Artificial intelligence-based human image synthesis technique
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What if the music charts you see aren't real? What if the numbers that define success can be manufactured? We talked to Andrew, a man who has spent his career on both sides of this battle. He once profited from the loopholes in streaming platforms, but now, his job is to close them. This episode will change the way you understand music streaming platforms from now on.SponsorsSupport for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.Support for this show comes from Adaptive Security. Deepfake voices on a Zoom call. AI-written phishing emails that sound exactly like your CFO. Synthetic job applicants walking through the front door. Adaptive is built to stop these attacks. They run real-time simulations, exposing your teams to what these attacks look like to test and improve your defences. Learn more at adaptivesecurity.com.This episode is sponsored by Meter, the company building networks from the ground up. Meter delivers a complete networking stack - wired, wireless, and cellular - in one solution that's built for performance and scale. Alongside their partners, Meter designs the hardware, writes the firmware, builds the software, manages deployments, and runs support. Learn more at meter.com.
We cut through AI hype to show what actually scales: disciplined ops, brand-led content, and a practical framework for awareness, nurturing, and trust. Eric Huberman shares Hawk Media's scaling lessons, where AI helps, where it hurts, and how to build a moat in a noisy market.• LLM shifts to persona-first, Q&A-led visibility• AI as acceleration, not strategy replacement• Hiring and tooling only with clear business cases• Lean tech stack choices that reduce complexity• Brand as the moat in a copycat software world• Branded entertainment and YouTube as growth engines• Limits of synthetic audiences and AI-looking creative• Deepfakes, eroding trust, and authentic messaging• The Hawk Method: awareness, nurturing, trust• Channels that scale for B2B and B2C performance—----------Guest Contact Information: Website: erikhuberman.comInstagram: instagram.com/erikhubermanLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erikhubermanYouTube: youtube.comMore from EWR and Matthew:Leave us a review wherever you listen: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon PodcastFree SEO Consultation: www.ewrdigital.com/discovery-callWith over 5 million downloads, The Best SEO Podcast has been the go-to show for digital marketers, business owners, and entrepreneurs wanting real-world strategies to grow online. Now, host Matthew Bertram — creator of the LLM Visibility Stack™, and Lead Strategist at EWR Digital — takes the conversation beyond traditional SEO into the AI era of discoverability. Each week, Matthew dives into the tactics, frameworks, and insights that matter most in a world where search engines, large language models, and answer engines are reshaping how people find, trust, and choose businesses. From SEO and AI-driven marketing to executive-level growth strategy, you'll hear expert interviews, deep-dive discussions, and actionable strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve. Find more episodes here: youtube.com/@BestSEOPodcastbestseopodcast.combestseopodcast.buzzsprout.comFollow us on:Facebook: @bestseopodcastInstagram: @thebestseopodcastTiktok: @bestseopodcastLinkedIn: @bestseopodcastConnect With Matthew Bertram: Website: www.matthewbertram.comInstagram: @matt_bertram_liveLinkedIn: @mattbertramlivePowered by: ewrdigital.comSupport the show
Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ The Shift from Attention to Trust In this compelling episode, Ashleigh Vogstad, CEO of Transcends, joins Vince Menzione to discuss the tectonic shifts occurring in the global partner ecosystem. Ashleigh shares her firsthand experiences studying AI at Oxford, the rise of the “Trust Economy,” and the controversial Amazon vs. Perplexity lawsuit. They dive deep into the practicalities of becoming a “Frontier Firm,” the importance of building proprietary AI agents, and the ways Gen Z and AI-driven marketplaces are revolutionizing the buyer journey. Whether you are looking to win Microsoft Partner of the Year or navigate the demise of traditional SaaS, this conversation provides a strategic roadmap for leading through the AI revolution. Key Takeaways The economy is shifting from a focus on human attention to a foundation of verified trust. Future commerce will involve “selling to machines” as AI agents begin making purchasing decisions on behalf of humans. Microsoft is prioritizing “Frontier Firms” that integrate AI into every customer interaction and internal process. Gen Z buyers are prioritizing product value and “dupes” over traditional brand names, with 75% of buyers expected to be Gen Z by 2030. To win Partner of the Year, organizations must publicly celebrate “better together” stories with validated customer wins. Modern leaders should transition from a “growth mindset” to a “frontier mindset” to keep pace with rapid technological change. https://youtu.be/xJmd43NvfnI If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Trust Economy, Selling to Machines, Amazon vs Perplexity Lawsuit, Frontier Firm, AI Agents, Copilot Studio, Anthropic Claude, Microsoft Partner of the Year, B2B Marketplaces, Gen Z Buyer Behavior, Digital Freedom, AI Therapy, Ray Kurzweil Singularity, Substack Growth, Co-selling Partnerships, MCI Funding, Azure Accelerate, Agentic AI, Transcending Tech, Ashleigh Vogstad. Transcript Asleigh Vogstad Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: The attention economy is about selling to human beings. Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines. [00:00:19] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Ashley Waad. The CEO of transcends for this compelling discussion. Ash, welcome back to the podcasts. [00:00:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s so good to be here, Vince. Thank you. Uh, [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: so well, we’re back in Boca again and we were just here yesterday for the Ultimate Partner Executive Winter Retreat in person. [00:00:44] Vince Menzione: What a great event we had together. [00:00:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: It was phenomenal. Thank you so much for having us there and on stage and, and genuinely the community is like a family, so seeing so many familiar faces and spending some quality time was just great. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: It has really, truly become like family. It really, I’m, I’m, I’m having so much fun with this and getting to watch. [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: Not just our business grow and our community grow, but to see all of our friends and, uh, organizations like Transcends that have been with us since the beginning, since the very first ultimate partner acting even before the first ultimate partner. And, uh. We were just talking about. I’d love to catch up with what you’ve been doing. [00:01:22] Vince Menzione: Like you just came, you’ve been on a whirlwind. I mean, you’re always, every time like it’s, where’s Ash? She’s, uh, she’s on a plane again, or she’s on, she’s on the slopes. But tell us where you were just this week. [00:01:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. The week started in a snowstorm, actually transporting myself from Whistler. I didn’t know if I would make it to the airport, but then down to Silicon Valley and [00:01:45] Vince Menzione: Nice. [00:01:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: Wow, that place is just inspiring and eyeopening. I mean, seeing the Nvidia campus, a MD, it’s really just other worldly and it had me reflecting on, it’s [00:02:00] Vince Menzione: not Whistler. Yeah, it’s [00:02:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: definitely not Whistler. Definitely not Whistler [00:02:05] Vince Menzione: about, [00:02:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: um, yeah, it just had me reflecting on being down there. I used to spend a lot of time in the Valley around 2017 and. [00:02:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: In this theme of AI and kind of what’s really coming, I was, I was thinking about, I had met this woman, Julia Moss Bridge, who’s a neuroscientist studying ai. She had a project called Loving Ai, and I was down there when they had borrowed Sophia, this humanoid robot from S and Robotics. [00:02:32] Vince Menzione: Oh yes. Yes. [00:02:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: Really interesting. [00:02:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Sophia’s actually a citizen of Saudi. Mm-hmm. First, first robot to actually be made citizen of a country. So they had Sophia set up and the part that was just mind boggling at the time was that Sophia was hosting in real life therapy sessions with actual human beings sitting across the table. And what really struck me as. [00:02:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Kind of just, you know, that was only eight, nine years ago. And that was esoteric. Wacky and [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: eerie. [00:03:05] Ashleigh Vogstad: Weird. [00:03:05] Vince Menzione: Eerie at the time. [00:03:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Incredibly eerie. Yeah. I mean, a, a human getting, uh, you know, therapy sessions from a robot sitting across the table. Yeah. And it just had me thinking how far we’ve come today. In 2025, Harvard Business Review said that therapy is actually the number one use case for ai. [00:03:26] Vince Menzione: I’ve heard that. That is striking. I go back to COVID. We were having this conversation last night at at the dinner for the Ultimate Partner event, and I think that COVID allowed us to transcend, [00:03:42] Ashleigh Vogstad: mm-hmm. [00:03:42] Vince Menzione: No pun intended there, but actually accelerate where we are today, that the acceptance of AI and the acceleration, or the ability to accept change so quickly. [00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Started with COVID because we were so, so we were forced on whatever it was, March 10th I think, here in the United States to shut down everything and move to this remote life. [00:04:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm-hmm. [00:04:09] Vince Menzione: And I think we’ve been shocked by that. I think our systems have all been shocked by that. And then here comes chat GBT in November of 2022 and we’re like. [00:04:20] Vince Menzione: Shocked in some respects, but like really everyone has embraced it in such a strong way, and now we’re getting. It’s almost daily update. You know, we’re gonna talk, I know we’re gonna talk about Anthropic and some of the things that’s been happening just in this last month that are striking and changing that have a lot of organizations trying to navigate, which is what, you know, you, you help organizations do. [00:04:43] Vince Menzione: But it feels like this is happening so fast and will continue to happen so fast. And as I said yesterday, I don’t know what this world’s gonna look like by 2030. [00:04:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, and I think the thing is, is that nobody knows what the world is gonna look like in 2030. I’ve been reading Ray Kurz Well’s, the Singularity is nearer, so the original book, the Singularity is near and he’s known to be a very accurate predictionist on the future. [00:05:11] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. But even with someone like that, you know, there, there nobody really knows what the world is gonna look like. And when you talk about COVID. At transcends, we have a value of digital freedom. So I founded the business in 2018, which was pre COVID. I as a fully remote organization, and at the time that was, you know, more groundbreaking, but then very quickly with CI that, that became the so-called new normal. [00:05:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: But we’re always thinking about. You know, remote first doesn’t mean remote only, and I think in this tide of what you’ve talked about, technological change being more acceptable and the pace of change. One of the interesting things that we see as a go-to-market agency is that in-person events are increasing. [00:05:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: People want and crave the face-to-face. Just like with the ultimate partner series. [00:06:02] Vince Menzione: I felt it. So it was striking yesterday. It, it seems like it’s, again, this was event number nine for us, but to see the, um, uh, receptiveness isn’t the right term, but it was this, uh, people, the, the embracing. Of seeing each other and hugging each other and being in the same room with each other. [00:06:22] Vince Menzione: And even people that didn’t know each other, like by the, the, as the day evolved, this, uh, connection that they all seemed to have with one another during the sessions and participating, everyone actively participated in the sessions. And, um, I said this in the beginning, we’re not a Slack channel and we’re not like some post on LinkedIn. [00:06:43] Vince Menzione: Uh, we’re there, there’s no playbook that’s set today around partnerships or even go to markets and marketing that we could espouse and say, this is the playbook for the next year. Right. It’s, it’s changing so rapidly. [00:06:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: So rapidly, [00:06:57] Vince Menzione: and you’ve embraced it. And I, and what we’re gonna talk about right now, I mean, I, I, you know, you’ve embraced AI in such a strong way. [00:07:04] Vince Menzione: Um, personally and with your business, I want to, I wanna dive in here a little bit. First of all, a couple things For those of those who are listening who don’t know you, I think maybe just a moment about transcends and your role, and then I wanna dive in on how you’re thinking about ai because I know you’re doing some things personally. [00:07:22] Vince Menzione: I want you to share that with, with our listeners and viewers today. [00:07:25] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. And I just wanna comment that it was a cool moment yesterday being up on stage with yourself and Mark Monday from ServiceNow and having the audience so engaged and active and Nina Harding from Microsoft stepping up and entering the conversation. [00:07:40] Vince Menzione: So cool. [00:07:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: It just made for such a collaborative experience, which was a cool moment, but yeah. Um, so. I founded this business, transcends a go-to-market agency after being at Microsoft myself. And really our differentiation is deep strategic partnerships with hyperscalers, whether that’s AWS, Google, Microsoft, and you know, that. [00:08:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: It comes with a challenge to be on the leading edge of technology. [00:08:08] Vince Menzione: Yes, [00:08:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: it, it’s really an imperative for our business and we are an AI first firm. Microsoft talks a lot about Frontier Firm, and I’ll take a, a different kind of angle on it. You know, when I think about Frontier. I now think about it as instead of the growth mindset, I now think about a frontier mindset. [00:08:28] Vince Menzione: Frontier mindset. You have to change my principles. [00:08:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, maybe, like you said, the world is changing so rapidly. Yeah, it’s [00:08:36] Vince Menzione: changing rapidly. [00:08:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what a frontier mindset means is that as we’re approaching work for our clients, we are thinking about AI innovation in every single customer. Interaction, customer innovation. [00:08:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: So today we’re building AI agents into much of the work that we’re delivering for clients. And as a business owner and leader, I’ve been challenged to also think critically around how I’m choosing to run the company. And right now we’re going through a huge overhaul of where we have data sitting in silos and different applications. [00:09:09] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yep. And getting that into one place with one view so we can start layering on more insight. AI innovation. [00:09:17] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And data’s such an critical part, part of this, as we, we talked about yesterday. But you know, even the, what you said, which is, would, would’ve been striking a year ago to say, we’re an AI first, uh, agency isn’t as striking anymore. [00:09:32] Vince Menzione: Uh, we heard Nina when we were having this conversation on stage yesterday, say that it’s an imperative at Microsoft that the agencies that they choose to work with, the third party vendors that they work with have to be an AI first organization. I have to be a frontier firm, and so I’m a, I am sensitive to the word frontier firm. [00:09:53] Vince Menzione: I understand why Microsoft uses it and I understand the value of what we used to call, you know, customer zero or back in the day we used to say eating your own dog food, but essentially being an organization that has leaned in, in a way, and with ai. Even more so, so important to do it. So tell us, I know you’ve done some things personally as well, but tell, tell us what you’ve done with the organization. [00:10:18] Vince Menzione: Uh, you talked about data and making data available and having, having a true data state as opposed to silos of data, but then you also made some personal investments and sacrifices. I would say. [00:10:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. [00:10:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. In terms of what you’re doing around ai, [00:10:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: so I mean, let’s start on the personal side. I’m the CEO of my organization, and you can read in books or news articles that it is critical for AI transformation to start at the C-suite and specifically in the CEO seat. [00:10:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:10:46] Ashleigh Vogstad: And that really. Landed for me and so I’m personally leading in About two weeks ago, I built an agent, just end-to-end on my own, got into copilot studio. Wow. Got comfortable with the interface. You know, I was clunky moving around in there at first, chose my model. You know, I went with one of the anthropic Claude models for this particular project and built up an agent that can deliver executive communications like. [00:11:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Thought leadership blogs, uh, LinkedIn posts, but in a particular human being’s voice by ingesting things like their social profiles, their SharePoint sites, where they live and work. And it has been so surprising doing an ab test between just what a chat GBT or a copilot could produce. [00:11:32] Yeah. [00:11:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: In comparison with the authenticity of the voice coming from the agent. [00:11:37] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it was just a really cool experience to roll up the sleeves and get in there. But also I think the, the investment that you’re referring to is, I made a big decision to return to school and uh, got accepted to go to Oxford. [00:11:52] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:11:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I’m studying artificial intelligence there. [00:11:54] Vince Menzione: That is incredible. That is incredible. [00:11:57] Vince Menzione: Oxford, uh, we’ve heard of that school before here in the United States. [00:12:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, it’s been a really great experience. It’s in person, so I’m traveling there about every 60 to 90 days and living on campus. I mean, really, Oxford isn’t. Formally a campus, it’s sort of a, a city and a university all, all ruled into one and the experience has been really powerful. [00:12:21] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. One of the things I wanted to get outta the program was a more global perspective, and it’s been fascinating to me that about half the faculty so far, or or professors, guest lecturers that have been coming into the program have been from China or very direct experience working in the Chinese market. [00:12:38] Vince Menzione: That is fascinating. [00:12:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s been a completely different view. Or for example, you know, really digging into some of the legal cases that are driving precedence for how AI is interacting with corporations. [00:12:51] Vince Menzione: Mm. [00:12:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: One of the big ones for me has been looking at Amazon versus p perplexity. This is still a live case that’s happening right now. [00:12:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you know, I think it was Forbes magazine that the headline was the End of Commerce for this case because it’s really about. How human beings are being replaced with machines and hearing some of the world’s leading thinkers, leading AI researchers on these topics has just been really expansive. [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. [00:13:20] Vince Menzione: I mean, it’s, this started a couple years ago with, uh, Hollywood, in fact. Suing the industry or suing the technology companies with regards to, uh, employment, right? Mm-hmm. About the, the, uh, copyright infringement and what’s gonna happen in the entertainment industry. And I think that was just a one very small example. [00:13:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, voice people think about DeepFakes. Yeah. And they think about video, but actually voice is a big issue. And you look at the, um, you know, the what happened between Scarlett Johansson and her voice in her, and then open AI rolling out a voice that sounded identical. Sounds like her. [00:13:59] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:13:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: To Scarlett Johansen and, and where that went. [00:14:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s, it, this is a new ground for, for everybody that we’re going through right now. [00:14:07] Vince Menzione: It is. We can dive and go in so many different directions, but let’s talk about marketing and advertising since that’s kind of. Transcends core, and a lot of the people that watch and listen to us are in the partnership world. [00:14:22] Vince Menzione: They’re leading organizations, they own organizations, the the chief executives or CVPs of organizations. Let’s talk about advertising and where that’s going. [00:14:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, great. [00:14:33] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:14:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, uh, I love Marshall McCluen. He’s a Canadian theor, uh, media theorist, and in 1964, he very famously said, the medium is the message. [00:14:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: And what that really means when you peel back the layers is that every type of communication medium has these inherent biases. And I think what we’re experiencing right now is this new medium of artificial intelligence, and I’m really interested in exploring what that means for the media world. So. If I gonna take you back to 1997, there’s this really famous, the Innovator’s Dilemma. [00:15:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yes. Kind of a classic business 1 0 1 type book by Clayton Christensen. Yes. And he talks about this theory of disruption where new technologies, emerging technologies start at the low end of the market. They gain this momentum and they eventually displace incumbents. And you know, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. [00:15:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And Microsoft was a good example of this at that time. [00:15:32] Ashleigh Vogstad: Def, [00:15:32] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:15:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: All the big players. All the big players. I mean, Google go for search as well, right? So that’s one of the classic examples. And so. If we look at storytelling technology, you have things like chat, GBT and Sora entering the scene. And in the beginning, you know, they’re producing a shitty first draft. [00:15:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, you know, it’s things like post-apocalyptic dogs with five finger human beings. Yeah. Things like this. But, you know, and they really lacked emotional resonance. But as we all know. That’s not the case anymore. No, it’s [00:16:05] Vince Menzione: not. [00:16:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: AI is increasingly producing content that is very powerful and is starting to resonate with people. [00:16:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, I’m definitely not a neuroscientist, but if we, we look into the neuroscience, it’s your cortical sal circuit that. Kind of is responsible for pattern recognition and it compares what you’re seeing in the real world with what you expect to see. So when you take this into a space of advertising, you know, if there’s an ad that is AI generated, that is just weird and kind of. [00:16:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: Tweaking for you. [00:16:39] Vince Menzione: Like that robot we were talking about earlier, [00:16:41] Ashleigh Vogstad: like the robot we were Exactly, yeah. Like Sophia, you enter what psychologists call the uncanny valley, so it’s like what you’re looking at isn’t exactly what you’re expecting to see and the Spidey sense is, is tweaking. You know, that’s a low place of emotional resonance. [00:16:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: This world is changing really, really quickly and we’re seeing AI generated media make huge impacts in the market Now, tools like Luma Dream Machine, I mean, it’s incredible what they can achieve today. [00:17:11] Vince Menzione: It’s fascinating. We see it in, you know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. That’s sort of the world of our business community, and you can very easily detect when someone is doing a post. [00:17:22] Vince Menzione: Or they’re writing an art, whatever they’re doing. Right. Some type of draft of something. Uh, and you can tell when it’s ai, I mean, it’s so easy to tell, and even people are generating reports and claiming that their research papers or studies or whatever they call them, uh, and it’s AI generated and it’s just the authenticity isn’t there. [00:17:39] Vince Menzione: The, the sense that this is real. That it can be trusted is not there. And I think trust is what we’re talking about here too, as well. [00:17:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, let’s go to authenticity ’cause that’s super important. Yeah. And I know a lot of your listeners, you come from the hyperscaler world of partnerships. You need to have that differentiated, better together story. [00:17:59] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. It’s really important to have an authentic voice in market. And I think about that also in terms of platforms and channels. We’re seeing a decrease in certain major social media platforms, and yet Substack spiked 48% in monthly active users last month. [00:18:15] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:18:16] fascinating. [00:18:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: Um, you know, and I think that one of the reasons is it’s viewed as a more authentic channel where you’re getting thought leadership from people that you’re, you know, genuinely interested in hearing their, their points of view. [00:18:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And I think that’s really an important piece in here. [00:18:31] Vince Menzione: Yeah, you mentioned this yesterday and you had me thinking about it as well because we have used LinkedIn for everything internally, our newsletter, which has been around for six or seven years now. But that Substack is really, and I go to Substack too, to, if I really wanna dig in on a topic. [00:18:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:18:47] Vince Menzione: And there’s a particular author that I like their point of view, I’ll follow, I’ll follow them on Substack. [00:18:53] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. I mean, and this comes, maybe brings us around to who is the buyer and who is the audience, and who do we need to be thinking about when we’re designing sales and marketing programs. And really we’re, we’re shifting into the place of the Gen Z buyer by 20 30, 70 5% of buyers are gonna be Gen Z. [00:19:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna control 12 trillion in. Spend [00:19:16] Vince Menzione: by 2030. ’cause we, we’ve been, we’ve been saying that the millennial is the new buyer the last three years. I think Jay said it right here at this stage. [00:19:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:19:24] Vince Menzione: Um, so now it’s Gen Z. [00:19:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: And they’re buying online. Yeah, they’re buying in marketplaces. Yeah. So a stat recently was that roughly half of them made purchases on the social platforms of YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok in the last month. [00:19:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean, that buyer behavior of being inside. Social type application and directly making a purchase. And I think in the B2B world, we need to take lessons from here and start thinking more front and center than we even have been around marketplaces. I mean, part of my reason for being in Silicon Valley this week was to celebrate a $12 million transaction that happened via Marketplace and two years ago that would’ve been a huge deal. [00:20:06] Ashleigh Vogstad: Huge, [00:20:07] Vince Menzione: huge. [00:20:07] Ashleigh Vogstad: And, and it still is a really big deal, but these things are becoming. More and more common experiences. Very much so. We need to be there and in that conversation. [00:20:16] Vince Menzione: So how are you thinking about it? How are you directing your clients to behave or act around it? What are you, what are you doing exactly that we could take to this community perhaps and share with them. [00:20:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’ll bring it back to the authenticity piece because you need to have a product that delivers value first and foremost. There is, there is no substitution for that. Yeah, and what I would say is. One of my professors at Oxford, Eric Zow, he has this theory that I’m really digging into and finding very fascinating, which is that for the last several decades we’ve been in the attention economy, and that’s shifting to the trust economy. [00:20:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now the attention economy is about selling to human beings. Yeah. It’s about the, the business model is essentially that you need human being eyeballs on lists of recommendation links. Yeah. Whether that’s from Google or from, you know, searching, shopping on Amazon, you get this list of recommendation links and the economic engine that drives that business model is advertising. [00:21:19] Ashleigh Vogstad: Now, if you look at something like the Amazon versus Perplexity lawsuit, the whole underlying premise is around the shift of no longer selling to humans directly, but of selling to machines, or in other words, agents who are making purchases, s on behalf on your behalf. And an agent isn’t going to be razzle dazzled by some inauthentic story. [00:21:44] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:21:44] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re gonna be looking for third party validation on Exactly. You know, they need to be sure that they’re making the right decision. [00:21:51] Vince Menzione: They’re gonna look at surveys, they’re gonna look at customer comments. Like if I went through my Amazon site and I was looking to see what people said about the purchase or the product and specifically Exactly. [00:22:01] Vince Menzione: The agent’s gonna do this on my behalf, is what you’re saying. [00:22:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: This is what I’m saying. Yeah. And, and. I believe that to layer on top of, you know, Eric Z’s philosophy, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of the hyperscaler world, and I think that this is the time to lean into co-selling partnerships. [00:22:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, because being third party validated by somebody like AWS Microsoft and having all that co-sell data, what are your recent wins? Yes, that’s really high integrity, trusted data source for an agent to make a purchasing decision, and marketplaces are a key part of that. [00:22:35] Vince Menzione: So we’ll move from AI will take a, a more active role in the marketplace. [00:22:40] Ashleigh Vogstad: I definitely believe so. [00:22:42] Vince Menzione: Which makes total sense. I, you know, we’ve been doing this for nine or 10 years now, and when I was at Microsoft, we started co-selling. In fact, it was, uh, Aaron Feiger was up on stage yesterday talking about it. Right? January of 2016, co-selling began. [00:22:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:22:56] Vince Menzione: And there were only a few companies doing it. [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: Right. So she worked with one of the very first ones that were doing it. Uh, the challenge we have today is there are tens of thousands of partner organizations in the marketplace that are all trying to get the attention of the Microsoft sellers. Hmm. As, or the Google sellers or the AWS sellers and tell their story. [00:23:19] Vince Menzione: And a seller only has so many minutes in a day, they have a quota that they have to hit. These quotas are tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars of annual quota of cloud consumption. And I wanna sell my $50,000 widget, whatever it is. Yeah. Right. And I, I don’t understand why I’m not getting a callback. [00:23:38] Vince Menzione: And this, this is the dilemma we’ve faced because of, because of this, uh, scarcity of time and this over overwhelming of tech, you know. Tech, tech buyers trying to make this all happen, so now the AI can come in and help me solve for it as a seller, right? [00:23:55] Ashleigh Vogstad: The AI is definitely acting as an interface to make recommendations to field sellers in different organizations and. [00:24:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: To, to kind of take this on a, a tangent. Dupes. So a dupe. I know people of my generation, we’d think about this like a knockoff Right. You know, a knockoff handbag. [00:24:15] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:24:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes have exploded. [00:24:16] Vince Menzione: Fake. Fake Rolexes. [00:24:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: Exactly. The fake Rolex for sure. And I think it was in December, P WC rolled out a survey. 81% of Gen Z were planning to purchase a dupe this holiday season. [00:24:29] Vince Menzione: That’s wild. [00:24:30] Ashleigh Vogstad: Dupes can be, you know, we gave luxury, good examples, but Louis [00:24:34] Vince Menzione: Vuitton and yeah. So, [00:24:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: but furniture, these sorts of things. And the important takeaway here for tech is the same principle will land, is that people are looking for value out of a product, not necessarily a name brand. AI is accelerating this whole process, and agents are gonna be looking at the same thing. [00:24:56] Ashleigh Vogstad: They’re looking for that authenticity in terms of the actual product value. So, you know, beware there’s lots of disruption happening in the market right now with this dupe mentality, which is actually a cultural shift talking about I appreciate value over a superficial. Brand name. In some cases, there’s also a, a small contrary trend where certain luxury goods are rising because yes, things are never that simple. [00:25:22] Vince Menzione: So you work with a lot of these tech companies, a lot of SaaS companies, is we, we call them ISVs, we also call them, uh, software development companies. Now we keep changing these acronyms around. Uh, there’s been a lot of, uh, consternation in that segment, I would say, around ai. Right, because a lot of them are getting told that they’ll be outta business in a few years. [00:25:43] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. I think Satya Nadella famously said this last year that SAS will go away. Right? He’s predicting the demise. How do you help some of these organizations to differentiate? And there’s some of these are huge value organizations. We have have them in the room with us, ServiceNow and Veeam and Adobe. [00:26:01] Vince Menzione: Um, how do you help them achieve their results? ’cause that’s what you, you know, your organization is really helping these organizations to achieve their pinnacle as a partner. What do you, what do you say to them now and how do you help them through this time? [00:26:16] Ashleigh Vogstad: I’m on the side of the fence that I really can’t see an organization ripping out something like Salesforce, Adobe, ServiceNow. [00:26:24] Vince Menzione: Agreed. [00:26:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: I mean that the amount of change management and. The extent to which these, these platforms are embedded, actually running and operating organizations. I personally, if, if we’re calling those companies, SaaS companies, I don’t agree that that layer is gonna go away. I mean, we’re seeing these organizations lean into AI in a huge way to borrow Microsofts. [00:26:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: Term, you know, they’re all becoming frontier firms. [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:26:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: So where I would go to, to answer that question, we do work with many, you know, organizations on that caliber, on things like their marketplace strategy on how to light up the fields of different hyperscalers. It really does come down to things like having a strong drumbeat with the Microsoft field, celebrating your win stories. [00:27:15] Ashleigh Vogstad: Maybe that’s where I’ll land as Please do the marketer, because it sounds so simple, and I don’t know why we kind of continue to come back to this, but we’re talking about that third party validation and really, um, in order to have that, like what the hyperscalers want is you jointly celebrating success. [00:27:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: Here’s the kicker. Publicly. [00:27:38] Vince Menzione: Publicly, [00:27:39] Ashleigh Vogstad: you know, you need a customer story on your website, a press release that contains a quote from your customer. Ideally, also a quote from an executive at one of the hyperscalers. Like, actually lean in to live the value of your better together story. And when you do that, when you, when it comes around to partner of the year time, and we talk to you about, okay, what client stories are we gonna feature? [00:28:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: We’re even gonna know because when we Google you, we can see the public press of the joint wins that you’ve been celebrating. And I can tell you that that is a huge indicator on whether or not you’re well-placed to be in the 4% of partners who actually win Partner of the Year award’s. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Fascinating to me. [00:28:21] Vince Menzione: ’cause to me it would feel like table stakes maybe ’cause where we sit is ultimate partner and where this room sits with all the top partners that I just assume that everybody follows that. That, that guidance. [00:28:34] Ashleigh Vogstad: Mm. [00:28:34] Vince Menzione: And so this is really impactful and I want to get here because I know you spent a lot of time here and we’ve talked about it before, but I think the partner of the year awards, when we first met many years ago, that was a you, you’ve expanded the business, but that’s still a core mission and and value that you bring to the community and to the partner ecosystem is helping them through this process. [00:28:55] Vince Menzione: So I know that that’s gonna be coming up soon, so I thought maybe we’d spend a couple moments on that. [00:29:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: Partner of the Year awards, regardless of which partner, I mean, Salesforce has their own awards there. There’s more and more award programs coming out, and they’re a great way to celebrate the incredible work that your organization has done. [00:29:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: Jay McBain is brilliant on this. He’ll talk a lot about the increase in valuation. Yeah. The, the increase in stock valuation or the likelihood that if you’re looking to be acquired, that you’re acquired within 12 months of a partner of the year win it. It’s really impressive. There is strong business value there. [00:29:33] Vince Menzione: He like, he likes, he likes to tell the story of that when the award is handed to them and they go back into the audience, that the private equity people are all over them right then and there and making offers. I mean, that’s the visual that you get [00:29:47] Ashleigh Vogstad: and it’s very powerful. Yeah. Very powerful. It’s very powerful and it, it can make it worthwhile to invest in the process, but don’t invest in the process if you haven’t been investing in the process for the 12 months. [00:29:57] Ashleigh Vogstad: Prior, [00:29:58] Vince Menzione: exactly. [00:29:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: The Microsoft field or you we’re talking about Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards. They need to know about your win that that needs to be top of mind for them. Yeah. How much Azure revenue is it driving? Was it a huge marketplace? Build sales and. You know, one of the questions I get asked a ton, everybody wants to know how do we get money out of the hyperscalers? [00:30:20] Ashleigh Vogstad: How do I get access to marketing development funds or all these different programs? Yeah. You know, at Microsoft, some of these programs are like EI and customer investment funds or Azure Accelerate, you know, and there’s millions and millions and millions of dollars in these, these buckets of funds, but. [00:30:36] Ashleigh Vogstad: An interesting point of view is that it’s actually a scorecard metric for many people at Microsoft who have partnership roles for you to be drawing down those funds. [00:30:45] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:30:45] Ashleigh Vogstad: You know, your interests are actually aligned here, and so again, when it comes to Partner of the Year awards, how much money have you pulled down? [00:30:54] Ashleigh Vogstad: How much have you been an activating partner of key Microsoft programs that they’re pushing? What are you doing with marketplace rewards? How are you resing? Those into your business. These are the types of things that you really wanna be thinking about. Sitting it. You know, this time of year we probably will get the awards were likely be due in July. [00:31:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: They haven’t officially announced timelines, but you’ve got a few months to start moving these pieces into place. [00:31:18] Vince Menzione: And there are quite a few of them. And to your point, Nina, when she was up on stage here yesterday, there were at least 10 or 12 award. Uh. Funding categories that were on her, that were on her slide. [00:31:31] Vince Menzione: Her partner, her partner slide. So, [00:31:33] Ashleigh Vogstad: and what great looks like for a partner is that you understand your end-to-end funnel as it is mapped to Microsoft’s SEM model, the Microsoft customer Engagement model. Mm-hmm. The first stage there, inspire and design. That’s really the marketing space of lead generation. [00:31:50] Ashleigh Vogstad: So how are you generating leads with webinars, in-person, event activations, digital campaigns, and then at the very end, in the fifth column, you have the Microsoft outcomes that you’re driving. Yes. Whether that’s Azure consumed revenue, marketplace build sales, co-pilot, monthly active usage, these sorts of things. [00:32:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: And in each of those SEM swim lanes. There’s Microsoft funding associated to it. And that’s one of the things that Nina Harding was showing yesterday. When and where does it make sense to make requests for EA funds versus Azure accelerate the MCI funding? There’s different workshop proof of concept funding, and those all fall at specific stages in that EM model. [00:32:33] Vince Menzione: And what you’re also pointing out in this conversation is that the co the partners need to understand that mm, they need to understand MM. We talked about it years ago. I’ve had, haven’t had anybody on stage recently talk about m You could probably take us through that if we wanted to devote some time here, uh, and then understand all of those categories and how to access those funds. [00:32:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, it’s critical and. The number one place we point partners, if you want a quick overview of what that looks like is to Microsoft’s FY 26 solution playbooks. Nice. They’re available on the web for download. There’s, well, there used to be three, but they’ve added a few agen being, being one. So, so there’s a handful of, they had [00:33:11] Vince Menzione: simplified it, now they’re, now they’re expanding it back again. [00:33:14] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, exactly. I think there’s now a breakout for security as well. Yes. So take a look at those playbooks. It will map programs and incentives very specifically to each solution area and to each sales play that are gonna be available to you. And then we’re always happy to guide people through the details [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: as well. [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: I love that. I love that. And reach out to the. Ashley is just amazing at this process. I’ve, I’ve watched her for years now, work with some of the top, what have become the pinnacle partners of Microsoft and with the award season coming up. So we wanna make sure we have a plug there. But I also wanna talk about like, podcasts with you. [00:33:50] Vince Menzione: Um, you’ve been on this podcast multiple times, been in the studio before doing this, and I understand you have your own podcast now. So tell us about that. [00:33:58] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, Vince, I just wanna say. As a friend and a mentor. You’ve been so inspiring. Thank you. And I think from years ago when we met, there was this seed in my brain of, you know, I, I should really get out there. [00:34:13] Ashleigh Vogstad: And you talk a lot about growth mindset and fear setting is, is one of Tim Ferriss’s terms? Yes. And models. [00:34:21] Vince Menzione: I love Tim Ferris. I’ve been, been a fan of his for 10 years now. So that’s settled. We all got started with this. Sorry. Sorry, I [00:34:26] Ashleigh Vogstad: interrupt. No, no, not at all. [00:34:27] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:34:28] Ashleigh Vogstad: And. I think it’s just been, it’s been back there. [00:34:31] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. That I’m really passionate around having voice is how I think about it. And as a marketing agency, we’re really amplifying the voice, um, or helping companies to find their voice, particularly in hyperscaler partnerships. And what better way to assist, you know, authentically the amazing people in our network, in our community and our clients than with our own channel where we can celebrate their stories and success? [00:35:00] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: So the podcast is called Transcending Tech. It’s about [00:35:06] Vince Menzione: very cool transcending tech. Just so you don’t [00:35:08] Ashleigh Vogstad: transcending tech. [00:35:08] Vince Menzione: It’s out there now. [00:35:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: It, we just released our first episode. Okay. I think two days ago. [00:35:13] Vince Menzione: So by the time we’re live, yes. We’ll, we’ll be able to access it. Good. [00:35:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: You will be able to access it. [00:35:18] Ashleigh Vogstad: The first episode is with Alyssa Fit. Patrick from Elastic. [00:35:21] Vince Menzione: Oh my goodness. [00:35:22] Ashleigh Vogstad: And the concept of the podcast, it’s long form and it’s really about getting to the people behind the platforms. [00:35:29] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:35:29] Ashleigh Vogstad: And to the stories that transcend technology. So we’re here to get to know the human beings behind. Agents. [00:35:38] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:35:38] Ashleigh Vogstad: And taking the time to, to go in deep and really explore that. [00:35:43] Vince Menzione: So I am excited to see all the developments here with the, with the podcast. And you’re gonna be joining us again. You were just here, you in Boca. But you’ll be joining us again in Bellevue. Not too far a little bit. Closer ride or travel, uh, for you to come to Bellevue. [00:35:57] Vince Menzione: We’re gonna be hosting the first ultimate partner live, which is our larger events in this beautiful facility, this new Intercontinental hotel, which is fabulous. And, uh, you’re gonna be taking a more active role. Your leadership around AI is. Palpable and we’re gonna love to have you on stage and talking through some of the changes. [00:36:17] Vince Menzione: I, I suspect by the time we get to Bellevue we’ll have a lot more to talk about. That hasn’t even happened yet. [00:36:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah, I’m really excited. I’ll have been through my next cohort at at Oxford, kind of coming out hot from there back to the Pacific Northwest, and really excited to just share the learnings and Awesome. [00:36:35] Ashleigh Vogstad: Genuinely. It’s also helping me in my own research, really formulate particularly around the role of ag agentic AI in hyperscaler partnerships. [00:36:43] Vince Menzione: That’s so cool. And then what I’ll say is this, and I don’t know, we on the space perspective, and I’ll, the team will probably hang me for this because we haven’t done it yet, but if you wanna bring the podcast along with you, there might be, we’ll see if we can find an extra room for you to set up. [00:36:58] Vince Menzione: If you wanna do some interviews while you’re. In, at the event. So [00:37:02] Ashleigh Vogstad: you’re so generous, Vince. [00:37:03] Vince Menzione: That’s [00:37:04] Ashleigh Vogstad: amazing. [00:37:04] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Again, I can’t say for certainty yet, but, uh, let’s see, let’s see what happens with that. So, uh, let, let’s, uh, you know, I always, we, we have known each other for years and I just assume everybody knows this amazing Ashley sda. [00:37:19] Vince Menzione: But, um, we always, I like to ask this question because it helps us kind of dig in a little bit about you personally. And it’s my favorite question. I ask all my guests this question now, and it’s, um, you’re hosting a dinner party, Ashley, you are, pick a pace, place, you wanna have this dinner. We could talk about parts of the world. [00:37:36] Vince Menzione: You’ve traveled all extensively. Uh, and you can invite any three people, guests from the present. Or the past to this amazing dinner party you’re throwing. Whom would you invite and why? [00:37:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: It’s a beautiful question, Vince and. Instantly I go to a place in terms of the location, since you asked that part, which was surprising. [00:38:01] Ashleigh Vogstad: I, I like that is my home. I, I love where I live up in Whistler, Canada and [00:38:08] Vince Menzione: I hear it’s beautiful. I haven’t been yet, [00:38:10] Ashleigh Vogstad: it’s so gorgeous and it’s, it’s my own sanctuary. You know, I live on a plane 75% of the time and coming back to that place is really grounding for me. Yes. So, so I would love to have it at, at my home and to invite. [00:38:24] Ashleigh Vogstad: Pippa Malrin would be one. She, Pippa [00:38:26] Vince Menzione: Malrin. [00:38:27] Ashleigh Vogstad: Yeah. She’s sure. I get an advisor to the White House for many administrations. Okay. She’s an economist and she just has really interesting perspective on geopolitics. Uh, I follow her on Substack ’cause she’s a big substack. Okay, now [00:38:41] Vince Menzione: I need to look. This is awesome. [00:38:42] Vince Menzione: The [00:38:43] Ashleigh Vogstad: mal, she’s fantastic. I would say Dr. Lisa Sue, the CEO, Dr. Lisa of a md. [00:38:49] Vince Menzione: Okay. Yes, yes. I know a little bit about her. [00:38:51] Ashleigh Vogstad: So she was one of Time Mag, I think she was the only woman in Time Magazine’s, group of people of the year, which was basically this AI cohort in including, you know, the Elon Musks of the world. [00:39:03] Ashleigh Vogstad: Uh, it’s just so impressive what she’s doing with leadership in a MD. I don’t think it’s as public as. Anybody else who is on the cover of that magazine, but it’s incredibly powerful. [00:39:14] Vince Menzione: Yeah, they’ve made a com uh, turnaround’s probably not the right word, but it seems like they’ve made a tremendous, uh, gains turnaround probably in the last few years. [00:39:23] Ashleigh Vogstad: I would say that many would say turnaround. And then lastly is Dr. Fefe Lee, who. For those in the AI space, particularly AI research space. I mean, she’s arguably number one. Um, she’s leading at Stanford currently. [00:39:37] Vince Menzione: Wow. This is gonna be a heady conversation, but you know, I love conversations. So if you don’t mind, maybe I’ll bring dessert and come, come in for a few moments, maybe do some podcast interviews there. [00:39:48] Vince Menzione: How’s that? [00:39:49] Ashleigh Vogstad: That sounds absolutely perfect, Vince, [00:39:50] Vince Menzione: so, so good. So good to have you here today. So great. Good to have you in the studio again, and, uh, excited for transcends and all the great work you’re doing. Um. This time with ai. I think you, uh, we talked about this a little bit last night. I think you’ve made some really wise, personal and professional decisions about how to lead and how to take this forward and not kind of rest on your laurels, which you see so many organizations do People fear change [00:40:17] Ashleigh Vogstad: Hmm. [00:40:18] Vince Menzione: And you embrace it, which is just, it’s astounding to me that you do that and, um. I look forward to working with you in the future and for years and years to come. So I will ask you one more question though, because we are still at the precipice of these tectonic shifts and we’re still early in 2026. And so for our listeners and our viewers today, what would be the one thing you would tell them that they need to go do now that possibly they haven’t done yet as they prepare for 2026 and beyond? [00:40:52] Ashleigh Vogstad: The generic phrase would be, be curious, but if we want an action, it would be go build an agent. [00:40:59] Vince Menzione: Go build an agent [00:41:00] Ashleigh Vogstad: if, if you haven’t already. Yeah. And, and I’m, yeah. Speaking hopefully to like a business audience, you know, to, to anyone. Yeah. Really, um, find something that is interesting that you’re passionate about. [00:41:12] Ashleigh Vogstad: A, a use case that it doesn’t have to be some big thing. It could be quite mundane, but just something that’s gonna help you in your role. It’s, you know, what is creativity is an interesting question, and I can tell you that sitting down and hands-on keys and actually creating something is, is a beautiful, powerful experience. [00:41:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Awesome. All right. We’re all gonna go create agents this weekend, so thank you for listening. Thank you for viewing the Ultimate Guide to partnering on our YouTube channel, ultimate Partner, and on each end of your platforms at the Ultimate Guide to partnering. Thank you for being with us and supporting us all these years. [00:41:50] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.
Jordi Visser is a veteran macro investor with 30+ years of experience and the author of the VisserLabs Substack. In this episode, we break down the viral Citrini paper and whether AI disruption is being overstated or simply repriced by markets. We also discuss compressed software valuations, NVIDIA, shifting credit conditions, and why crypto and bitcoin could benefit in a world that increasingly needs speed, verification, and secure financial rails.=======================Bitget (https://bitget.com/promotion/futures-tradfi?channelCode=regd&vipCode=nkew) is the world's largest Universal Exchange (UEX) (https://bitget.com/promotion/futures-tradfi?channelCode=regd&vipCode=nkew), serving over 125 million users with access to over 2M+ crypto tokens, and TradFi markets such as 100+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX and precious metal like Gold. At launch, users can trade 79 instruments with USDT directly with the App. Users can also enjoy high liquidity and low slippage, while trading these assets with up to 500x leverage. For more information on Bitget TradFi, visit this article (https://bitget.com/support/articles/12560603846859). For more information, visit: Website (https://bitget.com/) | Twitter (https://x.com/bitget) | Telegram (https://t.me/BitgetENOfficial) | LinkedIn (https://linkedin.com/company/bitget-global/) | Discord (https://discord.com/invite/bitget)For media inquiries, please contact: media@bitget.com=======================BitcoinIRA: Buy, sell, and swap 80+ cryptocurrencies in your retirement account. Take 3 minutes to open your account & get connected to a team of IRA specialists that will guide you through every step of the process. Go to https://bitcoinira.com/pomp/ to earn up to $1,000 in rewards.=======================Arch Public is an agentic trading platform that automates the buying and selling of your preferred crypto strategies. Sign up today at https://www.archpublic.com and start your automated trading strategy for free. No catch. No hidden fees. Just smarter trading.=======================0:00 – Intro0:57 – The Citrini AI Paper debate4:55 – Why software stocks are getting repriced10:39 - Can AI replace SaaS companies?15:53 – NVIDIA earnings & market regime shift21:05 – Why crypto wins in the next cycle29:37 – AI, government & autonomous weapons36:39 – Deepfakes, spam & the need for crypto41:29 – Survive vs Thrive: positioning for what's next
Artificial intelligence is transforming the global information ecosystem at breathtaking speed. In this timely conversation, Julia Haas, Head of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media's AI & Freedom of Expression project, examines what this means for journalism, democratic governance, and human rights.We discuss the rise of deepfakes and AI-driven disinformation, the concentration of power in big tech platforms, and the economic vulnerabilities of modern newsrooms. How do we preserve information integrity without enabling censorship? How can regulation enhance accountability without strengthening state control? And as media organizations increasingly adopt AI tools, how can trust be protected?Julia argues that safeguarding media freedom in the age of AI is not merely a technological challenge—it is a democratic test. Multilateral cooperation, principled regulation, and stronger public-interest infrastructure will be essential if innovation is to reinforce, rather than erode, open societies.Learn more on GlobalGovernanceForum.org
New research suggests Australians are dangerously overconfident about detecting AI deepfake scams, even as the technology becomes harder to spot. Experts warn scammers hijack trust and instinct, and are calling on people to pause, verify and reject suspicious messages. - یک تحقیق تازه نشان می دهد آسترالیایی ها در تشخیص فریبکاریها و کلاهبرداری های "دیپ فیک" ساخته شده با هوش مصنوعی، بیش از حد مطمئین اند. در حالی که این تکنالوژی هر روز طبیعی تر و شناسایی آن سخت تر میشود. متخصصین هشدار می دهند کلاهبرداران از اعتماد و احساسات مردم سوءاستفاده کرده و می گویند بهترین کار این است که مکث و بررسی کرده و پیام های مشکوک را رد کنید.
This episode of Vermont Viewpoint was published 02/25/2026.
Kreide.KI.Klartext. Der Podcast mit Diana Knodel und Gert Mengel
In dieser Episode sprechen wir darüber, warum Demokratiebildung und Künstliche Intelligenz untrennbar zusammengehören – und welche Rolle Schule dabei spielt.
Viele bekannte Synchron-Sprecherinnen und Sprecher, die normalerweise auch in Netflix-Produktionen zu hören sind, stehen derzeit nicht im Tonstudio, so die Einschätzung von Anna-Sophia Lumpe vom Verband Deutscher Sprecher:innen (VDS). Die Sprecherinnen und Sprecher nutzen diese Verweigerung vor allem auch als Protestsymbol, das sich gegen eine neue Klausel zum Einsatz von Künstlicher Intelligenz richtet. Netflix fordert darin die Zustimmung, Sprachaufnahmen für das Training entsprechender Systeme nutzen zu dürfen – ohne dafür zu zahlen und ohne den Betroffenen eine Wahl zu lassen. Denn wer die neuen Vertragsmodalitäten nicht unterzeichnen will, bekommt keine Alternativ-Option und kann folglich auch nicht für den Streamer arbeiten. Aus Sicht der Synchron-Schauspieler und Schauspielerinnen bergen die neuen KI-Kontrakte nicht nur aufgrund der Vergütung Brisanz, sondern auch, weil sie nicht genau wissen, was mit ihrem Stimm-Material zukünftig genau im KI-System gemacht wird, sprich wozu es verwendet, wohin es entwickelt wird. Wehren können sich die fraglichen Protagonisten bei einmal gegebener Zustimmung nur schwer, weil sie gleich eine Rechteabtretung an der eigenen Stimme für 50 Jahre beinhaltet. Bei vielen im Verband klingt daher die Befürchtung mit durch, ob kurz oder lang unkalkulierbarer Weise an der Abschaffung des eigenen Arbeitsplatzes mitzuwirken, perspektivisch mit dem eigenen Material also synthetisch generierte KI-Stimmen und Deepfakes auszubilden, die sie irgendwann ersetzen könnten - Sie sehen die gesamte Synchronisationskultur in Gefahr. Zwar betont Netflix aktuell, dies nicht tun zu wollen, klar geregelt sind die fraglichen Aspekte in den neuen KI-Klauseln allerdings nicht – die Sprecherinnen und Sprecher hätten nach jetzigem Stand aufgrund der fehlenden dezidierten Leitplanken folglich wenig Handhabe, wenn dies dennoch passieren sollte.
Deepfake porn is a billion-click industry built on stolen faces, while the people making it hide theirs behind screens. Hosted by journalist Sam Cole, Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire traces the decades-long rise of synthetic porn, the targets who are fighting back, and the global investigation that led to its Canadian kingpin.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action. More episodes of Deepfake Porn Empire are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/DPExEBD
Deepfake porn is a billion-click industry built on stolen faces, while the people making it hide theirs behind screens. Hosted by journalist Sam Cole, Understood: Deepfake Porn Empire traces the decades-long rise of synthetic porn, the targets who are fighting back, and the global investigation that led to its Canadian kingpin.Understood takes you deep inside the seismic shifts reshaping our world right now. From online porn and crypto chaos to the rise of tech oligarchs, deepfake AI, and the broken promises of the internet — we explore the stories that define our digital age with hosts and characters embedded in the heart of the action. More episodes of Deepfake Porn Empire are available wherever you get your podcasts, and here: https://link.mgln.ai/DPExGGG
The Advisory Board | Expert Franchising Advice for Franchise Leaders
Episode summaryThis week on The Franchise Advisory Board Podcast, Dave Hansen sits down with Dr. Alan Lasky, SVP at Reliable Background Screening (and former almost-songwriter-for-the-Jacksons… casually) to tackle a topic that's getting way more complicated: how to reduce hiring risk in the age of AI, deepfakes, and “resume inflation.”Big thanks to ClientTether, our episode sponsor, for helping franchise brands automate and standardize the processes that keep operators consistent, compliant, and sane.Episode highlightsAI in hiring: embrace it… but don't outsource your judgmentAlan's clear: this isn't an anti-AI episode. AI belongs in modern hiring—but it has to be used responsibly. The core risk? Bias and compliance exposure can sneak in when AI tools are unmonitored, unmeasured, or used without clear guardrails.Key safeguards discussed:Keep a human review in the loop before AI outputs influence decisionsBe transparent with candidates that AI is being used (even “AI note-takers”)Build internal policies and training so interviewers know what to watch forThe new threat: deepfakes and fake candidatesThe numbers are trending in a scary direction:Gartner projection: by 2028, 1 in 4 job applicants could be fakeReports cited from SHRM/Forbes: 70% of candidates misrepresent themselves, with “resume inflation” accelerating via AI toolsReliable (and the broader screening industry) is responding with identity verification approaches that combine:ID upload + guided selfie video (blink/turn prompts)biometric matching to confirm the candidate is real and consistentbehind-the-scenes handling designed to stay sensitive to EEOC/ADA concernsHiring best practices that actually hold upA few practical “do-this-now” moves that came up repeatedly:Compare resume vs LinkedIn vs interview story for consistencyUse skills assessments, ideally proctored or monitored when remoteSet explicit candidate guidelines for AI use (what's allowed vs not)Train interviewers to spot red flags like inconsistencies, delays, and mismatchUse social media checks carefully—ideally filtered through a screening partner to avoid pulling in protected-class infoCompliance is getting messier: states and citiesAI regulations are already active in places like Colorado, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York City, and Alan notes 20+ bills are moving through the pipeline. The theme across these rules:don't discriminatedocument your policykeep a human elementdisclose AI usageOn top of that, municipal laws are adding another layer (example discussed: shifting lookback windows in certain cities), making “multi-state + multi-unit + remote hiring” a true complexity party.Adverse action: the “right to dispute” mattersWhen a background check surfaces something negative, employers need to follow adverse action practices and give candidates the chance to dispute inaccuracies—because false positives happen (aliases, shared names, court data errors, etc.). Some states are now requiring more specific disclosure about why a decision was made and how it relates to the job.Franchisors, franchisees, and joint employer riskFor brands wanting to share hiring best practices systemwide: yes, you can educate—but do it smart.Keep it informationalAdd “consult legal counsel” languageBe careful not to cross lines that create joint-employer exposureThe vibe-check takeawayAI is speeding up hiring—but it's also speeding up fraud, mistakes, and legal risk. The winning play isn't “avoid AI.” It's standardize the process, document your policy, verify identity, and keep humans accountable for final decisions.
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook – der Feed zeigt Bilder und Videos. Doch nicht alles, was der Nutzer sieht, ist echt sondern Deepfakes.
Teknologien har for lengst flyttet inn i redaksjonene, der AI-systemer nå skriver, klipper, oversetter og analyserer innhold i et svimlende tempo.Hva skjer med journalistikken, økonomien og tilliten når teknologien drar i alle spaker samtidig? I denne episoden går vi rett inn i maskinrommet for å finne ut hva som fungerer, hva som skremmer, og hva som faktisk gir verdi i det nye medielandskapet.Vi tar deg med bak kulissene i to av Norges største mediehus for å forklare hvordan de bruker teknologi til å avsløre sannheten i saker som Epstein-filene. Du får høre om kampen for tillit, erfaringene fra et teknologitungt OL og strategiene som skal sikre at redaktørstyrte medier overlever frem mot 2030.Ukens gjester er Pål Nedregotten, direktør for teknologi og produktutvikling i NRK, og Espen Sundve, Chief Product Officer i Schibsted Media. Programleder er Christian Brosstad, Atea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Fraudsters are increasingly using deepfake videos of CEOs and other company executives to trick firms out of millions of dollars. And with the evolution of AI, these videos are becoming ever-more sophisticated and convincing. We speak to two CEOs who have been deepfaked: the head of the Bombay stock exchange and the boss of password security company LastPass. And we hear how criminals used deepfake videos to trick British engineering firm Arup into handing over $25 million. How easy is it to make these videos? Ed Butler visits a cybersecurity company which shows him how it can be done, using readily available software. Ed's hosts make a deepfake of him and we compare the real Ed to the fake Ed. We also put figures on the size of this problem and explain how much it's costing businesses.If you'd like to get in touch with the team, our email address is businessdaily@bbc.co.ukPresenter: Ed Butler Producer: Gideon Long Sound Mix: Toby JamesBusiness Daily is the home of in-depth audio journalism devoted to the world of money and work. From small startup stories to big corporate takeovers, global economic shifts to trends in technology, we look at the key figures, ideas and events shaping business.Each episode is a 17-minute deep dive into a single topic, featuring expert analysis and the people at the heart of the story.Recent episodes explore the weight-loss drug revolution, the growth in AI, the cost of living, why bond markets are so powerful, China's property bubble, and Gen Z's experience of the current job market.We also feature in-depth interviews with company founders and some of the world's most prominent CEOs. These include Google's Sundar Pichai, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, and the CEO of Starbucks, Brian Niccol.(Picture: An image of a man in a cap being deepfaked. Credit: Getty Images)
Crack open a Liquid Death and join us as we analyze the high-tech, low-life world of the new Running Man. We're looking at the cold, clinical design of the Hunters (giving us major THX 1138 vibes) and the terrifyingly relevant "Deepfake" technology used by the Network. Support the show: Make sure to visit our affiliate sponsor Live Bearded. Grab some premium beard care and support the pod by using our link! https://livebearded.com/2GEEKS.
Arkanix Stealer – the new AI info-stealer experiment AI-assisted hacker breached 600 Fortinet firewalls in 5 weeks Russia stepping up hybrid attacks, preparing for confrontation with West Get links to all of today's news in our show notes here: https://cisoseries.com/cybersecurity-news-arkanix-was-poc-600-fortinet-firewalls-breach-russia-heightens-tension/ Thanks to today's episode sponsor, Adaptive Security This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, the first security awareness platform built to stop AI-powered social engineering. Deepfakes aren't science fiction anymore; they're a daily threat. Quick tip: if your voicemail greeting is your real voice, switch it to the default robot voice. A few seconds of audio can be enough to clone you. Adaptive helps teams spot and stop these AI-powered social engineering attacks. Learn more at adaptivesecurity.com.
AI-generated or AI-altered content is all over the internet now, but most of us admit we don't always know it when we see it... How artificial intelligence is making it harder to trust our own eyes (at 12:19) --- Around Town: Part fundraiser, part treasure hunt... Christian Clearing House is accepting donations for their annual Garage Sale (at 22:23) --- HSBB Preview: Two regular season games remain for the Trojans to get momentum ahead of the tournament (at 31:25) --- A special collection of recipes for the first 'Fish Friday' of Lent from Kyra's Kitchen (at 45:40)
Im Podcast spricht der Digital-Forensiker über neue Technologien im Gerichtssaal, die Sorge vor Deepfakes und die Frage, warum seine Studierenden immer häufiger einen Job bei Bosch oder Siemens finden.
Valerie Ziegler, a high school teacher in San Francisco, and Joel Breakstone, executive director of Stanford's Digital Inquiry Group, talk about digital literacy in the classroom. Many self-described "screenagers," they say, can no longer tell real from fake. Together, Ziegler and Breakstone are at the forefront of a movement to prepare young people for a world of influencers, algorithmic manipulation, and artificial intelligence, an effort recently profiled in the New York Times.
Voice used to be AI's forgotten modality — awkward, slow, and fragile. Now it's everywhere. In this reference episode on all things Voice AI, Matt Turck sits down with Neil Zeghidour, a top AI researcher and CEO of Gradium AI (ex-DeepMind/Google, Meta, Kyutai), to cover voice agents, speech-to-speech models, full-duplex conversation, on-device voice, and voice cloning.We unpack what actually changed under the hood — why voice is finally starting to feel natural, and why it may become the default interface for a new generation of AI assistants and devices.Neil breaks down today's dominant “cascaded” voice stack — speech recognition into a text model, then text-to-speech back out — and why it's popular: it's modular and easy to customize. But he argues it has two key downsides: chaining models adds latency, and forcing everything through text strips out paralinguistic signals like tone, stress, and emotion. The next wave, he suggests, is combining cascade-like flexibility with the more natural feel of speech-to-speech and full-duplex conversation.We go deep on full-duplex interaction (ending awkward turn-taking), the hardest unsolved problems (noisy real-world environments and multi-speaker chaos), and the realities of deploying voice at scale — including why models must be compact and when on-device voice is the right approach.Finally, we tackle voice cloning: where it's genuinely useful, what it means for deepfakes and privacy, and why watermarking isn't a silver bullet.If you care about voice agents, real-time AI, and the next generation of human-computer interaction, this is the episode to bookmark.Neil ZeghidourLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-zeghidour-a838aaa7/X/Twitter - https://x.com/neilzeghGradiumWebsite - https://gradium.aiX/Twitter - https://x.com/GradiumAIMatt Turck (Managing Director)Blog - https://mattturck.comLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/X/Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturckFirstMarkWebsite - https://firstmark.comX/Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap(00:00) Intro(01:21) Voice AI's big moment — and why we're still early(03:34) Why voice lagged behind text/image/video(06:06) The convergence era: transformers for every modality(07:40) Beyond Her: always-on assistants, wake words, voice-first devices(11:01) Voice vs text: where voice fits (even for coding)(12:56) Neil's origin story: from finance to machine learning(18:35) Neural codecs (SoundStream): compression as the unlock(22:30) Kyutai: open research, small elite teams, moving fast(31:32) Why big labs haven't “won” voice AI4(34:01) On-device voice: where it works, why compact models matter(46:37) The last mile: real-world robustness, pronunciation, uptime(41:35) Benchmarking voice: why metrics fail, how they actually test(47:03) Cascades vs speech-to-speech: trade-offs + what's next(54:05) Hardest frontier: noisy rooms, factories, multi-speaker chaos(1:00:50) New languages + dialects: what transfers, what doesn't(1:02:54 Hardware & compute: why voice isn't a 10,000-GPU game(1:07:27) What data do you need to train voice models?(1:09:02) Deepfakes + privacy: why watermarking isn't a solution(1:12:30) Voice + vision: multimodality, screen awareness, video+audio(1:14:43) Voice cloning vs voice design: where the market goes(1:16:32) Paris/Europe AI: talent density, underdog energy, what's next
Research Update: 8 papers on AI in Education you need to know for 2026 In this episode, Ray and Dan provide a rapid-fire rundown of the most significant research papers hitting the AI in Education space so far in 2026. After a series of news-heavy episodes, the hosts catch up on the data behind synthetic avatars, grading accuracy, and the psychological biases we hold against AI. Key highlights include: Synthetic Lecturers: Exploring stakeholder perspectives on digital twins and the emotional reaction to the term Deepfake in academia. The Grading Gap: Why ChatGPT tends to be more sycophantic and generous with weak work compared to human instructors. The Disclosure Penalty: New findings from 16 experiments showing why humans devalue creative writing the moment they know AI is involved. Prompting Hacks: The "Groundhog Day" method
Zijn we bang voor de toekomst, of voor ons eigen onvermogen om te veranderen? Terwijl de wereld vreest voor de macht van AI, stelt futurist Aragorn Meulendijks een confronterende vraag: waarom durven we onszelf niet te overstijgen? In deze aflevering duiken we in de realiteit van ondernemerschap en leiderschap. Geen gepolijste succesverhalen, maar een eerlijk gesprek over lef, strategische keuzes en de harde lessen van groei in een razendsnel veranderende wereld.
Deepfake voice technology is rapidly advancing, but how well do current detection systems handle differences in language and writing style? Most existing work focuses on robustness to acoustic variations such as background noise or compression, while largely overlooking how linguistic variation shapes both deepfake generation and detection. Yet language matters: psycholinguistic features such as sentence structure, complexity, and word choice influence how models synthesize speech, which in turn affects how detectors score and flag audio. In this talk, we will ask questions such as: "If we change the way a person writes, while keeping their voice the same, will a deepfake detector still reach the same decision?" and "Are some text-to-speech and voice cloning models more vulnerable to shifts in writing style than others?" We will then discuss implications for designing robust deepfake voice detectors and for advancing more trustworthy speech AI in an era of increasingly synthetic media. About the speaker: Thai Le is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Indiana University's Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering. He obtained his doctoral degree from the college of Information Science and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University with an Excellent Research Award and a DAAD Fellowship. His research focuses on the trustworthiness of AI/ML models, with a mission to enhance the robustness, safety, and transparency of AI technology in various sociotechnical contexts. Le has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed research works with two best paper presentation awards. He is a pioneer in collecting and investigating so-called text perturbations in the wild, which has been utilized by users and researchers worldwide to study and understand effects of humans' adversarial behaviors on their daily usage with AI/ML models. His works have also been featured in ScienceDaily, DefenseOne, and Engineering and Technology Magazine.
Grunwald, Maria www.deutschlandfunk.de, Interviews
Get our AI Video Guide: https://clickhubspot.com/dth Episode 97: How close are we to a world where AI-generated videos are indistinguishable from reality? Matt Wolfe (https://x.com/mreflow) and Joe Fier (linkedin.com/in/joefier) dive deep into Seedance 2.0—ByteDance's new AI video model that could outpace giants like Sora and Veo. Joe, a marketing and business expert known for his hands-on approach and insights into AI's rapid evolution, helps to break down the five most fascinating developments in the AI space this week. They tackles game-changing AI advances: Seedance 2.0's mind-blowing video generation for ads and motion graphics, the rollout of Google's Veo 3.1 in Google Ads, the GPT-5.3 Codex Spark coding model built on specialized inference chips, Gemini's DeepThink model for scientific research, and the early rollout of ChatGPT ads. Check out The Next Wave YouTube Channel if you want to see Matt and Nathan on screen: https://lnk.to/thenextwavepd — Show Notes: (00:00) Seedance 2.0 arrives – AI video generation blurs reality, ad creation moves fast. (03:03) Google's Veo 3.1 powers video ads, advertisers can now generate clips directly from image uploads. (05:33) Comparison of Runway, Kling, Veo, and Sora—head-to-head prompt showdown. (07:00) Motion graphics and explainers—AI's take on the creative industry. (08:35) US vs. China—Copyright, IP, and training data debates. (12:10) Deepfake and video authenticity—why we now default to skepticism. (13:30) Google's edge in visual AI via YouTube's massive corpus. (14:39) The next frontier: Longer, more consistent video generation. (15:14) Where do humans fit in? Taste, storytelling, and creative direction. (18:30) GPT-5.3 Codex Spark—coding models on Cerebras inference chips, demo generating a website in 18 seconds. (24:34) AI tool comparisons—Codex vs. Cursor vs. Claude Code. (25:12) Speed as the key bottleneck breaker in creative and technical workflows. (28:02) Google's Gemini DeepThink—state-of-the-art research, advanced coding and physics capabilities. (32:52) Gemini demo attempt—3D-printable STL file and solving the three-body problem. (33:20) ChatGPT rolls out ads—impact on monetization and user trust. (40:02) Google's ad history—how “sponsored” is becoming harder to distinguish. (44:02) Democratizing AI access via ad-supported models. (45:03) Matt Schumer's viral article—why AI is moving even faster than most people realize. (51:11) Tools that build tools—AGI's path and the new role for humans. (53:12) Real-world skills and taste—where humanity still wins (for now). (54:01) Final thoughts—wake up, pay attention, and stay on the leading edge. — Mentions: Seedance 2.0: https://www.seedance.com/ ByteDance: https://www.bytedance.com/ CapCut: https://www.capcut.com/ Veo: https://deepmind.google/models/veo/ Runway: https://runwayml.com/ ChatGPT Codex: https://chatgpt.com/codex Matt Schumer's Viral Article: https://www.mattshumer.com/blog/ai-changes-everything Super Bowl Claude Commercial: https://www.anthropic.com/news/super-bowl-ad Get the guide to build your own Custom GPT: https://clickhubspot.com/tnw — Check Out Matt's Stuff: • Future Tools - https://futuretools.beehiiv.com/ • Blog - https://www.mattwolfe.com/ • YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/@mreflow — Check Out Nathan's Stuff: Newsletter: https://news.lore.com/ Blog - https://lore.com/ The Next Wave is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by Hubspot Media // Production by Darren Clarke // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano
AP's Lisa Dwyer reports on more legal action in Europe involving Grok.
AI is evolving fast—and so are the risks that come with it. In this episode of Leader Generation, Tessa Burg talks with Mod Op's EVP of PR, Chris Harihar, to unpack a growing issue most brands aren't fully prepared for: AI-driven brand misrepresentation. From deepfakes to manipulated logos and inappropriate brand placements, the conversation explores how generative AI tools are creating new reputational threats in ways that feel chaotic, fast-moving and hard to control. Chris introduces Mod Op's new AI Risk Intelligence capability, designed to help brands proactively identify and address harmful AI-generated content before it spirals. They dig into real examples—including manipulated executive deepfakes and brand misuse across platforms like Sora and Grok—and explain why this isn't just a cybersecurity issue, but a reputational one that belongs squarely in the PR and communications world. If you're a CMO, brand leader, or marketer wondering how exposed your company might be—or how to get ahead of risks that didn't exist a year ago—this episode offers clarity, practical thinking, and a smart path forward. It's a timely conversation about protecting your brand while still embracing the power of AI. Leader Generation is hosted by Tessa Burg and brought to you by Mod Op. About Chris Harihar: Chris Harihar is the EVP of Public Relations at Mod Op. With deep expertise in business and tech media relations, Chris counsels clients at a high level while maintaining hands-on involvement in media relations and content strategy. He has developed and run highly successful programs for leading B2B and tech brands, from Verizon Media/Yahoo and DoubleVerify to Signal AI, IDG (now Foundry) and WeTransfer. Chris can be reached on LinkedIn or at Chris.Harihar@ModOp.com. About Tessa Burg: Tessa is the Chief Technology Officer at Mod Op and Host of the Leader Generation podcast. She has led both technology and marketing teams for 15+ years. Tessa initiated and now leads Mod Op's AI/ML Pilot Team, AI Council and Innovation Pipeline. She started her career in IT and development before following her love for data and strategy into digital marketing. Tessa has held roles on both the consulting and client sides of the business for domestic and international brands, including American Greetings, Amazon, Nestlé, Anlene, Moen and many more. Tessa can be reached on LinkedIn or at Tessa.Burg@ModOp.com.
Innovation spans many areas, and compliance professionals need not only to be ready for it but also to embrace it. Join Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, as he visits with top innovative minds, thinkers, and creators in the award-winning Innovation in Compliance podcast. In this episode, host Tom Fox interviews Matt Kunkel, CEO and Co-Founder at LogicGate, about the company's governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) platform and current market trends. Matt recounts his path into regulatory risk and compliance work that led to founding LogicGate and launching its Risk Cloud platform in 2015. A major focus is AI governance. Tom and Matt explore how and why senior management is asking compliance teams to provide governance frameworks despite the absence of a single standard (e.g., NIST/ISO/SOC). Matt explains organizations need scalable processes to triage and route large volumes of AI usage requests, apply guardrails based on data sensitivity and criticality, and avoid becoming a bottleneck to innovation. He emphasizes training and culture to address employee misuse, highlighting risks of exposing proprietary data and the need to define what information is acceptable to input into AI models. The discussion turns to LogicGate's culture and how it has been sustained during rapid, organic growth (no acquisitions). Matt outlines LogicGate's six values: Be as One, Embrace Your Curiosity, Empower Customers, Raise the Bar, Own It, and Do the Right Thing. For evaluating AI and modernizing compliance programs, he frames value in three outcomes: making money, reducing costs, or reducing risk, and describes LogicGate's value realization framework that translates efficiency and ROI into business terms. He also describes Risk Cloud as an orchestration layer for compliance programs and anticipates more “intentional AI” and selective use of agentic capabilities rather than fully autonomous end-to-end program execution. Key highlights: From Consulting to GRC: Coding, Madoff Investigation, and Founding LogicGate Why AI Is Supercharging the “G” in GRC LogicGate's Culture Playbook: Values That Scale with Hypergrowth How to Evaluate AI Tools in Compliance: Proving Value, ROI, and “Intentional AI” Cybersecurity in 2026: AI-Powered Social Engineering, Deepfakes, and Risk Mapping What's Next for GRC by 2030: Agents, Responsible AI, and Tech as the Glue Resources: Matt Kunkel on LinkedIn LogicGate Innovation in Compliance was recently ranked Number 4 in Risk Management by 1,000,000 Podcasts.
PJ talks to Pat Buckley TD about an amendment to Coco's Law in the light of the AI nude deepfakes that have swept across the online world Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A stunningly realistic fake clip of movie stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt having a fist-fight about Jeffrey Epstein is causing a meltdown in Hollywood. Plus, the thwarted return of ISIS brides.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Gefälschte Videoaufnahmen, sogenannte Deepfakes, sind keine Seltenheit mehr: Sie zeigen zum Beispiel Donald Trump in der Papstrobe oder Mona Vetsch, die für zweifelhafte Finanzseiten wirbt. Doch jetzt erreichen sie eine neue Dimension.Deepfakes sehen immer echter aus und die Maschen der Betrüger werden immer perfider. So auch im Fall von Markus. Kurz nachdem er einen unbekannten Facetime-Anruf annimmt, erhält er ein Video zugeschickt. Es zeigt ihn beim Masturbieren. Die Betrüger hatten das Video mit KI so manipuliert, dass die Szene echt wirkte. Dann drohen sie ihm, es zu verschicken, wenn er nicht zahlt.Auch an einer Schweizer Schule wurde kürzlich ein Fall bekannt, in dem Oberstufenschüler KI-generierte Nacktbilder von Mitschülerinnen über Snapchat verbreiteten.Wie funktionieren Deepfakes? Was bedeuten solche Aufnahmen für die Betroffenen? Und was können Behörden dagegen tun? Das erklärt Oliver Zihlmann, Leiter des Tamedia Recherchedesks in einer neuen Folge des täglichen Podcasts «Apropos».Host: Alexandra AreggerProduzentin: Valeria MazzeoMehr zu DeepfakesDie Recherche von Oliver Zihlmann zum Fall von MarkusDer KI-Nacktbild-Skandal an einer Schweizer SchuleSo ist die Rechtslage in der Schweiz bei Deepfakes Unser Tagi-Spezialangebot für Podcast-Hörer:innen: tagiabo.chHabt ihr Feedback, Ideen oder Kritik zu «Apropos»? Schreibt uns an podcasts@tamedia.ch Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Non-consensual deepfake porn is becoming increasingly pervasive, and it didn't just come out of nowhere. These deepfakes were created and curated by people, on platforms, inside online subcultures. And they were allowed to spread, while governments dragged their feet, tech companies shrugged, and the targets — almost always women — paid the price.Tech journalist Sam Cole has been covering deepfake porn since its inception. In this season of Understood, she follows the trail all the way to the source, tracing an investigation across three countries and four newsrooms into the very real person behind the world's largest deepfake porn website: Mr. Deepfakes himself.
Hannah sine feriebilder ble manipulert og misbrukt. Så tok hun saken i egne hender. (Foto: Illustrasjonsbilde/ Ismail Burak Akkan). Hør alle episodene i appen NRK Radio
Lawyers have always relied on tools—but AI is different. It doesn't just assist with tasks; it makes decisions, applies judgment, and shapes outcomes. In episode #602 of the Lawyerist Podcast, Stephanie Everett talks with Damien Riehl about what ethical responsibility looks like when AI starts doing legal work on its own. Their conversation examines how AI systems embed values, why verification matters more than transparency, and how lawyers can responsibly use tools they don't fully understand. They also explore what legal expertise looks like in an AI-powered future—and why intuition, trust, and integrity may matter more than ever as machines take over the “widgets” of legal work. Listen to our other episodes on Ethics and Responsibility in AI. EP. 582 Deepfakes, Data, and Duty: Navigating AI Ethics in Law, with Merisa Bowers Apple | Spotify | LTN EP. 543 What Lawyers Need to Know About the Ethics of Using AI, with Hilary Gerzhoy Apple | Spotify | LTN Have thoughts about today's episode? Join the conversation on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and X! If today's podcast resonates with you and you haven't read The Small Firm Roadmap Revisited yet, get the first chapter right now for free! Looking for help beyond the book? See if our coaching community is right for you. Access more resources from Lawyerist at lawyerist.com. Chapters / Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction 05:55 – Meet Damien Riehl 08:10 – Why AI Is a Different Kind of Legal Tool 11:05 – When AI Starts Doing Legal Work 14:30 – Ethics, Values, and AI Judgment 18:45 – Foundation Models vs. Legal-Specific AI 21:15 – The “Duck Test” and Trusting AI Output 24:45 – Trust but Verify: Reviewing AI Work 28:40 – What Lawyers Are Underestimating About AI 31:10 – What Still Requires Human Judgment 34:30 – Intuition, Trust, and Integrity in Law 37:40 – What This Means for Billing and the Future 40:40 – Closing Thoughts
The future of cybersecurity is not coming. It is already here. AI is writing code faster than humans. Deepfakes can impersonate your boss. Quantum computers threaten the encryption that protects everything we trust. And most organizations are still playing catch up.In this episode of BarCode, Chris sits down with Jim West, a 30 plus year cybersecurity veteran who has seen every wave of the industry. From building machines in the early days of dial up to advising on quantum risk and AI driven defense, Jim breaks down what is hype, what is real, and what is about to change everything. This is not theory. This is what comes next.If you want to understand how to think like an attacker, adapt like a defender, and prepare for a world where machines outpace humans, this conversation is your briefing.Welcome to the future of security.00:00 Introduction to Jim West and His Expertise04:59 Jim's Origin Story and Early Career10:36 The Importance of Certifications in Cybersecurity17:16 The Rise of Quantum Computing in Cybersecurity27:05 Preparing for Quantum Day and Its Implications28:28 Exploring Quantum Computing and Qiskit28:58 AI's Role in Cybersecurity Threats30:45 The Evolution of Deepfake Technology31:45 Quantum Computing as a Service33:09 The Intersection of AI and Quantum Computing34:34 Future Scenarios: AI and Quantum in Cyber Warfare38:39 AI's Impact on Society and Human Interaction39:24 The Creative Potential of AI46:41 Balancing AI and Human Interaction52:46 Unique Bar Experiences and Future Ventures[Facebook – Jim West Author] – https://www.facebook.com/jimwestauthorOfficial author page where Jim West shares updates about his books, cybersecurity insights, speaking engagements, and creative projects.[LinkedIn – Jim West] – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimwest1Professional networking profile highlighting his cybersecurity leadership, certifications, conference speaking, mentoring, and industry experience.[Official Author Site – Jim West] – https://jimwestauthor.com/Personal website featuring his published works, cybersecurity thought leadership, creative projects, and links to his social platforms.[BookAuthority – 100 Best Cybersecurity Books of All Time] – https://bookauthority.orgA curated book recommendation platform that recognized Jim West's work among the “100 Best Cybersecurity Books of All Time,” reflecting industry impact and credibility.[ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association)] – https://www.isaca.orgA global professional association focused on IT governance, risk management, and cybersecurity, where Jim West has spoken at multiple regional and international events.[GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) Conference – San Diego] – https://www.grcconference.comA cybersecurity conference centered on governance, risk management, and compliance practices, referenced in relation to industry speaking engagements.[EC-Council (International Council of E-Commerce Consultants)] – https://www.eccouncil.orgA cybersecurity certification organization known for programs such as CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) and events like Hacker Halted, where Jim West has participated and spoken.
00:00 Introduction to Boys Club Live 00:44 The viral Vogue clip 03:46 Market Talk 07:13 Shoutout to Octant 11:29 AI Etiquette and Social Contracts 15:19 Gigi Claudid: Training our AI agent 20:49 Norwegian Athlete's Emotional Confession 23:34 Unpacking Relationship Drama 24:44 Messy Olympics: Scandals in Sports 25:32 Partner Shoutout: Anchorage Digital 27:27 Podcast Recommendation: The Rest is History 29:40 Interview with Tatum Hunter: Internet Culture Insights 30:06 Deepfakes and AI Ethics 38:43 Personal Surveillance and Trust Issues 48:52 TikTok's Mental Health Rabbit Hole 52:16 Shill Minute: Best Cookie in Crown Heights 53:08 Introduction to Octant: Innovating Funding Models 54:52 Funding Ethereum: Grants and Sustainability 56:50 Octant V2: Revolutionizing Community Funding 58:43 Sustainable Growth and the Future of Ethereum 01:05:56 The Intersection of Venture Capital and Sustainable Funding 01:11:25 Guest Nick Devor of Barrons on Prediction Markets 01:12:50 Gambling and Insider Trading in Prediction Markets 01:23:01 CFTC Challenges and the Future of Regulation 01:26:11 Free Groceries: A Marketing Strategy 01:29:50 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Now that artificial can make very convincing copies of people's voices, technology companies are emerging to help detect AI-created media and fraud.
Feb 10, 2026 – This year marks a turning point, as deepfakes reach new heights in realism and influence. FS Insider interviews Dr. Siwei Lyu, director of the Institute for AI and Data Sciences, about the rapid evolution and growing dangers of deepfakes...
Check out host Bidemi Ologunde's new show: The Work Ethic Podcast, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.Email: bidemiologunde@gmail.comIn this episode, host Bidemi Ologunde breaks down the week of Feb 2–8, 2026, when an ancient idea, the Olympic Truce, collided with modern reality: AI-built platforms leaking identities, satellites and cyber defenses becoming battlefield "terrain," sanctions escalating into lawfare, and ceasefire language clashing with ongoing violence. What happens when "trust" becomes the scarcest resource online? Who controls connectivity in war zones: states or private networks? When do sanctions stop being diplomacy and start reshaping international justice? And in an era of drones, deepfakes, and cyberattacks, what does a "truce" even mean?On the Bid Picture Podcast, I talk about big ideas, and Lembrih is one of them. Born from Ghanaian roots, Lembrih is building an ethical marketplace for Black and African artisans: makers of heritage-rich products often overlooked online. The vision is simple: shop consciously, empower communities, and share the stories behind the craft. Lembrih is live on Kickstarter now, and your pledge helps build the platform. Visit lembrih.com, or search “Lembrih” on Kickstarter.Support the show
In the world of Generative AI, natural language has become the new executable. Attackers no longer need complex code to breach your systems, sometimes, asking for a "poem" is enough to steal your passwords .In this episode, Eduardo Garcia (Global Head of Cloud Security Architecture at Check Point) joins Ashish to explain the paradigm shift in AI security. He shares his experience building AI-powered fraud detection systems and why traditional security controls fail against intent-based attacks like prompt injection and data poisoning .We dive deep into the reality of Shadow AI, where employees unknowingly train public models with sensitive corporate data , and the sophisticated world of Deepfakes, where attackers can bypass biometric security using AI-generated images unless you're tracking micro-movements of the eye .Guest Socials - Eduardo's LinkedinPodcast Twitter - @CloudSecPod If you want to watch videos of this LIVE STREAMED episode and past episodes - Check out our other Cloud Security Social Channels:-Cloud Security Podcast- Youtube- Cloud Security Newsletter If you are interested in AI Security, you can check out our sister podcast - AI Security Podcast(00:00) Introduction(01:55) Who is Eduardo Garcia? (Check Point)(03:00) Defining Security for GenAI: The Focus on Prompts (05:20) Why Natural Language is the New Executable (08:50) Multilingual Attacks: Bypassing Filters with Mandarin (12:00) Shift Left vs. Shift Right: The 70/30 Rule for AI Security (15:30) The "Poem Hack": Stealing Passwords with Creative Prompts (21:00) Shadow AI: The "HR Spreadsheet" Leak Scenario (25:40) Security vs. Compliance in a Blurring World (28:00) The Conflict: "My Budget Doesn't Include Security" (34:00) The 5 V's of AI Data: Volume, Veracity, Velocity (40:00) Deepfakes & Biometrics: Detecting Micro-Movements (43:40) Fun Questions: Soccer, Family, and Honduran Tacos
CONTENT WARNING: We're diving into the tough but important topic of parenting in an AI-shaped world, and while younger kids probably shouldn't listen in, this could be a great conversation to share with your middle or high schoolers so it feels more like learning together than an interrogation. My hope is that this equips you to parent well as we raise kids in a world shaped by AI. Today we continue our conversation on parenting AI with a look at deepfakes and s**tortion. These are big topics that have an outsized impact on children. We need to know what they are, how they happen, and what to do if our child is targeted. The goal is to be a present, and informed, parent so that your children they need to grow.Show Notes: https://bit.ly/4qfOCiG
The thinning of the soul needs the robustness of Truth. __________ For additional resources, or to download and share this commentary, visit breakpoint.org.
Com a popularização das apostas online no Brasil, também cresceram os golpes, as fraudes de identidade e o uso de deepfakes para enganar jogadores. No episódio de hoje do Podcast Canaltech, a repórter Jaqueline Sousa conversa com Krist Galloway, head de iGaming da Sumsub, sobre os principais riscos desse mercado. Durante a entrevista, ele explica como criminosos usam tecnologia para criar aplicativos falsos, anúncios enganosos com celebridades e esquemas de lavagem de dinheiro. O executivo também detalha como a biometria, a inteligência artificial e a análise de transações ajudam a identificar contas suspeitas. O episódio aborda ainda o papel da regulamentação, os desafios dos sites ilegais, o combate ao vício em apostas e o impacto de tecnologias como o Pix nesse cenário. Você também vai conferir: sem tirar do bolso: celular poderá ser controlado apenas pela voz, SpaceX pode lançar celular com conexão direta à Starlink e cientistas criam chip mais fino que um fio de cabelo. Este podcast foi roteirizado e apresentado por Fernada Santos e contou com reportagens de Marcelo Fischer, Nathan Vieira e Raphael Giannotti, sob coordenação de Anaísa Catucci. A trilha sonora é de Guilherme Zomer, a edição de Leandro Gomes e a arte da capa é de Erick Teixeira.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Today, we're going to talk about reality, and whether we can label photos and videos to protect our shared understanding of the world around us. To do this, I sat down with Verge reporter Jess Weatherbed, who covers creative tools for us — a space that's been totally upended by generative AI. We've been talking about how the photos and videos taken by our phones are getting more and more processed for years on The Verge. Here in 2026, we're in the middle of a full-on reality crisis, as fake and manipulated ultra-believable images and videos flood onto social platforms at scale. So Jess and I discussed the limitations of AI labeling standards like C2PA, and why social media execs like Instagram boss Adam Mosseri are now sounding the alarm. Links: This system can sort real pictures from AI fakes — why aren't we using it? | The Verge You can't trust your eyes to tell you what's real, says Instagram | The Verge Instagram's boss is missing the point about AI on the platform | The Verge Sora is showing us how broken deepfake detection is | The Verge Reality still matters | The Verge No one's ready for this | The Verge What is a photo, @WhiteHouse edition | The Verge Google Gemini is getting better at identifying AI fakes | The Verge Let's compare Apple, Google & Samsung's definitions of 'photo' | The Verge The Pixel 8 and the what-is-a-photo apocalypse | The Verge Subscribe to The Verge to access the ad-free version of Decoder! Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Decoder is produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and edited by Ursa Wright. Our editorial director is Kevin McShane. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Feb 4, 2026: In this episode of Future-Ready Today, I explore a fundamental shift in the workplace: the transition from a task economy to a trust economy. As artificial intelligence moves from "future tech" to "daily tool," the basic mechanics of how we hire, manage, and let go of people are under intense pressure. We aren't just dealing with new software; we're dealing with a breakdown in identity and accountability. I dive deep into five stories shaping this week's headlines: The Deepfake Candidate: Why identity verification is becoming the most critical new skill in HR. California's Algorithmic Guardrails: The new legislative push to ensure humans—not code—remain responsible for firing decisions. The "Job Apocalypse" Debate: Analyzing Ben Horowitz's take on why new work emerges even as old categories vanish. The $818 Billion Admin Tax: How poorly designed organizations are drowning in emails, and why AI might be the only way out. The AI Layoff Script: Why "technology made us do it" is becoming the new corporate excuse, and how leaders can maintain credibility during transitions. The Bottom Line: The future of work won't be won by the companies with the most AI. It will be won by the companies that use technology to remove "administrative garbage" while doubling down on human accountability.
In this episode of Friday Night Live on 30 January 2026, Stefan Molyneux looks at the Epstein document release and how deepfake tech affects what people accept as real. He talks with a caller about staying skeptical amid all the digital noise, building real connections, and owning up to one's choices. Molyneux pushes the caller to deal with the paralysis tied to family issues, stressing that sharp thinking is key to cutting through media tricks.GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneuxFollow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!https://peacefulparenting.com/Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
Erin and Alyssa dig into the latest news from the Twin Cities— the senseless tragedy of Alex Pretti's death, and the inspiring resolve of the Minnesotans who continue to stand up for each other. With Greg Bovino's “demotion,” are things about to take a turn for the better, or is this cynical political window-dressing from Team Trump? Then, Melania Trump's movie premiere at the White House's janky new makeshift room, and Paris Hilton's fight on Capitol Hill to ban AI-generated deep fake porn. And of course, we wrap up with Sani-Petty. Alex Pretti's Friends and Family Denounce ‘Sickening Lies' About His Life (NYT 1/25)Republican calls are growing for a deeper investigation into fatal Minneapolis shooting of Alex Pretti (PBS 1/26)Scoop: Stephen Miller behind misleading claim that Alex Pretti wanted to "massacre" agents (AXIOS 1/27)Trump Defends Noem as She Faces Bipartisan Criticism (WSJ 1/27)Democrats Vow Not to Fund ICE After Shooting, Imperiling Spending Deal (NYT 1/24)Melania's $75 Million Movie Premiered in a Makeshift Theater (The Daily Beast 1/24)‘They sold my pain for clicks': Paris Hilton urges lawmakers to act on nonconsensual deepfakes (The 19th 1/22) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The ThoughtCrime crew discusses the most essential topics of the weed, including: -What do they make of Mattel's first-ever autistic Barbie doll? -Does AI mean that Hollywood actors are obsolete forever? -Who is "Amelia" and why is she the new avatar of European nationalism? Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com! Get new merch at charliekirkstore.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.