Podcasts about generativeai

Global economic uncertainty shows no sign of abate and most organisations face a challenging 2026. Headcount and budgets are under intense scrutiny and internal communication carries the additional threat of, in some quarters, GenerativeAI offering a plausible and more cost-efficient alternative to human contribution. Under such intense pressure, how can internal communicators successfully advocate for the value they bring? This episode, Dom. Cat and Jen chat with Colin Archer, Head of Communications for Spirax Sarco. With a wealth of experience spanning several decades, Colin succinctly argues against using ROI to measure internal communication. This is both transactional and reductivist. A more effective measure is that of impact – showcasing the powerful effect that the thoughtful use of words and language can have on human behaviour.   About Colin Archer Colin Archer has worked in Internal Communications across different sectors and industries and loves working with people and cultures.  His reason for working in the profession comes from a strongly held view that if we are to spend such a lot of our life in work, then we should enjoy it and certainly not waste any of the precious hours we have in something which doesn't make us feel good. His strategies encourage deep personal connection with purpose, and with other people, to achieve significant steps forward for the organisations he has worked with.  A Fellow of the IoIC and great believer in extending our sphere of influence to make things better for everyone who is touched by our work, Colin cares deeply about bringing people and ideas together through impactful communication     Find Colin on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-archer-fiic-072a306/

Here's the truth, most AI products never make it past demos or pilots.Why does this happen? And what does it take to build AI experiences that can scale, deliver value, and earn user trust?With product leadership experience at Procter & Gamble, Google, Tinder, and now as Head of Product at Zalando, Ania Szostek will be sharing hard-won lessons on AI, product, and commerce.She'll touch upon subject like:- what it truly takes to build and scale AI-powered commerce products for millions of users- why fashion is one of the hardest domains for AI assistants- what separates great AI-driven commerce experiences from average onesHosted by Krystian Bergmann, AI Consulting Lead at Netguru.Do you have any questions? It's easiest to catch us on LinkedIn!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.comJust around the same time as the axe fell on Washington Post's global staff, accompanied by much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I got a message from my Rediff.com editor, Nikhil Lakshman, mentioning it was the 30th anniversary of its founding. An interesting contrast indeed: the old Western flagbearer waning, while the Indian pioneer holds on, despite a plethora of competitors and copycats, including many pushing specific agendas.That also made me think of why there was a bloodbath at the Washington Post, where they gutted the foreign desks, sports, books, and some leading podcasts, and laid off a third of its staff. I suspect there are two reasons: one is the increasing insularity of the US, a retreat into Fortress America, and paradoxically a turning away from the rest of the world at the very moment the rest of the world should be looming more prominently in the rear-view mirror.And two, the economics and the technology of the narrative business have turned. On the one hand, print media have been retreating and losing ad revenue for years, and on the other hand, the rise of generativeAI has made it possible to eliminate entire layers of (at least) entry-level journalists, just as it is decimating paralegals, code-jockeys, and apprentice accountants. Only junior doctors seem immune so far, but we shall see how that goes. I must confess that there was a time when I consumed the Western narrative with gusto: reading Time, Newsweek, and so on, and listening to the BBC. In fact, I actually subscribed to the New York Times for years (ok, in my defense I was living in the New York area), and later The Economist for at least a dozen years. I still listen to some podcasts from the latter, but with considerable caution, as I am far more aware of their biases and proclivities.That's where my concern about big-name Western media comes from. They are all somehow associated with the Deep State, that amorphous entity, the hidden puppet-master behind pretty much everything that goes on in foreign and domestic policy. For instance, an outlet that I considered the voice of NATO, turns out to be the voice of Whitehall, Britain's bureaucracy.There has long been a truism that the Washington Post is the mouthpiece of Foggy Bottom, i.e. the US State Department, and the New York Times that of Langley, i.e. the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Noam Chomsky long ago made the insightful observation that they are both in the business of “manufacturing consent”, i.e. narrative-peddling to suit vested interests, specifically the Military-Industrial Complex, which likes, or needs, constant wars.The eclipse of the WaPo is not only a statement about the decreasing influence of the State Department on foreign affairs (in the wake of the decline of the “liberal, rules-based international order”). But it is also because the print media business is no longer lucrative, as the bulk of advertising revenue has now moved online, to the likes of Alphabet, Meta, Amazon et al. Large numbers of smaller US newspapers have closed down over the past few decades.

Part 1 of this essay was published by rediff.com at https://www.rediff.com/news/column/rajeev-srinivasan-trumps-huge-venezuela-gamble/20260114.htmPart 2 of this essay was published by rediff.com at https://www.rediff.com/news/column/rajeev-srinivasan-was-maduros-capture-a-warning-shot-to-china/20260124.htmIt is hard to judge whether the US regime-change operation in Venezuela is a stroke of genius or an act of pure recklessness. This is completely orthogonal to the questions of morality and legality involved in such, well, coups, to put it bluntly. The real issue at hand is twofold: why did they do it? And what is the long-term fallout from it?I consider several perspectives below: the moral/legal angle, the alleged oil bonanza, the alleged drug trafficking, geo-politics and geo-economics. In sum, I am inclined to believe that the Venezuela adventure may not be an indication of American strength, alas, but rather of American weakness. To someone like me who is deeply supportive of the US (especially in opposition to China, the G2 condominium notwithstanding), this is a disheartening conclusion.The morality and legality angleLet us summarily dispose of the entire morality-legality question. At the end of the day, international relations, despite flowery marketing language, is essentially Chanakyan matsya-nyaya, i.e. the big fish eat the little fish, the law of the jungle. Might is right, and that's just the way realpolitik is, let us accept that and move on. The United Nations and the so-called ‘liberal rules-based international order' are syntactic sugar hiding this bitter fact of life. There are a few implications for the little or medium-sized fish: deter the big fish. 1. Bulk up, build up your military and economic strength, including your ability to produce lots of military hardware, 2. Build your economic leverage, so that you are an indispensable trading partner nobody can afford to alienate, 3. Build a nuclear arsenal.This last is significant. Let us consider all the recent (and near-future) invasions by big fish. Iraq. Libya. Iran. Panama. Vietnam. Afghanistan. Ukraine. And soon, alas, Taiwan. Ok, I may have missed some here, but none of them have nukes. If you have working nuclear weapons, and the means to deliver them (such as nuclear-capable missiles, submarines lurking in the ocean depths with nuclear warheads), then it is risky for the invading big fish. No big fish likes body bags, and they certainly don't like mushroom clouds over their cities.In addition, there was the stunning silence from the European Union and Britain, which have been moralizing to everybody about how wicked it was for Russia to invade Ukraine. No clutching pearls this time, eh, Eurocrats in Brussels? In fact, EU leaders were positively ecstatic about Trump's intervention in Venezuela. It is indeed the end of the European century.Ditto with the United Nations, which, by the way, is pretty much on its last legs so far as I can tell: on 7th January President Trump exited 31 UN agencies and a grand total of 66 multilateral entities.This of course hurts the UN's budget, not to mention its relevance.In January the US will formally exit the Paris Climate Agreement and the WHO, and it has already exited the UNHRC, UNESCO, and UNRWA. The newly announced exits include the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Women's Fund, the UN Population Fund, the International Solar Alliance, the International Renewable Energy Alliance, and so on.All this fits in with the ‘Fortress America' part of the National Security Strategy, which I wrote about at some length recently. In my opinion, it is not in the US' long-term interests. The post-WW II “liberal, rules-based international order” with America as its center was good for the US, and its precipitous end will erode pre-eminence, Manifest Destiny notwithstanding. The problem is that the dollar, sanctions, SWIFT and US Treasury debt are losing their clout. Pax Americana too.Summary: Nobody is bothered about morality or legality.The oil colony: is it for real?It could be argued that the unabashed Trump statements about Venezuela's oil are exactly like the British and other European colonization of many lands in the 19th century. It can be summarized as: “we have the guns, we're going to take your butter”. That may well be true, although it is not discussed in genteel circles, where they pretend the Euros were on an, um… civilizing mission.Trump, to his credit, makes no bones about it: he says in so many words that he will henceforth consider Venezuela's oil to be his, and that it will be used for the benefit of both Venezuelans and Americans. To be honest, there is some rationale behind this: the infamous Resource Curse, where resource-rich countries end up with the riches being grabbed by both foreigners and kleptocratic local elites, and miserable citizens get virtually nothing.I am not quite sure how Arab OPEC countries managed to keep their money, and spend it on their own nationals: possibly because their populations were low, and they were used to authoritarian rulers anyway. The same with Norway. But the Resource Curse is a fairly universal phenomenon. I bet the global money managers are laughing all the way to the bank.When I first went to the US in the late 1970s, I had a graduate student friend, a woman from Venezuela. She was there on a generous scholarship funded by oil revenues, just like the Iranians who had studied with me in India. At least some of the money was going to actual citizens, and wasn't disappearing into tax havens. I guess socialism did Venezuela in over decades, as we have seen in West Bengal and Kerala.The country's finances are an absolute mess, through years of economic collapse, US sanctions, and a sovereign default in 2017. There are enormous debts owed by Venezuela to foreign investors, add up to more than $150 billion, or twice GDP; this includes interest, penalties for default, and arbitration awards for the expropriation (nationalization) of oil infrastructure. Venezuelan assets abroad (e.g. the CITGO oil retailer) are at risk.So far as I can tell, the country owes the following:* Bond default in 2017 (sovereign and state oil company PDVSA bonds): face value $60 billion, now up to $100 billion with accrued interest and penalties. Owed mostly to international asset managers such as Fidelity, Greylock, T Rowe Price (often US based)* Oil-backed loans of about $15 billion, to be paid off in oil shipments (China and Russia)* Arbitration awards often based on nationalization/expropriation of (especially oil-related) assets: around $30 billion (US and Canada based creditors such as ConocoPhillips and Crystallex owed around $8-10 billion)This means there's a lot of issues that needs to be settled before Venezuela becomes a normal and substantial player in the world oil market. Besides, despite the exertions of Chevron, an American oil major that still has operations in Venezuela, I don't think it will be easy to ramp up production there, which has collapsed due to a variety of factors, including the non-availability of naphtha to make the very viscous, heavy crude from the Orinoco Belt more easily transportable.It is said, however, that a number of US refineries can indeed handle this heavy crude (incidentally Indian refineries such as Reliance's Jamnagar can as well) and so, over time, the oil will begin to flow, although it is going to cost quite a bit to get there. Their production was of the order of 3.5 million barrels per day in the 2010s, but it has fallen to about 1.1 million barrels now, as the result of infrastructure decay, mismanagement, corruption, and US sanctions.I have read estimates that it might take as much as $180 billion in investments over the next 10-15 years to bring Venezuela back online at scale. This means that any dreams of the US tapping Venezuela's vast oil reserves any time soon are unrealistic. Besides, that could lead to an oil glut, depressing global prices even below the current $50-60 levels, which has the side effect of making America's own shale-based oil production unviable.There is one good outcome, though: for neighboring Guyana. Venezuela had been threatening to go to war over Guyana's oil fields. Given that Guyana has a large Indian origin population, I am glad that at least some diaspora people are becoming oil rich. But then again, Trump may feel free to claim their oil too, who knows?All this suggests that, despite all the talk of seizing the largest oil reserves in the world, this is not the real reason behind the regime change.Summary: The oil issue is overblown, and nothing dramatic will happen short-term.What about the drug-running?There was a lot of noise about how Venezuelan gangs pushing drugs in the US was a major threat, and how that needs to be taken care of. However, on closer scrutiny, Venezuela is not a major producer of cocaine (production is almost entirely in Colombia, with smaller amounts from Peru and Bolivia). It serves as a minor transit country for some cocaine, mostly headed to Europe or the Caribbean rather than directly to the streets of America.Data from the UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) and the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) show no significant direct sea routes from Venezuela to the US; the only known direct route is limited air trafficking.DEA reports (including the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment) and UNODC (World Drug Report 2025) consistently show Colombia as the overwhelming source of cocaine entering the US (around 84%+ of samples). Venezuela ranks low in direct contributions, with most US-bound cocaine transiting through Mexico/Central America via Pacific routes.Fentanyl trafficking into the United States follows a distinct supply chain, very different from plant-based drugs like cocaine. The overwhelming consensus from US authorities is that Mexico is the primary source of finished illicit fentanyl reaching the US, while China remains the main origin for the precursor chemicals needed to produce it.The fentanyl crisis is overwhelmingly a China to Mexico to US southwest border pipeline not linked to Venezuela or South America in any substantial way, per DEA, State Department, and congressional reporting.Summary: The talk about Venezuela's drug-running is a smoke-screen.Is it geopolitics then?The most interesting thing about the extraction of former Venezuelan President Maduro was not the dramatic flair with which it was done, though that was indeed very Youtube-ready. The helicopter gunships, the silenced air defences, the Cuban bodyguard eliminated (by a sonic weapon?): all the elements of a pretty exciting Hollywood film. I'm sure one is coming up soon.What was even more interesting, though, was that a delegation from the Chinese Communist Party had met him just a few hours before. China has been rather chummy with a fellow-socialist, and has been a good customer as an oil buyer. The fact that Maduro was extricated while the Chinese were still in Venezuela was a warning shot: besides, it suggests that they had no clue what was going to happenIn effect, it was a slap on the face of China, and it goes back to my belief that the US is investing in a G2 condominium with them. Stick and carrot, maybe? Collaborate in general in the spheres of influence concept, but hey, you better keep out of my sphere, ok? As I said earlier, China has made serious inroads into Latin America, which the US may now be hinting is simply not ok: stay in your lane, Xi! In simple terms, China will no longer have access to Venezuelan oil.The prognosis is grim: Russia and the EU are mired in the Ukraine mess, China is rampant (certainly in Asia, with their declared intent of invading Taiwan by 2027), the QUAD is more or less defunct. Trump refused to support Japanese premier Takaichi Sanae when she was bullied by the Chinese over her remark that if Taiwan were to be attacked by China, this would create a survival-threatening situation for Japan, which is literally true as Taiwan is only 70 miles away.Parenthetically, India has also realized the same about the US – that it is on its own – after what was quite likely a US-supported regime-change operation in Bangladesh has put the Hindu minority there in real danger of genocide and ethnic cleansing, with daily incidents of burning alive, murder, rape and abduction and threats of capturing Indian territory.The emerging situation in Iran is also likely to be a blow to China: they would lose one more source of cheap oil. But then, they do have buyer power: in other words, major oil producers do have to sell their stuff to somebody, and as China demonstrated in the case of soybeans from the US, its refusal to buy the stuff has severe consequences for the seller.So it is true that the US and China in general have to respect each other and trade with each other. This is perfectly feasible under the G2 condominium, the principal role of which is to give each of them a ‘playpen' if you will, and prevent a new power, e.g. India, from forcing its way into a G3. It appears they both are applying the Thucydides Trap to India.The US is still ahead of China in the geopolitical game, but if it continues to burn its bridges with its erstwhile allies and partners (such as the EU and Quad members) it will accelerate its relative decline. This is hardly the time to alienate potential partners, especially now that a belligerent NATO has pushed a reluctant Russia into the dhritarashtra-alinganam of China.Unfortunately, in geo-politics America is becoming less exceptional, and Henry Kissinger's quip that “it is dangerous to be America's enemy, but fatal to be its friend” is taking on a new urgency. The action in Venezuela (and possibly in Cuba before long) does not encourage other nations to look to the US for partnerships.Summary: The geopolitical fallout is not particularly good for America's image as an ally.It may well be economics, and a desperate fin-de-siecle lungeThe final issue is that of economics and economic history. Over the past several centuries, we have seen how those countries that hold the global reserve currency have prospered and have been financial hegemons to begin with, based on some substantial competitive advantage, but then a strange malady (“the Dutch disease”) sets in, and over time their financial clout diminishes, until at one point they become major debtors and then, they become irrelevant.This has happened several times in the past 800 or so years, and the patterns are strikingly similar, so there is a fair chance that it is happening again. The countries in question are:* Spain in the 16th century onwards* The Netherlands in the 17th century onwards* Britain in the 19th century onwards* And alas, the US in the 20th century onwardsNow, I would dearly wish the US could avoid this vicious cycle, partly because it is a continent-sized nation with immense resources, but I believe that economic profligacy, wasting money on unnecessary things like wars, and complacency fostered by easy money is leading to a mountain of debt, which usually is a bad place to be in. In each of these European examples, initial success inevitably led to collapse. I hope the US can avoid this fate, especially as warnings have been sounded for some time by experts such as Ray Dalio.Great economic powers, particularly those issuing the world's primary reserve currency, tend to follow a recurring historical cycle of rise, peak dominance, gradual (or sometimes rapid) decline, loss of competitiveness, mounting debt burdens, and eventual marginalization on the global stage. This pattern has repeated over the last 500+ years.The archetypal cycle often unfolds in phases:* Rise and dominance: Because of strong education, innovation, productivity, trade dominance, military power, and financial innovation create a virtuous cycle (this is the model that I have in mind of the US. But there is a second model: colonial loot. Spain stole trillions from Latin America, Britain from India. This too leads to (unearned) privilege). This leads to the currency becoming the preferred global medium for trade, reserves, and debt denomination.* Peak and overextension: Success breeds complacency, wealth inequality widens, debt accumulates (often to fund wars, welfare, or consumption), and costs rise relative to competitors. Besides, there is a form of the Resource Curse: the colonial loot or digging things out from a hole in a ground is so easy that all other industries wither away and die. We see this in Kerala today: remittances are easy money, so everybody wants to go to the Persian Gulf (skilled and unskilled labor) or Europe (nurses). Maybe the generativeAI bubble falls into the same category: the money is too easy.* Decline in competitiveness: Education and innovation lag, unit labor costs rise, trade shares erode, and emerging rivals catch up or surpass in productivity and technology. Too much by way of wokeness, social justice and related illnesses means the smart ones leave, and the dumb ones keep congratulating each other. Ruchir Sharma just wrote in the Financial Times about how the continuing exodus of skilled Indians is a big negative.* Debt buildup and financial strain: The “exorbitant privilege” of reserve status allows cheap borrowing, encouraging more debt. Deficits grow, and the currency is printed or devalued to manage burdens. Print, baby, print. But one day you have to pay the piper.* Marginalization: Confidence erodes (via inflation, devaluations, defaults, or crises), foreigners reduce holdings, and a new power's currency gains primacy. The reserve status lingers due to network effects and habit, but the issuing power loses geopolitical and economic centrality.Spain had its colonies in the Americas from which it extracted enormous amounts of gold and silver; the Dutch started the Amsterdam stock exchange and stepped into the vacuum of finance when Spain faltered; the British outcompeted the Dutch in colonization and in industrialization and defeated them in wars; and the US took over when Britain lost its colonies and had nowhere to dump its goods, and was in debt for its spending in World Wars I and II.Some of the symptoms of the “Dutch disease” are showing in the US: enormous debt, wars that have no clear benefit to the nation, loss of manufacturing, geopolitical challenges, loss of competitiveness and brand superiority in industry after industry.US investors are quietly moving their funds to other countries, while foreigners are quietly moving their money out of US treasuries (e.g. China has reduced its holdings from a high of $1.3 trillion in 2013 to $688 billion now) and into gold, the BRICS group is creating an alternative currency and a non-SWIFT settlement mechanism, and many countries are trading with each other bilaterally in local currencies. De-dollarization is a little far off but no longer implausible.Now, as a big supporter of the US, I do hope the dollar will continue to be supreme, but I am beginning to have my doubts. I have had faith in the US and its ability to re-invent itself on the brains of its immigrants, but I wonder if a post-MAGA US will be the beacon, the “City on the Hill”, “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”. Maybe not any more. Perhaps cyclical decline, and the rot, are already too deep.This, in my opinion, is the real reason for Trump's little adventure in Venezuela: to be relevant in global finance for a little longer. The petrodollar has been the lifeline allowing the US to run substantial deficits for a long time. Because all transactions for oil have traditionally been mandated to be in dollars, there has been constant demand for the dollar, despite the loss of manufacturing (in other words, nobody needs dollars to buy US goods except a few like weapons, aircraft, and Big Tech software). But everybody needs it to buy oil.Trump is ensuring that Venezuela's giant oil reserves (the largest in the world) will now be sold in dollars, contrary to Maduro's plans to trade in yuan. This is deja vu: when Iraq's President Saddam Hussein planned to trade his oil in Euros in 2000, he found himself deposed. When Libya's President Muammar Gaddafi planned to trade his oil in a new currency called the ‘gold dinar' around 2009, he found himself deposed. Coincidence? Perhaps.This is why I have had the feeling that the Venezuela adventure does not show American strength, but rather American weakness. The dollar is in trouble, and thus the US welfare state. This is an attempt to shore it up.Summary: The real rationale behind the Venezuela regime-change is to ensure that de-dollarization is postponed at least for a while.3450 words, Jan 12, 2026. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

What does it really take to break into the world’s most selective startup accelerator? In this episode, host Swathi Moorthy speaks with Ankit Gupta, General Partner at Y Combinator, about how AI is rapidly eroding traditional advantages in entrepreneurship. Gupta explains why a growing share of YC startups, nearly 80–90% are now AI-led, and how coding agents are enabling younger, first-time founders to compress years of learning into months. He challenges the idea that pedigree, polished pitches, or early revenue matter most, arguing instead that YC continues to back builders with strong execution skills and complementary co-founding teams. The conversation also takes on prevailing narratives about Indian founders, the isolation that comes with building companies from scratch, and YC’s blunt survival mantra: “Don’t die.” Gupta closes with a sobering insight that we are living through an unusually uncertain moment, one where even a decade ahead has become impossible to predict.Listen in:You can follow Swathi Moorthy on her social media: X and LinkedinCheck out other interesting episodes of ET in the Valley: ET in the Valley: Grant Lee, Co-Founder & CEO of Gamma, ET in the Valley: Databricks Co-founder Patrick Wendell, ET in the Valley: Replit Founder and CEO Amjad Masad, ET in the Valley: ElevenLabs Co-Founder Mati Staniszewski and much more. Catch the latest episode of ‘The Morning Brief’ on The Economic Times Online, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, JioSaavn, Amazon Music and Youtube. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A version of this essay has been published by rediff.com at https://www.rediff.com/news/column/is-india-standing-alone-in-2025/20251222.htm2025 has been a disastrous year for the US, surely in foreign affairs and economics. The trade war, far from strengthening the economy, has shown the limits of American power: the capitulation to Chinese supplier power on rare earths, and a strategic retreat in the face of Chinese buyer power on soybeans, for example.The dramatic rise of Chinese generativeAI, which will undercut US Big Tech, is another problem. The US cannot afford to be the globocop any more, and the new National Security Strategy seeks a US withdrawal into ‘Fortress America'. It may mark the end of the vaunted ‘American exceptionalism' as well as the ‘liberal rules-based international order'.In an earlier time, this would have led to the famous Thucydides Trap, but in effect the US has gone into an ‘anti-Thucydides Trap' because it unthinkingly paved the way for China's rise, seduced by the short-term benefit of low-cost Chinese goods while ignoring the long-term strategic disaster. In the 20th century, Britain collapsed suddenly, but it is merely a tiny island off Eurasia. I never expected continent-sized America to follow suit in the 21st century.Meanwhile, in a fine example of “manufacturing consent”, the discourse in the US is not focusing on the global problems facing the country, but on MAGA bullying of H1-B Indians and on the Epstein files, which, on the face of it, is a silly exercise in moralization. I believe it was Hermann Hesse who said something to the effect that Americans are not interested in morals, being content with moralization.But the entire kowtowing to China has serious implications for India. One of the pillars of Indian foreign policy for decades has been the idea that it is a strategic counterweight to China in the US's calculations. But if the US has really ceded Asia to China (I recall President Obama saying as long ago as 2009 that the US and China would “work together to promote peace, stability, and development in South Asia”) then the famous ‘pivot to Asia' is null and void.A couple of years ago, I wrote that the most obvious thing for the US's Deep State to do would be to form a G2 condominium with China, divide up the world amongst themselves, and set up respective spheres of influence. This was predicated on America's relative decline, and China's economic and military rise to be, for all intents and purposes, a peer. I thought this would take a decade or more, but, lo and behold, the US is caving in furiously to China right now.In addition, I wrote about the surprisingly large and malign influence exerted by Britain, whereby it plays a ‘master-blaster' role, leading the US by the nose, usually to America's detriment. Britain's ‘imperial fortress' Pakistan seems to be involved in every terror incident, yet President Trump's new-found camaraderie with them (“here, some more F-16 goodies for you”) is yet another indictment of their twisted priorities.And Britain seems to be “winning”, too: on the one hand, they have finally defeated Germany, which they couldn't do via two World Wars: the latter's economy, its electricity grid, and its vaunted mittelstand and its automobile industry are in shambles. On the other hand, Britain is the one major European power that has not been defeated by Russia, so they think they can, conversely, defeat them. France (Napoleon) and Germany (Hitler) learnt otherwise.The pointless Ukraine War is bankrupting Europe; I wrote about how this is hastening the end of the European century and how ‘Europe' is reverting to what it was through most of history: unimportant ‘Northwest Asia'. This could well also be Britain's revenge against Europe, which it exited in a huff via Brexit: British elites have looked down upon Europeans all along.I mention all these not to show that I was somehow prescient, but that things we have been observing for some time are coming to a head: the US National Security Strategy is the capstone of the New World Order. And it seems to codify these trends: hegemony to China with Asia as its sphere of influence, the abandonment of Europe to its own devices, a focus on the Americas in a new ‘Donroe Doctrine' (so to speak).In the background are continuing terror attacks such as the one in Sydney, murderous attacks on Alawites in Syria, the car bomb in Delhi, and the lynching and burning alive of a minority Hindu youth, Dipu Chandra Das, in Bangladesh by a frenzied mob. The world is not a safe place.There was also a defining moment: the US seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker. Far from being a show of strength, this may well be an admission of weakness: Venezuela is no competitor, and this is like the US invasion of defenseless Panama some years ago. It is, however, a declaration that the Americas belong to the US sphere of influence (the ‘Donroe' Doctrine).Sadly, China may demur: it views the Americas are adjacent to them (just across the Pacific) and have made inroads into many countries, including Panama, and ironically are funding a proposed alternative to the Panama Canal through Nicaragua, as well as a major Brazil-Peru railroad project (all the better to ship in raw materials from both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and to ship out “rubber dogshit from HongKong” back to them). Their $3 billion Chancay deepwater port in Peru has already been inaugurated.China is now a $500 billion trading partner for South America, overtaking the US, yes, overtaking the US. To top it all, the ports on both sides of the Panama Canal, i.e Cristobal (Atlantic side) and Balboa (Pacific side) are run by Hong Kong companies, which of course means the CCP does. In fact, it is blocking US firm Blackrock's acquisition of these ports.China therefore has serious assets in the Americas, and large commercial interests. The US can pretend it is supreme in the Americas, but the reality may be a little different.Meanwhile, the US has more or less abandoned its Quad partners in Asia and acknowledged Chinese hegemony there: in other words, that half of the condominium is done. When the new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said something that was obvious and perfectly within her rights to worry about Japan's security, the Chinese came down on her like a ton of bricks, wolf-warrior style. The normally voluble Trump said nothing at all in support of Japan.Regarding India, there has been a persistent tilt towards Pakistan during and after Operation Sindoor; and the imposition of harsh tariffs. The increasingly volatile situation in Bangladesh which is the result of a likely US-backed ‘regime-change' operation is a significant security threat to India because of the collusion of jihadi, Pakistani and Chinese-proxy elements there and the very real concern about the cutoff of India's Northeast from the mainland, apart from the ongoing murders and ethnic cleansing of Hindus and Buddhists there.Now comes the New York Times, which I generally despise as a propaganda arm of the Deep State. But they show some self-awareness in their editorial “America cannot win alone”. No man is an island, as John Donne wrote some years ago. And America is not a singular colossus any more either, and it needs alliances. It hurts me (as an Americophile) how rapidly the US is declining in relative terms, and perhaps even absolute terms.The best indicator of this decline is in the crown jewels of the US: its technology sector. On the one hand, the entire US stock market has been propped up by the Magnificent Seven and the alleged promise of the generativeAI boom. On the other hand, China's patented “over-invest, scale up, get to be lowest-cost producer, drive competitors out of business” is repeating in industry after industry: the latest is automobiles, where the famous German marques are history.Trump's surrender on Nvidia's H200 chips is an indication that China is playing the trade-war game much better than the U.S. China has amassed a $1 trillion trade surplus in the first 11 months of 2025, an unprecedented feat that shows its trade power. Not only is this because of supply-chain dominance, but an analyst suggests it's also because China is now on the verge of delivering a knockout blow to US/Western tech.There are news reports that China has almost managed to replicate EUV (Extreme Ultra Violet) lithography from ASML, one of the key areas in chipmaking that was beyond China's reach. They used former ASML employees of Chinese descent, as well as less advanced technologies from ASML itself, Canon and Nikon.This is the context in which one has to critique Trump's 2025 US National Security Strategy. In summary, it shows a narrowing of America's expansive self-image, the beginnings of a ‘Fortress America' mindset and an ‘America First' doctrine. The ‘promotion of democracy' is downplayed (aka ‘regime change', as we have seen in Bangladesh. Thank goodness!) and fighting other people's wars (think Ukraine) has been de-emphasized.It fits in very well with the G2 condominium idea, as it focuses on national interests and explicitly rejects globalism, elevates economic matters while suggesting the use of military might as an element of dealmaking, and asks ‘allies' to shoulder more responsibility.Europe is downgraded, China is the prime focus with an emphasis on deterrence (e.g., Taiwan), supply-chain resilience and balanced trade, the Indo-Pacific gets short shrift, and the emphasis is on the Americas as, so to speak, the US's private playpen, harking back to the 19th century.India gets almost no attention: it is mentioned four times as compared to 21 times for China, with the tone shifting from ‘strategic partner' or ‘leading global power' to a more transactional expectation of burden-sharing and reciprocity. The Quad is downplayed too. India will need to maintain multi-alignment (e.g., with Russia via RELOS agreements), diversify dependencies, and accelerate self-reliance. India is on its own, as I said in “The Abhimanyu Syndrome”. At least twenty-five years of wooing the US has gone down the drain. Back to the drawing board.At the beginning of 2025, I must admit I was optimistic about Indo-US relations under Trump's presidency. I did not think the G2 condominium would arrive so soon, especially under Trump, or that the eclipse of the US would be so sudden and so dramatic. India had at least one bright spot in 2025: the rapidly-growing economy, despite US tariffs. I really can't see much that went well for the US. Truly an annus horribilis. In 1999, I wrote that that year was terrible for India, but 2025 may have been worse for the US, in my opinion.Malayalam podcast created by notebookLM.google.com:1800 words, 20 Dec 2025 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of The Evolving Leader, Jean and Scott sit down with Andy MacMillan, CEO of Alteryx, to explore how generative AI is reshaping work, leadership and organisational design. Andy shares a uniquely practical and grounded view of where companies really are with AI adoption, caught in a chaotic but exciting period where the opportunity is clear, but the scaffolding is not yet in place. He explains why AI transformation cannot be delegated to IT, how leaders should approach reimagining business processes, and why Theory of Constraints is one of the most powerful lenses for navigating the next wave of change.Andy also opens up about the leadership challenges ahead: maintaining psychological safety in the midst of rapid technological shift, helping teams build confidence with new tools, and avoiding both complacency and panic. He shares candid lessons from his own leadership journey, the importance of transparency when organisations face change, and why the most impactful AI practices often happen at the “strategic altitude” rather than in day-to-day automation. Further reading re. Andy MacMillan and Alteryx:·      How AI adoption is driving a new data era at Alteryx — An interview with Andy MacMillan discussing his role as CEO (appointed December 2024), Alteryx's repositioning as an “AI Data Clearinghouse”, and his thoughts on shifting from siloed business-data systems to unified analytics.·      Alteryx Looks To Become An AI Data Powerhouse With New Unified Platform (CRN, May 2025) — MacMillan discusses the launch of the “Alteryx One” platform, a strategic move to unify analytics, data-prep and AI workflows under one roof.·      With agentic AI we are being sold on the idea of running before we can walk or crawl, says Alteryx's Andy MacMillan (Tech Monitor, May 2025) — A leadership-focused piece where MacMillan emphasises the importance of starting with manageable AI projects, surfacing his mindset around experimentation, governance and human-machine synergy.Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)Social:Instagram           @evolvingleaderLinkedIn             The Evolving Leader PodcastTwitter               @Evolving_LeaderBluesky            @evolvingleader.bsky.socialYouTube           @evolvingleader The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

Few people have had a front-row seat to travel's evolution like Dan Christian, former Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Digital Officer at The Travel Corporation, a billion-dollar global travel group. Now the host of The Travel Trends Podcast and founder of The Acceleration Team, Dan helps brands and travelers make sense of what's next. From generative AI and hyper-personalized planning tools to the surge of multi-day adventures, festival tourism, and a new generation seeking real-world connection over screens—this conversation unpacks the forces redefining why, where, and how we travel. For anyone building, booking, or dreaming about the next era of travel, Dan's insights offer a rare look at the innovations—and human stories—reshaping the industry's future.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/globetrotters-podcast--5023679/support.

Speaker: Professor Bhamati Viswanathan, Visitor, Cambridge Law Faculty and Fellow at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School Biography: Bhamati Viswanathan is a Senior Visitor at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law and a Fellow (Non-Resident) at the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at Columbia Law School (New York). Prior to joining the Cambridge Faculty of Law, she was Assistant Professor at New England Law | Boston, where she taught copyright law, artificial intelligence and the law, law and the visual arts, intellectual property law, and U.S. Constitutional law. She is the author of “Cultivating Copyright: How Creative Industries Can Harness Intellectual Property to Survive the Digital Age” (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Press). She currently holds an Edison Fellowship from the Intellectual Property Policy Institute at University of Akron Law School, under whose aegis she is writing a series of articles on the disparate impact of copyright law on women creators and women-centric work. She is also planning a book on the nexus of intellectual property and arts/culture in the age of artificial intelligence.Bhamati serves as Chair of the American Bar Association Intellectual Property Section: Visual and Dramatics Works Committee. She is a Faculty Advisor on the Copyright Alliance Academic Advisory Board. She serves as Faculty Partner to the News/Media Alliance. She is Education Advisor to the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (VLA)/ Massachusetts Arts and Business Council. She is also a Faculty Advisor to the Journal of the Copyright Society; and she was a Trustee of the Copyright Society, as well as Chair of its New England Chapter. She holds an S.J.D./LL.M. from University of Pennsylvania Law School; a J.D. from University of Michigan Law School; and a B.A. from Williams College. She is a competitive figure skater, violinist, and published poet/translator and lives in Boston.Abstract: The training of generativeAI models on ingested work is a hotly contested area of U.S. copyright law. In this Seminar, I will inquire whether such training may constitute “fair use” under the nonexclusive four-factor test of the U.S. Copyright Act. Currently, courts are wrestling with the fair use defense in several major cases, including Thompson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence; Bartz v. Anthropic; Kadrey v. Meta; and the consolidated litigation of In re: OpenAI.Another open question is whether AI outputs infringe copyright in other works. Here, plaintiffs must establish that AI outputs infringe their works by passing the threshold of the “substantial similarity” test. I will discuss the test in the context of AI litigation, and will suggest that the relatively novel “market dilution” theory, focusing on harm caused by stylistically similar outputs, might be applied to weigh against a fair use defense for GenAI training. I will also address whether the theory of “vicarious liability” might be fruitfully brought to bear against certain genAI companies. Lastly, I will ask what action Congress can, or should, take, with a view to striking a fair balance between meeting the needs of innovative technologies and securing the rights of creative industries and creators. As an example, I will raise a recent proposal (in which I was involved) that Congress explicitly prohibit GenAI training on materials derived from digital repositories of unlicensed materials (so-called “shadow libraries”).For more information (and to download slides) see: https://www.cipil.law.cam.ac.uk/seminars-and-events/cipil-seminars

Mondelēz (maker of Oreo and Chips Ahoy) is investing over $40 million in a custom generative AI tool to slash marketing costs by 30-50% and create TV-ready ads for the 2027 Super Bowl. But is building proprietary AI technology the right move, or should CPG brands partner with specialized providers? Chris and Anne debate whether this massive investment will pay off or become a costly sunk cost trap as AI technology rapidly evolves. Anne shares insights from cutting-edge AI advertising demos that are already creating human-likenesses in commercials. Sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and Quorso. For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/7d-eJ-WAhfw #mondelez #generativeAI #aimarketing #cpginnovation #accenture #marketingautomation #oreo #advertisingtechnology #aicommercials #retailtech

Concluding a two-part roundtable discussion, our global heads of Research, Thematic Research and Firmwide AI focus on the human impacts of AI adoption in the workplace.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Kathryn Huberty: Welcome to Thoughts in The Market, and to part two of our conversation on AI adoption. I'm Katy Huberty, Morgan Stanley's Global Head of Research. Once again, I'm joined by Stephen Byrd, Global Head of Thematic Research, and Jeff McMillan, Morgan Stanley's Head of Firm-wide AI. Today, let's focus on the human level. What this paradigm shift means for individual workers. It's Wednesday, November 5th at 10am in New York. Kathryn Huberty: Stephen, there's a lot of simultaneous fear and excitement around widespread AI adoption. There's obviously concern that AI could lead to massive job losses. But you seem optimistic about this paradigm shift. Why is that? Stephen Byrd: Yeah, as I mentioned in part one, this is the most popular discussion topic with my children. And I would say younger folks are quite concerned about this. There's a lot of angst among young folks thinking about what is that job market really going to look like for them. And admittedly, AI could be quite disruptive. So, we don't want to sugarcoat that. There's clearly going to be impacts across many jobs. Our work showed that around 90 percent of jobs will be impacted in some way. Oh, in the long term, I would guess nearly every job will be impacted in some way. The reason we are more optimistic is that what we see is a range of what we would think of as augmentation, where AI can essentially help you do something much better. It can help you expand your capabilities. And it will result in entirely new jobs. Now with any new technology, it's always hard to predict exactly what those new jobs are. But examples that I see in my world of energy would be smart grid analysis, predictive maintenance, managing systems in a much more efficient way. Systems that are so complicated that they're really beyond the capability of humans to manage very effectively. So, I'm quite excited there. I'm extremely excited in the life sciences where we could see entire new approaches to curing some of the worst diseases plaguing humankind. So, I am really very excited in terms of those new areas of job creation. In terms of job losses, one interesting analysis that a lot of investors are really focused on that we included in our Future of Work report was the ratio – within a job – of augmentation to automation. The lower the ratio, the higher the risk of job loss in the sense that that shows a sign that more of what AI is going to do, is going to replace that type of human work. Examples of that would be in professional services. As I mentioned, you know, one of my former professions, law would be an example of an area where you could see this. But essentially, tasks that don't require a lot of proprietary data, require less creativity. Those are the types of tasks that are more likely to be automated. Kathryn Huberty: One theme I hear both in Silicon Valley and in our industry is the value of domain expertise goes up. So, the lawyer that's very good in the courtroom or handling a really complicated situation because they have decades of experience, the value of that labor and talent goes up. And so, when my friends ask me what their kids should pursue in school and as a career, I tell them it's less about what job they pursue. Pick a passion and become a domain expert really quickly. Stephen Byrd: I think that's excellent advice. Kathryn Huberty: Jeff, how do you see AI changing the skills we'll need at Morgan Stanley and the way that people should think about their careers? Jeff McMillan: I think you have to break this down into three pieces – and Stephen sort of alluded to it. One, you have to look at the jobs that are likely to disappear. Two, you have to look at the jobs that are going to change. And then finally, you have to look at the new jobs that are going to actually emerge from this phenomena. You should be thinking right now about how you are going to prepare yourself with the right skills around learning how to prompt and learning how to move into those functions that are not going to be eliminated. In terms of jobs that are changing, they're going to require a far, far greater sense of collaboration, creativity. And again, prompting; prompt engineering is sort of the center of that. And I would highly encourage every single person who's listening to this to become the single best prompt engineer in their group, in their friend[s group], in their organization. And then in terms of the jobs that are being created, I'm actually pretty optimistic here. As we build agents, there's actually a bull case that we're going to create so much complexity in our environment that we're going to need more people to help manage that. But the skills are not going to be repetitive linear skills. They're going to require real time decision-making, leadership skills, collaboration skills. But again, I would go back to every single person: learn how to talk to the machine, learn how to be creative, and practice every day your engagement with this technology. Kathryn Huberty: So then how are companies balancing the re-skilling with the inevitable culture shifts that come with any new paradigm? Jeff McMillan: So, first of all, I think if you think about this as a tool, you've already lost the plot. I think that number one, you have to remind yourself what your strategy is; whatever that strategy is, this is an enabler of your strategy. The second point I'd make is that you have to go from both – the top down, in terms of leadership messaging that this change is here, it's important and it needs to be embraced. And then it's a bottoms-up because you have to empower people with the right tools and the technology to transform their own work. Because if you're trying to tell people that this is the path that they have to follow. You don't get the buy-in that you need. You really want to empower people to leverage these tools. And what excites me most is when people walk into my office and say, ‘Hey Jeff, let me show you what I built today.' And it could be some 22-year-old who; it's their first month on the job. And what's exciting about this technology is you do not need a technology background. You need to be smart; you need to be creative. And if you've got those skills, you can build things that are really innovative. And I think that's what's exciting. So, if you can combine the top down that this is important and the bottoms up with giving people the skills and the technology and the motivation – that's the secret sauce. Kathryn Huberty: Jeff, what's your advice for the next generation college students, recent college graduates as they're thinking about navigating the early parts of their career in this environment? Jeff McMillan: Well, Katy, I first of all, I'd agree with what you say. You know, everyone's like, ‘What should I study?' And the answer is – I don't actually know the answer to that question. But I would study what you care about. I would do something that you're passionate about. And the second point, and I hate to be a broken record on this. But I would be the single best user of GenerativeAI at your college. Volunteer with some nonprofit, build a use case with your friends. When you walk into your first job, impress in your interview that you are able to use this technology in really effective ways – because that will make a difference, in your first job. Kathryn Huberty: And I'm curious, are there areas where you think humans will always beat AI, whether it's in financial services or other industries? Jeff McMillan: I like to think that we are human and that gives us the ability to build trust and emotional relationships. And I think not only are we going to be better at that than machines are. But I think that's something that we as humans will always want. I think that there may be some individuals in the society that may feel differently. But I think as a general rule, the human-to-human relationship is something that's really important. And I like to think that it will be a differentiator for a long time to come. So, Katy, from where you sit as the Head of Global Research, how has GenAI changed the way research is being done? Kathryn Huberty: With the help of your team, Jeff, we have now embedded AI through the life cycle of investigating a hypothesis, doing the analysis, writing the research in a concise, effective way. Pushing that through our publishing process, developing digital content in our analysts' voice, in the local language of the client. And now we're working on a client engagement tool that helps direct our research team's time. And so, the impact here is it reduces the time to market to get a alpha generating idea to our clients and, you know, and it's freeing up time for our teams. Stephen Byrd: So, Katy, I want to build on that. Productivity is a big theme. And away from the research itself, from a management perspective, how are you and your team using AI? And what do you see as the benefits? And how are you spending the extra time that's freed up by AI? Kathryn Huberty: I like to say that the research AI strategy is less about the tools. I mean, those are critical and foundational. But it's more about how we're evolving workflow and how our teams are spending time. And so, the savings are being reinvested in actually your area – thematic research – which takes a lot more coordination, collaboration. A global cross-asset view, which just takes more time to develop, and test a hypothesis, and debate internally, and get those reports to market. But it's critical for our core strategy, which is to help our clients generate alpha. When you look at equity markets over the past 30 years, a very small number of stocks drive all of the alpha. And they tend to link to themes. And so, we're reinvesting time in identifying those themes earlier than the market to allow our clients to capture that alpha. And then the other piece is when we look at our analyst teams, they spend about a quarter of their time with clients because they have to meet with experts in the industry. They need to do the analysis, they have to build the financial forecast, manage their teams. You know, we have internal activities, build culture. And with the ability to leverage these tools to speed up some of those tasks, we think we can double the amount of time that our analysts are spending with clients. And if we're putting thought-provoking, you know, often thematic global collaborative content into the market, our clients want to spend more time with us. And so, that's the ultimate impact. On a personal level, and I think both of you can relate. I think a lot of the freed-up time right now is just following the fast pace of change in AI and keeping up with the latest technology, the latest vendors. But long term, my hope is that this frees up time for more human activities on a personal level. Learning the arts, staying active. So, this could be potentially very beneficial to society if we reinvest that time in both productive activities that have impact in business. But also productive, rewarding activities outside of the office.As we wrap up, it's clear that the influence of AI is expanding rapidly, not just in digital- and knowledge-based sectors, but increasingly in tangible real-world applications. As these innovations unfold, the way we interact with both technology and our environments will continue to evolve – both on the job and elsewhere in our lives. Jeff, Stephen, thank you both for sharing your insights. And to our listeners, thank you for joining us. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend and colleague today.

Bill Severn of 1623 Farnam joins JSA TV from DCD>Connect Virginia to discuss how #GenerativeAI is reshaping network infrastructure. He shares insights on latency limits, #edge inference, #hyperscaler-driven metro upgrades, and what an AI-ready interconnect looks like. Plus, a look ahead at 1623 Farnam's expansion plans and investments for the next 12–24 months.

A version of this essay was published by the Deccan Herald at https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/adani-s-under-fire-we-ve-seen-this-before-3783432The repeated, withering attacks on the Adani group are getting to be tiresome, partly because they usually have no merit per se; and partly because the Western habit of weaponizing the narrative is now so evident. It is basically propaganda, with the pliant media manufacturing consent to support foreign policy.In a recent column in the Financial Times, Janan Ganesh wrote: “Politics, not tech, makes the world go around”. He may have a point, but at the moment, it is the opposite: the breakneck generativeAI race, and China's near-monopoly in rare earths, are fueling both trade wars and capitulation: for example, Trump said before meeting Xi that “the G2 will be convening shortly”. TACO, anyone?I said during Biden's days in “A US-China condominium dividing up the world between themselves”, that for the Deep State, a G2 would be a convenient (short-term) thing to do. Trump apparently has accepted that a) Chinese leverage is insurmountable, b) a division into spheres of influence would work best. Sadly, it would be disastrous for the US (and the Quad) in the medium term to make China Asia's hegemon.But it is happening. As BNP Paribas puts it in a research note quoted by the Financial Times, “[Washington]... is now dealing with a peer rival capable of imposing material economic harm on it — a relatively new position for the US and a development which, at least to us, confirms China's ascendancy to global economic superpower status.”It would be entirely rational for a G2 to prevent a third great power from rising, and India is the only candidate: Brazil, Russia, South Africa, the EU are handicapped in one way or the other, e.g. geography, resources, demographics, politics. Therefore the G2 are imposing a Thucydides Trap on India: wage economic (if not kinetic) war, and balkanize it.Everybody has learned lessons from the recent past (“Confessions of an economic hit-man”, anyone?): how Japan was ruined via the Plaza Accord, how Britain lost its pre-eminence by debasing its currency, and how the US allowed itself to be systematically de-industrialized by China over the last 30 years. They are not going to let India grow, certainly not easily.Thus Adani is a proxy for India. Mark Mobius, a legendary investor, said, “Investing in Adani is like investing in India”. That is not an exaggeration, because Adani has demonstrated the capability to deliver in more than one domain, especially in ports and airports (Disclaimer: I have a small position in Adani Ports). They have operations in Colombo, Haifa (Israel) and Abbot Point (Australia), which makes them a potentially major player in global shipping, not to mention their container ports at Mundhra and Vizhinjam (Trivandrum).There have been several waves of attacks on the Adani group, the first in June 2021 alleging improprieties in investments by Mauritius-based funds; the second in January 2023 with the ‘bombshell' Hindenburg (a short-seller) report alleging stock manipulation and accounting fraud; the third in November 2024, a US Dept of Justice allegation about bribery; the fourth in October 2025 by the Washington Post alleging the Indian government induced LIC to invest $3.9 billion in Adani firms.When the Hindenburg report was publicized as the “largest con in corporate history” by pliant media like Reuters, FT and WSJ, I wrote that “The Adani Group may not be derailed by Hindenburg”. I also did a video conversation with Professor Narayanan Komerath on the topic.In fact, in a “dog it was that died” outcome, it was Hindenburg that closed shop; Adani has recovered even after a second Hindenburg report accusing the SEBI chief as well.Adani has been successful in their ports and energy businesses; they are doing well in airports; their efforts in green energy and in data centers (the new Google AI data center in Vishakhapatnam) may yet prove to be winners. Thus Adani has shown it can compete well in difficult infrastructure sectors. It is true that these need to align with government policies.Which brings whispers of ‘crony capitalism', which is rich coming from the US, where ‘robber barons' like John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J P Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt created enormous fortunes primarily through cronyism. Have you heard the dictum “What's good for General Motors is good for America”? Boeing, the Koch Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Big Tech are current beneficiaries of State munificence.India has had its share of crony capitalists who provided citizens with shoddy goods at high prices. I don't dare name them, but you know who they are. Every country supports its national champions: Japan's zaibatsu, Korea's chaebol, China's State Owned Companies.And recently J P Morgan Chase announced it is investing $1.5 trillion in US industries such as critical minerals, pharma, semiconductors, energy, drones, cybersecurity, AI and so on. Surely this is after consultations with and a go-ahead from the US Government. Similarly, it is neither sinful nor unusual for the Indian State to support dominant, effective players. More power to Adani!800 words, 31 October 2025 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

Olivia and Shauna devote their last Spooky Season episode to the modern horror that is Generative AI, the inescapable technology that is not only replacing working writers and artists, but also must steal their work in order to do so. Recently, an AI "actress" going by the name Tilly Norwood stirred up a lot of controversy in Hollywood, so for this episode, the Junkies are joined by Alaina Lightfoot, an actor, writer, director, and producer based in Los Angeles who has appeared in commercials, web series, and several films which have been featured in festivals including Studio City Film Fest and The Great Film Festival 2025. Alaina and the Junkies discuss the impact AI performers, should the technology ever become truly viable, will have on show business and the people working in it, especially actors just getting started in their careers. Is AI inevitable, or will humanity win in the end? Follow Alaina Lightfoot on Instagram: @alainalightfoot We have affordable and rewarding Patreon tiers! Be the first to hear new and uncensored content, if you dare! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/popculturejunkiepodcast/posts Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pop-culture-junkie/id1536737728 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7k2pUxzNDBXNCHzFM7EL8W Website: www.popculturejunkie.comFacebook: PopCultureJunkiePodcastInstagram: @pop.culturejunkieThreads: @pop.culturejunkieBluesky: @pop-culture-junkie.bsky.socialEmail: junkies@popculturejunkie.com Shauna on Instagram: @shaunatrinidad Shauna on Threads: @shaunatrinidad Olivia on Instagram: @livimariez

Becoming More Human in the Age of AI at University What happens when AI knows everything - and humans must rediscover what makes us unique? In this episode, host Ray Fleming sits down with Carlo Iacono, University Librarian at Charles Sturt University, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping not just libraries, but the very identity of education itself. Carlo shares how librarians are helping students and academics navigate AI's rapid rise - guiding them to think critically, question deeply, and find their authentic voice in an age of infinite information. Together, they unpack how AI is pushing universities to move beyond expertise and towards empathy, collaboration, and humility, and why becoming “more human” may be the most important skill of all. Read Carlo's writing on Hybrid Horizons: Exploring Human–AI Collaboration https://hybridhorizons.substack.com/  Follow Carlo on Twitter https://x.com/carloiaconowork  You may also find the Charles Sturt University Library website on Generative AI at University really useful https://libguides.csu.edu.au/generativeAI 

Send us a textAgentic AI is rapidly transforming professional services, yet many consultancies remain cautious about its implementation. In this groundbreaking conversation, Professor Joe O'Mahony and Rob Price explore what happens when multiple AI agents work together as a team to tackle complex business challenges.Rob explains how agentic AI differs from traditional AI applications by creating virtual team members with specific expertise, memory capabilities, and tools. These aren't simple chatbots – they're sophisticated systems that can handle complex workflows while maintaining human oversight. The most fascinating examples include agent teams already working in regulated environments for apprenticeship coaching and due diligence processes, reducing tasks from hours to minutes.The conversation takes a profound turn when examining how this technology threatens the traditional consulting pyramid. As AI increasingly handles work previously done by junior consultants, firms face difficult questions about talent development, pricing models, and the very nature of their business. "It's not AI that will steal your job—it's the person using AI who will," warns Rob, highlighting the competitive advantage for those who master these technologies.For young consultants, this shift demands a hybrid skillset combining technical understanding with enhanced human capabilities. The most valuable consultants will be those who build trust, understand context, and create innovative solutions that AI alone cannot. Meanwhile, established professionals might explore what the hosts call "influencer consultancy" – using AI to amplify their personal brand and impact beyond traditional firm structures.The conversation concludes with a balanced view of consulting's future: short-term opportunities for those who embrace AI capabilities, alongside longer-term questions about how value and profits will be distributed. Whether you're leading a consultancy or considering a career in professional services, this episode provides crucial insights into navigating the agentic AI revolution that's already underway.Prof. Joe O'Mahoney helps boutique consultancies scale and exit. Joe's research, writing, speaking and insights can be found at www.joeomahoney.com

In this episode of "Father and Joe," hosts Father Boniface Hicks and Joe Rockey dive deep into the fast-evolving world of artificial intelligence and its implications on human relationships. With AI becoming an integral part of our lives, it's crucial to understand its impact, especially on the sanctity and quality of human connections. Father Boniface and Joe explore the nuances of trust within relationships in an age where AI can imitate human behavior with uncanny precision. Can technology ever replicate the profound depth of human relationships? Join the hosts as they discuss the dangers of blurring the lines between genuine human interaction and AI-powered communication.The episode looks into the potential pitfalls of AI-generated content and how it may compromise our ability to discern truth from fiction. Our relationship dynamics, whether personal or professional, rely heavily on the trust and authenticity that AI may challenge. This conversation underscores the importance of maintaining robust in-person relationships and developing skills to ensure what we perceive as real is indeed so. Father Boniface touches on the philosophical and theological aspects of these changes, calling listeners to reconsider the value of human connections that transcend mere transactional interactions.Joe brings to light the effects seen in the business and social landscapes, where AI is often used to automate everything from advertising to customer interactions. The hosts discuss the potential saturation and diminishing quality of AI-generated content, which could cause a decline in meaningful human engagement.As Joe and Father Boniface navigate these complex ideas, they challenge listeners to enhance their "relationship muscles" and prioritize cultivating genuine human connections. Whether it's strengthening existing bonds or repairing broken ones, they highlight the critical need for human interaction in our technology-driven world.Tags: Artificial Intelligence, AI Impact, Human Relationships, Trust, Technology and Humanity, Father and Joe, Podcast, Spiritual Guidance, Relationship Skills, AI Concerns, Authentic Connections, Digital Age, AI Content, Communication, Human Interaction, Father Boniface Hicks, Joe Rockey, Personal Development, Spirituality, Theology, AI Challenges, AI Future, Business Impacts, Social Media, Online Interactions, Human Connection, Life Skills, Technological Growth, AI Ethics, Digital Communication, AI Algorithms, Relationship Dynamics, Trust in Technology, Spiritual Reflection, Real vs Fake, New Technology, Human Creativity, Generative AI, AI in Society, Faith and TechnologyHashtags: #ArtificialIntelligence, #AIImpact, #HumanRelationships, #TrustIssues, #TechAndHumanity, #FatherAndJoe, #PodcastTalk, #SpiritualGuidance, #RelationshipSkills, #AIFears, #DigitalConnections, #AIContent, #TrueCommunication, #HumanInteraction, #FatherBonifaceHicks, #JoeRockey, #PersonalGrowth, #Spirituality, #TheologicalTalk, #AIChallenges, #FutureTech, #BusinessImpact, #SocialMedia, #OnlineInteractions, #RealHumanConnection, #LifeSkills, #TechGrowth, #AIethics, #DigitalCommunication, #AIGeneration, #RelationshipDynamics, #TechTrust, #SpiritualReflection, #RealVsFake, #NewTech, #HumanCreativity, #GenerativeAI, #AISociety, #FaithAndTechThis line is here to correct the site's formatting error.

Security leaders from CyberArk, Fortra, and Sysdig share actionable strategies for securely implementing generative AI and reveal real-world insights on data protection and agent management.Topics Include:Panel explores practical security approaches for GenAI from prototype to productionThree-phase framework discussed: planning, pre-production, and production security considerationsSecurity must be built-in from start - data foundation is criticalUnderstanding data location, usage, transformation, and regulatory requirements is essentialFortra's security conglomerate approach integrates with AWS native tools and partnersMachine data initially easier for compliance - no PII or HIPAA concernsIdentity paradigm shift: agents can dynamically take human and non-human roles97% of organizations using AI tools lack identity and access policiesSecurity responsibility increases as you move up the customization stackOWASP Top 10 for GenAI addresses prompt injection and data poisoningRigorous model testing including adversarial attacks before deployment is crucialSysdig spent 6-9 months stress testing their agent before production releaseTension exists between moving fast and implementing proper security controlsDifferent security approaches needed based on data sensitivity and model usageZero-standing privilege and intent-based policies critical for agent managementMulti-agent systems create "Internet of Agents" with exponentially multiplying risksDiscovery challenge: finding where GenAI is running across enterprise environmentsAPI security and gateway protection becoming critical with acceptable latencyTop customer need: translating written AI policies into actionable controlsThreat modeling should focus on impact rather than just vulnerability severityParticipants:Prashant Tyagi - Go-To-Market Identity Security Technology Strategy Lead, CyberArkMike Reed – Field CISO, Cloud Security & AI, FortraZaher Hulays – Vice President Strategic Partnerships, SysdigMatthew Girdharry - WW Leader for Observability & Security Partnerships, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:CyberArk: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceFortra: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceSysdig: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Can your AI systems be tricked into leaking data? Learn how red teaming can expose hidden vulnerabilities and what you can do to build better defenses.

Brian Mendenhall, Worldwide Head, Security & Identity Partner Specialists of Amazon Web Services, reveals the insider framework for transforming enterprise AI security, including the three-pillar approach and partnership strategies that leading companies use to navigate AI governance challenges.Topics Include:At AWS everything starts with security as core principleConsulting partners follow three-phase model: assess, remediate, then fully manage securityTraditional security framework covers threat detection, incident response, and data protectionAI compliance spans multiple governance bodies with stacking requirements and regulationsEU AI Act affects any company globally if Europeans access their applicationsThree pillars: security OF AI, AI FOR security, security FROM AI attacksAWS launches AI security competency program with specialized partner categories and certificationsEnterprise AI spans five risk levels from consumer apps to self-trained modelsLegal liability dramatically increases as you move toward custom AI implementationsSafety means preventing harm; security means preventing breaches - both critical distinctionsCurrent AI hallucination rates hit 65-75% across major platforms like PalantirShared responsibility model determines who's liable when AI security tools failIndustry evolution progresses from machine learning to generative AI to autonomous agentsMajor prototype-to-production gap caused by governance, security, and scalability challengesSuccessful AWS partnerships require clear use cases, differentiation, and targeted go-to-market strategyParticipants:Brian Mendenhall - WW Head, Security & Identity Partner Specialists, Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Caitlin Anderson, Intel's Americas Sales GM shares which industries are leading AI adoption, where the biggest untapped opportunities lie, and why AI spending is expected to double by 2028. With special guest Piyush Sharrma of Tuskira.aiTopics Include:Caitlin Anderson discusses Intel-AWS partnership and generative AI trends accelerating businessIntel's AI journey spans decades: analytics since 1980s, natural language processing 2000sComputer vision remains major use case from edge computing to data centersGenerative AI and AI agents are the latest wave, with agents collaborating togetherIntel uses AI internally for manufacturing automation in highly sensitive fab environmentsRobotics and AI optimize quality control, system monitoring, and technician productivityAI spending growth spans all industries, with significant acceleration expected through 2028Software services, healthcare, and financial services lead current AI adoption and experimentationEducation, government, retail, and energy represent major untapped growth opportunities aheadIntel-AWS partnership spans 20 years, featuring custom silicon and broad CPU portfolioTuskira CEO Piyush Sharrma explains cybersecurity "perfect storm" where attackers weaponize same AI toolsSuccess requires ecosystem partnerships - no single company can solve complex AI challengesParticipants:Caitlin Anderson - Corporate Vice President, GM Americas Sales, IntelPiyush Sharrma – CEO and Co-Founder, Tuskira.aiSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Aditya Vasudevan, Cohesity's cyber recovery expert, shares battle-tested insights from defending Fortune 100 companies against AI-powered cyberattacks.Topics Include:Cohesity protects 85% of Fortune 100 data with battle-tested cyber recovery experienceTop 10 cyber adversaries target organizations; Cohesity has defended against most major threatsGenAI adopted by 100 million users in two months, creating unprecedented security challengesNew AI threats include prompt injection, synthetic identities, shadow AI, and supply vulnerabilitiesAttackers now use AI for sophisticated phishing, automated malware, and accelerated attack chainsReal companies completely banned AI after code leaks, misuse incidents, and data concernsThree-pillar security approach: fight AI with AI, enhanced training, and automated workflowsSecure AI design requires private deployments, complete traceability, and role-based access controlsAmazon Bedrock offers built-in guardrails, private VPCs, and enterprise monitoring capabilitiesCohesity's Gaia demonstrates secure AI with RAG architecture and permission-aware data accessResilience strategy combines immutable backups, anomaly detection, and recovery automation for incidentsProper AI security reduces cyber insurance premiums and prevents costly downtime disastersParticipants:Aditya Vasudevan - GVP of Cyber Resiliency, Cohesity Further Links:Cohesity: Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Tyler Warden, SVP of Product at Sonatype, shares surprising research on security, productivity and prioritization, with actionable strategies for organizational transformation. Topics Include:Tyler from Sonatype (Maven creators) shares research on security culture in developmentSecurity is more cultural than tooling, with rising supply chain attacksDevelopment speeds up while global regulations rapidly change across marketsTyler's background: wanted to be a Broadway conductor, not tech speakerBeethoven's 9th Symphony story: nephew missed a dot, changing tempo foreverWe can "be the dot" - small changes creating big organizational impactThree organization types: Leaders (collaborative), Adapters (balanced), Protectors (security-first)Leaders achieve best productivity and security but face executive skepticismResearch reveals balanced teams outperform purely security-focused or productivity-focused approachesHigh-performance teams go faster AND stay more secure than alternatives"Yes" philosophy from improv comedy: fun happens when we enable innovationApply proven supply chain principles from manufacturing to software development security Participants:Tyler Warden – Senior Vice President, Product, SonatypeFurther Links:Sonatype: Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Organizations across various industries are increasingly seeking to harness generative AI's capabilities to enhance productivity and operational efficiency. But while generative AI technologies can provide organizations with multiple opportunities, there are also risks unless integration is carried out with caution. In this episode of Risk in Context, Marsh's Gregory Eskins and Mercer's Adriana O'Kain discuss the multiple opportunities that generative AI presents, look at how the use of these technologies is evolving, and provide actions that senior leaders should consider to address technical, process, and people implications. You can access a transcript of the episode here. Read our series on debunking AI-generated myths. For more insights and insurance and risk management solutions, follow Marsh on LinkedIn and X and visit marsh.com.

Learn how Amazon Bedrock enabled Prophix to build enterprise-grade AI agents that transform secure CFO workflows, while delivering real-time financial intelligence through advanced agentic architecture. Topics Include:AWS and Prophix leaders discuss building autonomous AI agents for financial managementAI agents defined: autonomous systems that reason, plan, and execute tasks independentlyEvolution from simple chatbots to collaborative multi-agent systems solving complex problemsCore agent components: cognitive planning module, memory systems, and external tool integrationsProphix: 30-year financial software company serving 3,500 CFO offices globally across industriesProphix One Intelligence: platform-level AI service powering predictions, analysis, and automationCustomer concerns addressed: data privacy, role-based security, accuracy, and cost controlRejected "models in the sky" approach for AWS Bedrock's managed, controllable infrastructureAgentic architecture: LLMs generate API parameters instead of processing massive datasetsReal-time data access, automatic security inheritance, and A/B testing capabilities achievedLive demo: automated budgeting workflows, natural language queries, and autonomous task executionAWS introduces AgentCore platform to simplify agent development for enterprise customersParticipants:Anurag Yagnik – Chief Technology Officer, ProphixDeborshi Choudhury – Sr Solutions Architect – ISV, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Prophix: Website | LinkedIn See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Dean Teffer of Arctic Wolf reveals how they process 8 trillion weekly security observations to find "a needle in a stack of needles," and breaks down real-world GenAI lessons learned.Topics Include:Dean Teffer, VP of AI at Arctic Wolf, discusses company's GenAI journeyArctic Wolf: decade-old security operations company serving mid-market customers globallyOperates massive security operation center, now launching AI-powered productsAI agent recently identified Black Basta ransomware attack, enabling rapid containmentDean's 15+ years in cybersecurity: traditional ML focused on detectionGenAI breakthrough allows natural language interaction with security modelsArctic Wolf processes 8 trillion weekly observations, correlating suspicious activitiesChallenge: finding specific threats in "stack of needles," not haystackSuccess measured by making human analysts faster, more consistent, scalableEvolved from treating GenAI like traditional ML to integrated workflowsKey misconception: GenAI isn't magic, needs proper data and reasoningAdvice: start with existing challenges, build flexible systems for adaptationGenAI excels at summarizing information and supporting complex decisionsFuture vision: AI handles routine threats, humans focus on creativityDemocratizing machine learning capabilities to broader range of subject expertsParticipants:Dean Teffer – Vice President of AI, Arctic WolfFurther Links:Arctic Wolf: Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

CyberArk's technology leader discusses their strategy for securing against AI threats, protecting agentic AI systems, and their vision for the future in an increasingly AI-driven cybersecurity landscape.Topics Include:CyberArk celebrates recent exciting news while discussing their incredible cybersecurity journeyFounded in 1999, CyberArk pioneered privilege access management and expanded into comprehensive identity securityCompany executed textbook SaaS transformation from perpetual licensing to subscription-based cloud modelLeadership set clear customer expectations, framing SaaS shift as faster innovation deliveryAddressed customer concerns about cost predictability, security compliance, and data residency requirementsTechnical team implemented lift-and-shift architecture with AWS RDS and multi-tenant improvementsCorporate initiative tracked weekly metrics and milestones throughout full development lifecycle processCustomer Success evolved from transactional support to strategic partnership embedded in security journeysAWS partnership fundamental to cloud journey with 25+ integrations and Marketplace collaborationAI strategy focuses on three pillars: using AI, securing against AI threatsFuture 12-24 months: continue securing all identities while expanding AI capabilities and solutionsAWS partnership expanding in 2025 leveraging machine identity leadership and GenAI advancesParticipants:Peretz Regev – Chief Product & Technology Officer, CyberArkBoaz Ziniman – Principal Developer Advocate - EMEA, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:· CyberArk: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Three leading ISV executives from Coveo, DTEX Systems and Honeycomb, reveal how companies with proprietary datasets are gaining unbeatable competitive advantages in the AI era and share real-world strategies how you have similar outcomes.Topics Include:Panel introduces three ISV leaders discussing data platform transformation for AIDTEX focuses on insider threats, Coveo on enterprise search, Honeycomb on observabilityCompanies with proprietary datasets gain strongest competitive advantage in AI transformationData gravity concept: LLMs learning from unique datasets create defensible business positionsCoveo maintains unified enterprise index with real-time content and access rights syncHoneycomb enables subsecond queries for analyzing logs, traces, and metrics at scaleMulti-tenant architectures balance shared infrastructure benefits with single-tenant data separationCoveo deployed 140,000 times last year using mostly multi-tenant, some single-tenant componentsDTEX scaled from thousands to hundreds of thousands endpoints after architectural transformationCapital One partnership taught DTEX how to break monolithic architecture into servicesApache Iceberg and open table formats enable interoperability without data duplicationHoneycomb built custom format following similar patterns with hot/cold storage tiersBusiness data catalogs become critical for AI agents understanding dataset contextMCP servers allow AI systems to leverage structured cybersecurity datasets effectivelyDTEX used Cursor with their data to identify North Korean threat actorsReal-time AI data needs balanced with costs using right models for jobsCaching strategies and precise context reduce expensive LLM inference calls unnecessarilySearch remains essential for enterprise AI to prevent hallucination and access informationROI measurement focuses on cost reduction, analyst efficiency, and measurable business outcomesKey takeaway: invest in data structure early, context is king, AI is just softwareParticipants:Sebastien Paquet - Vice President of AI Strategy, CoveoRajan Koo - CTO, DTEX SystemsPatrick King - Head of Data, Honeycomb.ioKP Bhat - Sr Solutions Architecture Leader- Analytics & AI, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Coveo: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceDTEX Systems: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceHoneycomb.io: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Okta's CTO Bhawna Singh discusses AI adoption, innovation and the four critical identity patterns needed to build the trust that accelerates AI implementation.Topics Include:AI innovation races ahead while adoption lags due to trust and security concernsResearch shows 82% plan AI deployment but 61% of customers demand trust firstAI coding tools dramatically reduce development time, accelerating software delivery cyclesAI interaction evolved from ChatGPT conversations to autonomous headless agents working independentlyFuture envisions millions of agents making decisions and communicating without human oversightComplex data relationships emerge as agents access multiple dynamic sources simultaneouslyTrust fundamentally starts with identity - the foundation for all AI securityFour critical identity patterns needed: authentication, API security, user confirmation, and authorizationAuthentication ensures legitimate agents while token vaults enable secure agent-to-agent communicationAsynchronous user approval prevents rogue decisions like the recent database deletion incidentIndustry standards like MCP protocol establish minimum security guardrails for interoperabilityTrust accelerates AI adoption through security, accountability, and collaborative standard-building effortsParticipants:Bhawna Singh – CTO, Customer Identity, OktaSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

A panel discussion with AI industry leaders revealing how enterprises are scaling AI today, with predictions on coming breakthroughs for AI and the impact on Fortune 500 companies and beyond.Topics Include:Three technical leaders discuss production challenges: security, interoperability, and scaling agentic systemsPanelists represent Enkrypt (security), Anyscale (infrastructure), and CrewAI (agent orchestration platforms)Industry moving from flashy demos to dependable agents with real business outcomesBreakthrough examples include 70-page IRS form processing and multimodal workflow automationMultimodal data integration becoming crucial - incorporating video, audio, screenshots into decisionsLess than 10% of future applications expected to be text-onlyCompanies shifting from experimenting with individual models to deploying agent networksNeed for governance frameworks as enterprises scale to hundreds of agentsGrowing software stack complexity requires specialized infrastructure between applications and GPUsSecurity teams need centralized visibility across fragmented agent deployments across enterprisesExisting industry regulations apply to AI services - no special AI laws neededInteroperability standards debate: MCP gaining adoption while A2A seems premature solutionMCP shows higher API reliability than OpenAI tool calling for implementationsMultimodal systems more vulnerable to attacks but value proposition too high ignoreFortune 500 company automated price operations approval process using 630 brands data87% of enterprise customers deploy agents in private VPCs or on-premises infrastructureSpecialized AI systems needed to oversee other agents at machine speed scalesCost optimization through model specialization rather than always using most powerful modelsFuture learning may happen through context/prompting rather than traditional weight fine-tuningPredictions include AI meeting moderators and agents working autonomously for hoursParticipants:Robert Nishihara - Co-founder, AnyscaleJoão Moura - CEO, CrewAISahil Agarwal - Co-Founder & CEO, Enkrypt AIJillian D'Arcy - Sr. ISV Sales Leader, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Anyscale – Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceCrewAI - Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceEnkrypt AI - Website | LinkedIn | AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

In this episode of the Pipeliners Podcast, we revisit our conversation with Clint Bodungen of ThreatGEN. The discussion focuses on the application of gamification and generative AI in professional training, specifically for enhancing cybersecurity and incident response exercises. The episode also explores a PHMSA-sponsored R&D project that is adapting these advanced technologies for the unique operational needs of the pipeline industry, highlighting the development of AI-driven, multiplayer training environments.   Visit PipelinePodcastNetwork.com for a full episode transcript, as well as detailed show notes with relevant links and insider term definitions.

AI executives from Archer, Demandbase and Highspot and AWS reveal how they're tackling AI's biggest challenges—from securing data, managing regulatory changes and keeping humans in the loop.Topics Include:Three AI leaders introduce their companies: Archer, Demandbase and Highspot's approaches to enterprise AIDemandbase's data strategy: Customer data stays isolated, shared data requires consent, public sources fuel trainingGeographic complexity: AI compliance varies dramatically between Germany, US, Canada, and California regulationsHighSpot tackles sales bias: Granular questions replace generic assessments for more accurate rep evaluationsSBI framework applied to AI: Specific behavioral observations create better, more actionable sales coachingAI transparency through citations: Timestamped evidence lets managers verify AI feedback and catch hallucinationsArcher handles 20-30K monthly regulations: AI helps enterprises manage overwhelming compliance requirements at scaleTwo compliance types explained: Operational (common across companies) versus business-specific regulatory requirementsEU AI Act adoption: US companies embracing European framework for responsible AI governanceHuman oversight becomes mandatory: Expert-in-the-loop reviews ensure AI decisions remain correctable and auditableThe bigger AI risk: Companies face greater danger from AI inaction than AI adoptionAgentic AI security challenges: Data layers must enforce permissions before AI access, not afterAI agents need identity management: Same access controls apply whether human clicks or AI actsHuman oversight in high stakes: Chief compliance officers demand transparency and correction capabilitiesFuture challenge identified: 80% of enterprise data behind firewalls remains invisible to AI modelsParticipants:Kayvan Alikhani - Global Head of Engineering- Emerging Solutions, Archer Integrated Risk ManagementUmberto Milletti - Chief R&D Officer, DemandbaseOliver Sharp - Co-Founder & Chief AI Officer, HighspotBrian Shadpour - General Manager, Security, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Archer Integrated Risk Management: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceDemandbase: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceHighspot: Website – LinkedIn – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

In a fascinating discussion, Rob McGrorty, Product Leader of Agents at Amazon AGI Lab, reveals how rapidly AI agents are evolving with corporate adoption exploding as companies race to deploy production agents and the challenges and advantages they're experiencing.Topics Include:GenAI adoption outpaces all previous tech waves, growing faster than computers or internetEarly adopters tackle complex tasks while newcomers still use basic text manipulation featuresAI models double their single-call task capabilities every seven months, exponentially increasing powerAccelerating progress makes yesterday's magic mundane, unlocking mass creativity and customer demandAgents represent natural evolution: chatbots answered questions, now agents autonomously accomplish tasksAmazon's browser agent finds apartments, maps distances, ranks options using multiple transit modesCorporate adoption exploded: 33% piloting agents in 2024, 67% moving to production nowTwo main agent types today: API calling with tool use, browser automationCurrent applications mirror "RPA 2.0" - form filling, data extraction, website QA testingFuture brings multi-agent systems, self-directing loops, and agent-to-agent negotiation scenariosMajor challenges: data privacy, oversight protocols, error responsibility, and ecosystem sustainabilityTechnical hurdles include real-time accuracy measurement, latency issues, and quality assurance frameworksParticipants:Rob McGrorty – Product Leader, Agents at Amazon AGI LabSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Gagan Singh of Elastic discuses how agentic AI systems reduce analyst burnout by automatically triaging security alerts, resulting in measurable ROI for organizationsTopics Include:AI breaks security silos between teams, data, and tools in SOCsAttackers gain system access; SOC teams have only 40 minutes to detect/containAlert overload causes analyst burnout; thousands of low-value alerts overwhelm teams dailyAI inevitable for SOCs to process data, separate false positives from real threatsAgentic systems understand environment, reason through problems, take action without hand-holdingAttack discovery capability reduces hundreds of alerts to 3-4 prioritized threat discoveriesAI provides ROI metrics: processed alerts, filtered noise, hours saved for organizationsRAG (Retrieval Augmented Generation) prevents hallucination by adding enterprise context to LLMsAWS integration uses SageMaker, Bedrock, Anthropic models with Elasticsearch vector database capabilitiesEnd-to-end LLM observability tracks costs, tokens, invocations, errors, and performance bottlenecksJunior analysts detect nation-state attacks; teams shift from reactive to proactive securityFuture requires balancing costs, data richness, sovereignty, model choice, human-machine collaborationParticipants:Gagan Singh – Vice President Product Marketing, ElasticAdditional Links:Elastic – LinkedIn - Website – AWS Marketplace See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Pete Rubio reveals how Rapid7 transformed to an AI-first platform that automates security investigations and accelerates results from hours to seconds.Topics Include:Pete Rubio introduces Rapid7's journey to becoming an AI-first cybersecurity platformCybersecurity teams overwhelmed by growing attack surfaces and constant alert fatigueCustomers needed faster response times, not just more alerts coming fasterLegacy tools created silos requiring manual triage that doesn't scale effectivelyAI must turn raw security data into real-time decisions humans can trustUnified data platform correlates infrastructure, applications, identity, and business context togetherAgentic AI automates investigative work, reducing analyst tasks from hours to secondsRapid7 evaluated multiple vendors, choosing AWS for performance, cost, and flexibilityNova models delivered unmatched performance for global scaling at controlled costsBedrock provided secure model deployment with governance and data privacy boundariesAWS partnership enabled co-development and rapid iteration beyond typical vendor relationshipsTransparent AI shows customers how models reach conclusions before automated actionsSOC analyst expertise continuously trains models with real-time security intelligenceGovernance frameworks and guardrails implemented from day one, not retrofitted laterFuture plans include customer AI integration and bring-your-own-model capabilitiesParticipants:Pete Rubio – Senior Vice President, Platform & Engineering, Rapid7Additional Links:Rapid 7 – LinkedIn - Website – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Panther CEO William Lowe explains how integrating Amazon Bedrock AI into their security platform delivered 50% faster alert resolution for enterprise customers while maintaining the trust and control that security practitioners demand.Topics Include:Panther CEO explains how Amazon partnership accelerates security outcomes for customersCloud-native security platform delivers 100% visibility across enterprise environments at scaleCustomers like Dropbox and Coinbase successfully replaced Splunk with Panther's solutionPlatform processes petabytes monthly with impressive 2.3-minute average threat detection timeCritical gap identified: alert resolution still takes 8 hours despite fast detectionSecurity teams overwhelmed by growing attack surfaces and severe talent burnoutConstant context switching across tools creates inefficiency and organizational collaboration problemsAI integration with Amazon Bedrock designed to accelerate security team decision-makingFour trust principles: verifiable actions, secure design, human control, customer data ownershipResults show 50% faster alert triage; future includes Slack integration and automationParticipants:· William H Lowe – CEO, PantherSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

AWS executives reveal how generative AI is fundamentally reshaping ISV business models, from pricing strategies to go-to-market approaches, and provide actionable insights for software companies navigating this transformation.Topics Include:Alayna Broaderson and Andy Perkins introduce AWS Infrastructure Partnerships and ISV SalesGenerative AI profoundly changing how ISVs build, deliver and market software productsTwo ISV categories emerging: established SaaS companies versus pure gen AI startupsLegacy SaaS firms struggle with infrastructure modernization and potential revenue cannibalizationPure gen AI companies face scaling challenges, reliability issues and cost optimizationRevenue models shifting from subscription-based to consumption-based pricing per token/prompt/taskFuture-proofing architecture critical as technology evolves rapidly like F-35 fighter jetsData becoming key differentiator, especially domain-specific datasets in healthcare and legalBalancing cost, accuracy, latency and customer experience creates complex optimization challengesMultiple specialized models replacing single solutions, with agentic AI accelerating this trendHuman capital challenges include retraining engineering teams and finding expensive AI talentSecurity, compliance and explainability now mandatory - no more black box solutionsEnterprise customers struggle with data organization and quantifying clear gen AI ROIISV pricing models evolving with tiered structures and targeted vertical use casesTraditional SaaS playbooks failing in generative AI landscape due to ROI uncertaintyPOC-based go-to-market with free trials and case study selling proving most effectivePricing strategies include AI gates, credit systems and separate SKUs for servicesCustomer trust requires proactive security messaging and auditable, transparent AI solutionsModular architecture enables evolution as new technologies emerge in fast-changing marketAWS positioning as ultimate gen AI toolkit partner with ISV collaboration opportunitiesParticipants:Alayna Broaderson - Sr Manager, Infrastructure Technology Partnership, Amazon Web ServicesAndy Perkins - General Manager, US ISV, Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Hear how PagerDuty and Zoom built successful AI products using Amazon Q-Index to solve real customer problems like incident response and meeting intelligence, while sharing practical lessons from their early adoption journey.Topics Include:David Gordon introduces AWS Q-Business partnerships with PagerDuty and ZoomMeet Everaldo Aguiar: PagerDuty's Applied AI leader with academia and enterprise backgroundPaul Magnaghi from Zoom brings AI platform scaling experience from SeattleQ-Business launched over a year ago as managed generative AI servicePlatform enables agentic experiences: content discovery, analysis, and process automationBuilt on AWS Bedrock with enterprise guardrails and data source integrationPartners wanted backend capabilities but preferred their own UI and modelsQ-Index provides vector database functionality for ISV partner integrationsEveraldo explains PagerDuty's evolution from traditional ML to generative AI solutionsHistorical challenges: alert fatigue, noise reduction using machine learning approachesNew gen AI opportunities: incident context, relevant data surfacing, automated postmortemsEngineering teams faced learning curve with agents and high-latency user experiencesPaul discusses Zoom's existing AI: virtual backgrounds and voice isolation technologyAI Companion strategy focused on simplicity during complex generative AI adoptionProblem identified: valuable meeting conversations disappear after Zoom calls endCustomer feedback revealed need for enterprise data integration beyond basic summariesGoal: combine unstructured conversations with structured enterprise data seamlesslyPagerDuty Advanced provides agentic AI for on-call engineers during incidentsQ-Index integration accesses internal documentation: Confluence pages, runbooks, proceduresDemo shows Slack integration pulling relevant incident response documentation automaticallyAccess control lists ensure users see only data they're authorized to accessZoom's AI companion panel enables real-time meeting questions and summariesExample use cases: decision tracking, incident analysis, action item identificationAdvice for starting: standardize practices and create internal development templatesSingle data access point reduces legal and security evaluation overheadCenter of excellence approach helps teams move quickly across product divisionsCut through generative AI buzzwords to focus on real user valueFederated AWS Bedrock architecture provides model choice and flexibility meeting customersCustomer trust alignment between Zoom conversations and AWS data handlingGetting started: PagerDuty Advance available now, Zoom AI free with paid add-onsParticipants:Everaldo Aguiar – Senior Engineering Manager, Applied AI, PagerDutyPaul Magnaghi – Head of AI & ISV Go To Market, ZoomDavid Gordon - Global Business Development, Amazon Q for Business. Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:PagerDuty Website, LinkedIn & AWS MarketplaceZoom Website, LinkedIn & AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Teleport Co-Founder and CEO Ev Kontsevoy discusses the security vs productivity trade-off that plagues growing companies and how Teleport's trusted computing model protects against the exponential growth of cybersecurity threats.Topics Include:Teleport CEO explains how to make infrastructure "nearly unhackable" through trusted computingTraditional security vs productivity trade-off: high security kills team efficiencyCompanies buy every security solution but still get told they're at riskWhy "crown jewels" thinking fails: computers should protect everything at scaleModern infrastructure has too many access paths to enumerate and secureApple's PCC specification shows trusted computing working in real production environmentsAI revolutionizes both offensive and defensive cybersecurity capabilities for everyone80% of companies can't guarantee they've removed all ex-employee accessIdentity fragmentation across systems creates anonymous relationships and security gapsHuman error probability grows exponentially as companies scale in three dimensionsYour laptop already demonstrates trusted computing: seamless access without constant loginsApple ecosystem shows device trust at scale through secure enclavesAI agents need trusted identities just like humans and machinesAWS marketplace partnership accelerates deals and provides strategic account insightsHire someone who understands partnership dynamics before starting with AWSGenerative AI will make identity attacks cheaper and faster than everSecurity responsibility shifting from IT teams to platform engineering teamsTeleport's "steady state invariant": infrastructure locked down except during authorized workTemporary access granted through tickets, then automatically revoked after completionLegacy systems and IoT devices require extending trust models beyond cloud-nativeParticipants:Ev Kontsevoy – Co-Founder and CEO, TeleportFurther Links:Teleport WebsiteTeleport AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Raj Koo, CTO of DTEX Systems, discusses how their enterprise-grade generative AI platform detects and disarms insider threats and enables them to stay ahead of evolving risks.Topics Include:Raj Koo, CTO of DTEX Systems, joins from Adelaide to discuss insider threat detectionDTEX evolved from Adelaide startup to Bay Area headquarters, serving Fortune 500 companiesCompany specializes in understanding human behavior and intention behind insider threatsMarket shifting beyond cyber indicators to focus on behavioral analysis and detectionRecent case: US citizen sold identity to North Korean DPRK IT workersForeign entities used stolen credentials to infiltrate American companies undetectedDTEX's behavioral detection systems helped identify this sophisticated identity theft operationGenerative AI becomes double-edged sword - used by both threat actors and defendersBad actors use AI for fake resumes and deepfake interviewsDTEX uses traditional machine learning for risk modeling, GenAI for analyst interpretationGoal is empowering security analysts to work faster, not replacing human expertiseAWS GenAI Innovation Center helped develop guardrails and usage boundaries for enterpriseChallenge: enterprises must follow rules while hackers operate without ethical constraintsDTEX gains advantage through proprietary datasets unavailable to public AI modelsAWS Bedrock partnership enables private, co-located language models for data securityPrivate preview launched February 2024 with AWS Innovation Center acceleration supportSoftware leaders should prioritize privacy-by-design from day one of GenAI adoptionFuture threat: information sharing shifts from files to AI-powered data queriesMonitoring who asks what questions of AI systems becomes critical security concernDTEX contributes to OpenSearch development while building vector databases for analysisParticipants:Rajan Koo – Chief Technology Officer, DTEX SystemsFurther Links:DTEX Systems WebsiteDTEX Systems AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Enterprise AI leaders from C3 AI, Resolve AI, and Scale AI reveal how Fortune 100 companies are successfully scaling agentic AI from pilots to production and share secrets for successful AI transformation.Topics Include:Panel introduces three AI leaders from Resolve AI, C3 AI, and Scale AIResolve AI builds autonomous site reliability engineers for production incident responseC3 AI provides full-stack platform for developing enterprise agentic AI workflowsScale AI helps Fortune 100 companies adopt agents with private data integrationMoving from AI pilots to production requires custom solutions, not shrink-wrap softwareSuccess demands working directly with customers to understand their specific workflowsAll enterprise AI solutions need well-curated access to internal data and resourcesSoftware engineering has permanently shifted to agentic coding with no going backAI agents rapidly improving in reasoning, tool use, and contextual understandingIndustry moving from simple co-pilots to agents solving complex multi-step problemsSpiros coins new concept: evolving from "systems of record" to "systems of knowledge"Democratized development platforms let enterprises declare their own agent workflowsSemantic business layers enable agents to understand domain-specific enterprise operationsTrust and observability remain major barriers to enterprise agent adoptionOversight layers essential for agents making longer-horizon autonomous business decisionsPerformance tracking and calibration systems needed like MLOps for reasoning chainsCEO-level top-down support required for successful AI transformation initiativesTraditional per-seat SaaS pricing models completely broken for agentic AI solutionsIndustry shifting toward outcome-based and work-completion pricing models insteadReal examples shared: agent collaboration in production engineering and sales automationParticipants:Nikhil Krishnan – SVP & Chief Technology Officer, Data Science, C3 AISpiros Xanthos – Founder and CEO, Resolve AIVijay Karunamurthy – Head of Engineering, Product and Design / Field Chief Technology Officer, Scale AIAndy Perkins – GM, US ISV Sales – Data, Analytics, GenAI, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:C3 – Website – AWS MarketplaceResolve AI – Website – AWS MarketplaceScale AI – Website – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Industry leaders from Automation Anywhere and AWS discuss how modern customer data collection has evolved, and practical strategies for implementing enterprise automation at scale.Topics Include:Automation Anywhere and AWS experts discuss modern enterprise automation strategiesTraditional profiting strategies may not work with today's changing business modelsCustomer data collection methods have evolved across multiple platforms significantlyModern verification processes include automated validation systems and streamlined timelinesBackground check automation is increasingly handled by AI-powered models and systemsStanford's "Wonder Bread" research paper introduced revolutionary enterprise process observation technologyWonder Bread demonstrated AI systems watching and automatically learning hospital workflowsThe technology can author workflows by observing real enterprise processesEnterprise Process Management built around observed behaviors shows promising resultsVerification challenges exist since Wonder Bread research isn't widely publicized yetProcess observation technology could transform how enterprises handle workflow creationSalesforce Wizard Interface dominates many current automation implementations in enterprisesSalesforce Agent Codes offer alternative approaches to traditional automation methodsAWS platform selection involves careful consideration of enterprise integration needsDemo implementations showcase real-world timeline expectations and deployment maturity levelsCurrent automation solutions have reached significant scale across various industriesWorkflow automation differs fundamentally from true agentic intelligence systems capabilitiesAgentic AI demonstrates autonomous decision-making beyond simple rule-based automation processesUnderstanding this distinction helps organizations choose appropriate technology approaches effectivelySession concludes with clarity on modern automation landscape and implementation strategiesParticipants:Pratyush Garikapati – Director of Products, Automation AnywhereSreenath Gotur – Snr Generative AI Specialist, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Automation Anywhere websiteAutomation Anywhere – AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

AWS's Mark Relph draws fascinating parallels between today's AI revolution and the 1900s agricultural mechanization that delivered 2,000% productivity gains, while exploring how agentic AI will fundamentally reshape every aspect of software business models.Topics Include:Mark Relph directs AWS's data and AI partner go-to-market strategy teamHis role focuses on making ISV partners a force multiplier for customer successPreviously ran go-to-market for Amazon Bedrock, AWS's fastest growing service everCurrent AI adoption pace exceeds even the early cloud computing boom yearsHistorical parallel: 1900s agricultural mechanization delivered 2,000% productivity gains and 95% resource reductionFirst commercial self-propelled farming equipment revolutionized entire economies and never looked back500 machines formed the "Harvest Brigade" during WWII, harvesting from Texas to CanadaMark has spoken to 600+ AWS customers about GenAI over two yearsOrganizations range from AI pioneers to those still "fending off pirates" internallyGenAI has become a phenomenal assistant within organizations for content and automationAWS's AI stack has three layers: infrastructure, Bedrock, and applicationsBottom layer provides complete control over training, inference, and custom applicationsMiddle layer Bedrock serves as the "operating system" for generative AI applicationsTop layer offers ready-to-use AI through Q assistants and productivity toolsAI systems are rapidly becoming more complex with multiple model chainsMany current "agents" are just really, really long prompts (Mark's hot take)Task-specific models are emerging as one size won't fit all use casesEvolution moves from human-driven AI to agent-assisted to fully autonomous agentsAgent readiness requires APIs that allow software to interact autonomouslyTraditional UIs become unnecessary when agents interface directly with systemsCore competencies shift when AI handles the actual "doing" of tasksSales and marketing must adapt to agents delivering outcomes autonomouslyGo-to-market strategies need complete rethinking for an agentic worldThe agentic age is upon us and AWS partners should shape the futureParticipants:Mark Relph – Director – Data & AI Partner Go-To-Market, Amazon Web ServicesSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Building on last week's DigiMarCon 2025 recap, Leslie Richards and Isabelle Horan unpack the evolution from traditional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and what that means for law firms today.

Industry leaders from Celonis and AWS explain why 2025 marks the inflection point for agentic AI and how early adopters are gaining significant competitive advantages in efficiency and innovation.Topics Include:AWS's Cristen Hughes and Celonis's Jeff Naughton discuss AI agent transformationAndy Jassy declares AI agents will fundamentally change how we workThree key trends make AI agents practical: smarter models, longer tasks, cheaper costsAI now beats humans on complex benchmarks for the first time everClaude 3.7 cracked graduate-level reasoning where humans previously dominated completelyAI evolved from brief interactions to managing sustained multi-step complex workflowsProcessing costs plummeted 99.7% making enterprise-grade AI economically viable at scaleWe're transitioning from 2023's adaptation era to 2025's human-AI collaboration eraBy 2028, AI will suggest actions to humans rather than vice versaAgents are autonomous software that plan, act, and reason independently with minimal interventionAgent workflow: receive human request, create plan, execute actions, review, adjust, deliverFour agent components: brain (LLM), memory (context), actions (tools), persona (role definition)AWS offers three building approaches: ready-made solutions, managed platform, DIY developmentKey enterprise applications: software development acceleration, customer care automation, knowledge work optimizationManual processes like accounts payable offer huge transformation opportunities through intelligent automationDeep process analysis is critical before deploying agents for maximum effectivenessCelonis pioneered process mining to help enterprises understand their actual workflow realitiesCompanies are collections of interacting processes that agents need proper context to navigateProcess intelligence provides agents with placement guidance, data feeds, monitoring, and workflow directionCelonis-AWS partnership demonstrates order management agents that automatically handle at-risk situationsParticipants:Jeff Naughton – SVP and Fellow, CelonisCristen Hughes – Solutions Architecture Leader, ISV, North America, Amazon Web ServicesFurther Links:Celonis WebsiteCelonis on AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Justin DiPietro, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer of Glia, shares how they are leveraging AI to enhance the customer experience in the highly regulated world of financial institutions.Topics Include:Glia provides voice, digital, and AI services for customer-facing and internal operationsBuilt on "channel-less architecture" unlike traditional contact centers that added channels sequentiallyOne interaction can move seamlessly between channels (voice, chat, SMS, social)AI applies across all channels simultaneously rather than per individual channel700 customers, primarily banks and credit unions, 370 employees, headquartered in New YorkTargets 3,500 banks and credit unions across the United States marketFocuses exclusively on financial services and other regulated industriesAI for regulated industries requires different approach than non-regulated businessesTraditional contact centers had trade-off between cost and quality of serviceAI enables higher quality while simultaneously decreasing costs for contact centersNumber one reason people call banks: "What's my balance?" (20% of calls)Financial services require 100% accuracy, not 99.999% due to trust requirementsUses AWS exclusively for security, reliability, and future-oriented technology accessReal-time system requires triple-hot redundancy; seconds matter for live callsWorks with Bedrock team; customers certify Bedrock rather than individual featuresShowed examples of competitors' AI giving illegal million-dollar loans at 0%"Responsible AI" separates probabilistic understanding from deterministic responses to customersUses three model types: client models, network models, and protective modelsTraditional NLP had 50% accuracy; their LLM approach achieves 100% understandingPolicy is "use Nova unless" they can't, primarily for speed benefitsParticipants:Justin DiPietro – Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer, GliaFurther Links:Glia WebsiteGlia AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Ed Bailey, Field CISO at Cribl, shares how Cribl and AWS are helping customers rethink their data strategy by making it easier to modernize, reduce complexity, and unlock long-term flexibility.Topics Include:Ed Bailey introduces topic: bridging gap between security data requirements and budgetCompanies face mismatch: 10TB data needs vs 5TB licensing budget constraintsData volumes growing exponentially while budgets remain relatively flat year-over-yearIT security data differs from BI: enormous volume, variety, complexityMany companies discover 600+ data sources during SIEM migration projects50% of SIEM data remains un-accessed within 90 days of ingestionComplex data collection architectures break frequently and require excessive maintenanceTeams spend 80% time collecting data, only 20% analyzing for valueData collection and storage are costs; analytics and insights provide business valuePoor data quality creates operational chaos requiring dozens of browser tabsSOC analysts struggle with context switching across multiple disconnected systemsTraditional vendor approach: "give us all data, we'll solve problems" is outdatedData modernization requires sharing information widely across organizational business unitsData maturity model progression: patchwork → efficiency → optimization → innovationData tiering strategy: route expensive SIEM data vs cheaper data lake storageSIEM costs ~$1/GB while data lakes cost ~$0.15-0.20/GB for storageCompliance retention data should go to object storage at penny fractionsDecouple data retention from vendor tools to enable migration flexibilityCribl platform offers integrated solutions: Stream, Search, Lake, Edge componentsCustomer success: Siemens reduced 5TB to 500GB while maintaining security effectivenessParticipants:Edward Bailey – Field CISO, CriblFurther Links:Cribl WebsiteCribl on AWS MarketplaceSee how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/

Leslie Richards and Isabelle Horan share key takeaways from the 2025 DigiMarCon Conference, including how law firms can move beyond basic content generation and instead use generative AI tools for advanced strategic applications.

Our U.S. Media & Entertainment Analyst Benjamin Swinburne discusses how GenAI is transforming content creation, distribution and also raising some serious ethical questions. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ben Swinburne, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Media and Entertainment Analyst. Today – GenAI is poised to shake up the entertainment business. It's Wednesday, July 23, at 10am in New York.It's never been easier to create art for anyone – with a little help from GenerativeAI. You can transform photos of yourself or loved ones in the style of a popular Japanese movie studio or any era of visual art to your liking. You can create a short movie by simply typing in a few prompts. Even I can speak to youin several different languages. I can ask about the weather:Hvordan er været i dag?Wie ist das wetter heute?आज मौसम कैसा है? In the media and entertainment industry, GenAI is expected to bring about a seismic shift in how content is made and consumed. A recent production used AI to de-age actors and recreate the likeness of a deceased performer—cutting what used to take hundreds of VFX artists a year to just a few months with a small team. There are many other examples of how GenAI is revolutionizing how stories are told, from scriptwriting and editing to visual effects and dubbing. In music, GenAI is helping music labels identify emerging talent and generate new compositions. GenAI can even create songs using the voices of long-gone artists – potentially extending revenue far beyond an artist's lifetime. GenAI-driven tools have the potential to reduce TV and film production costs by 10–30 percent, with animation and post-production among the biggest savings opportunities. GenAI could also transform how content reaches audiences. Recommendation engines can become even more predictive, using behavioral data to serve up exactly what listeners want—sometimes before we know what we want. And there's more studios can achieve in post production. GenAI can already dub content in multiple languages, even syncing mouth movements to match the new dialogue. This makes global distribution faster, cheaper, and more culturally relevant. With better engagement comes better monetization. Platforms will use GenAI to introduce new pricing tiers, targeted advertising, and personalized superfan content that taps into niche audiences willing to pay more. But all this innovation brings up profound ethical concerns. First, there's the issue of consent and copyright. Can GenAI tools legally use an actor's name, likeness or voice? Then there's the question of authorship. If an AI writes a script or composes a song, who owns the rights? The creator or the GenAI model? Labor unions are understandably worried. In 2023, AI was a major sticking point in negotiations between Hollywood studios and writers' and actors' guilds. The fear? That AI could replace human jobs or devalue creative work. There are also legal battles. Multiple lawsuits are underway over whether AI models trained on copyrighted material without permission violate intellectual property laws. The outcomes of these cases could reshape the entire industry. But here's a big question no one can ignore: Will audiences care if content is AI-generated? Some consumers are fascinated by AI-created music or visuals, while others crave the emotional depth and authenticity that comes from human storytelling. Made-by-humans could become a premium label in itself. Now, despite GenAI's rapid rise, not every corner of entertainment is vulnerable. Live sports, concerts, and theater remain largely insulated from AI disruption. These experiences thrive on real-time emotion, unpredictability, and human connection—things AI can't replicate. In an AI-saturated world, the value of live events and sports rights will rise, favoring owners of sports rights and live platforms. So where do we go from here? By and large, we're entering an era where storytelling is no longer limited by budget or geography. GenAI is lowering the barriers to entry, expanding the creative class, and reshaping the economics of media. The winners in this new landscape will likely be companies that can scale—platforms with massive user bases, deep data pools, and the engineering talent to integrate GenAI seamlessly. But there's also room for agile newcomers who can innovate faster than the incumbents and disrupt the disrupters. No doubt, as the tools get better, the questions get harder. And that's where the real story begins. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.