaluate vendors amid AI washing?
00:17:13 Frontier models, small models, or edge AI?
00:20:52 What are the security risks of autonomous agents?
00:25:02 Do AI models really behave like people?
00:30:25 How do you prove AI value with only basic tools?
00:32:02 How do you build a 24/7 AI virtual twin?
00:37:17 How do you close the human vs. AI writing gap?
00:40:26 Which skills gain value as AI takes over workflows?
00:42:57 Automate, augment, or keep it human?
00:47:20 Why flatten management instead of upskilling it?
00:50:51 Who's responsible for AI's economic fallout?
00:53:05 What advice would you give a college student?
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
This episode is brought to you by AI for Business Bootcamp by SmarterX — a single-day event in Columbus, Ohio on July 16th, built for professionals and leaders ready to accelerate AI adoption and value creation. The day moves from a state-of-AI keynote into two hands-on workshops on AI productivity and AI innovation, and you'll leave with an actionable plan for yourself and your team. AI Academy members and groups get discounted pricing. Use code POD100 for $100 off your ticket. Learn more at SmarterX.ai/events.
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#222: GPT-5.6, Government Staggers AI Model Releases, Agents Are Transforming Work & Growing Data Center Backlash
OpenAI just previewed GPT-5.6, but for the first time, the U.S. government is deciding who gets access to a frontier AI model. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what they're calling the soft …
Shownotes
OpenAI just previewed GPT-5.6, but for the first time, the U.S. government is deciding who gets access to a frontier AI model. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what they're calling the soft nationalization of artificial intelligence: a staggered, government-approved release, the Dean Ball essay responding to it, and what it means when Washington, not the labs, controls the most powerful models. Plus: OpenAI's new Codex research on agents at work, the looming question of Chinese models, and the data center backlash uniting both parties.
Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here
AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here.
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Intro
00:04:54 — GPT-5.6 Begins Controlled Release
00:25:12 — Dean Ball Releases Essay on Critical Safety Actions
00:43:36 — How Agents Are Transforming Work: OpenAI's New Research
00:53:01 — Will the US Government Restrict Chinese Models?
00:59:54 — The Growing Data Center Backlash
01:05:09 — The $27M Proxy War Over Alex Bores
01:08:16 — More Google DeepMind Talent Woes
01:10:38 — The EU Act and Digital Sovereignty
01:13:56 — AI Use Case Spotlight
01:20:05 — AI Product and Funding Updates
This week’s episode is brought to you by SiteImprove.
AI search is changing what it means to be discoverable. Siteimprove is the Agentic Content Intelligence Platform marketing teams use to track, optimize, and prove performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. From AEO visibility to content quality, Siteimprove helps you stay ahead of the shift.
Start with a free AEO check at siteimprove.com/aipod.
Visit our website
Receive our weekly newsletter
Join our community:
Looking for content and resources?
Register for a free webinar
Come to our next Marketing AI Conference
Enroll in our AI Academy
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