POPULARITY
Scaling Copilot: Hidden Risks & Data ExposureMost organizations are adopting Microsoft Copilot as a natural extension of their existing Microsoft environment, but scaling it is not as simple as assigning licenses.In this discussion, Punit Bhatia and Ben Wilcox explore what really happens when Copilot is introduced into environments with scattered data, unstructured information, and complex access permissions.They highlight how AI doesn't create new risks but makes existing ones visible and usable. Copilot can surface data based on access rights even when those permissions were never properly reviewed.A real-world example shows how an employee unintentionally accessed a coworker's personal improvement plan due to misconfigured permissions, turning it into a potential privacy breach.The conversation emphasizes that successful Copilot adoption requires proper data governance, clear access controls, and mechanisms such as data classification, sensitivity labeling, and encryption.This is not a plug-and-play exercise organization that must prepare their data before scaling AI.
Is this episode with Kirk Drake real or AI-generated? It is real, but the conversation reveals how quickly artificial intelligence is transforming credit unions, CUSOs, fintech partnerships, business lending, and the future of work.Kirk Drake, founder and CEO of CU 2.0, joins Credit Union Conversations host and MBFS CEO Mark Ritter to discuss how credit unions can move beyond experimenting with ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools to become truly AI-first organizations.Kirk explains why artificial intelligence has advanced faster than expected, while many organizations have been slower to rethink their workflows and business models. He shares practical examples of how credit unions are using AI to analyze data, automate subpoena requests, monitor obituaries, improve internal processes, strengthen cybersecurity, and complete projects that once required months of work in only days or weeks.Mark and Kirk also discuss how credit unions can identify credible AI partners, why financial services experience still matters, and how AI could change jobs without eliminating the need for people. Rather than replacing entire teams, AI can help employees become more productive, develop specialized expertise, and pursue opportunities that were previously too expensive or time-consuming.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:✅ How credit unions can move from experimenting with AI to becoming AI-first organizations✅ Which credit union workflows can be improved through AI agents and automation✅ How to evaluate AI consultants, vendors, and fintech partners✅ Why experienced employees and subject matter experts will remain valuable in an AI-driven workplace✅ How AI could reshape credit union jobs, productivity, member service, and business growthSubscribe to Credit Union Conversations for insights on credit union leadership, AI, fintech, and business lending. Connect with MBFS to explore lending support and growth solutions.TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Mark introduces Kirk Drake of CU 2.0(01:06) Kirk's journey from credit union technology to AI entrepreneurship(03:44) How to evaluate fintech ideas and credit union business opportunities(07:24) Why solving a problem for 20 credit unions can create a viable business(08:27) How quickly artificial intelligence has evolved since ChatGPT launched(11:04) How Microsoft Copilot and AI tools are changing Mark's daily work(13:07) How CU 2.0 is helping MBFS and credit unions become AI-first(17:22) Real-world credit union AI applications and workflow automation(20:15) How credit unions can evaluate AI vendors and consultants(24:03) Why strong AI partners experiment, build, test, and understand financial services(27:53) Separating useful artificial intelligence from AI slop and fearmongering(29:43) How AI could transform jobs without eliminating the workforce(34:38) Why small time savings can create significant long-term economic value(36:02) How demographics, automation, and robotics could shape the future of work(38:06) How to connect with Kirk Drake and CU 2.0KEY TAKEAWAYS:
AI summaries pull an average of just 29 words from your email, so every word in that window counts. Jay's formula for the first 150 to 200 characters is action plus product plus deadline, things like "Shop 40% off all Nike running shoes through Sunday at midnight" or "Register for the 2027 HR compliance briefing by Friday," and testing it is driving a 19% increase in click through rates. Bullet points matter even more: bulleted content gets pulled into AI summaries 77% of the time in Gmail, 84% in Apple Mail, and 92% in Microsoft Copilot. Daniel argues Marketing headlines need to evolve too, since vague hooks like "this is crazy" lose their punch once AI strips away the context. He and Jay also unpack a MediaPost survey showing over 70% of people are comfortable with AI scanning their inbox for deals and recommendations, though Daniel notes businesses are far warier about AI reading emails with internal strategy. The bigger idea: email Marketing is being rebuilt around what AI can actually read, and the prettiest template loses if it's not structured to get pulled into a summary. If you want the exact formulas and formatting Marketers are using to win in AI summaries right now, this is the episode for you. Follow Jay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwedelson/ Podcast: Do This, Not That Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter:https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit:https://workweek.com/
In this episode I ask the question about whether privacy is becoming and optional and take a deep dive into creating better data structures in places like SharePoint and Teams that help users and AI generate better results. There is also the usual look at recent cloud news from Microsoft and thoughts on how even all this is become about AI. Love your feedback. Resources CIAOPS Need to Know podcast - CIAOPS - Need to Know podcasts | CIAOPS X - https://www.twitter.com/directorcia director@ciaops.com CIAOPS Blog Join my Teams Shared Channel – CIAOPS CIAOPS Merch store - CIAOPS Become a CIAOPS Patron CIAOPS AI Dojo CIAOPS weekly news update - CIA Brief – CIAOPS CIAOPS Labs – The Special Activities Division of the CIAOPS Support CIAOPS Get your M365 questions answered via email Join my email list A special thanks to the CIAOPS Patron community for making this podcast possible. You can find the benefits of a subscription to the community and become a member at https://www.ciaopspatron.com Updates Take control of your EWSAllowedAppIDs list before EWS access changes Microsoft is changing how Exchange Web Services (EWS) access is managed. Organizations should review and manage their EWSAllowedAppIDs list now to ensure approved applications retain access and to avoid disruptions when the new controls take effect. Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/exchange/take-control-of-your-ewsallowedappids-list-before-ews-access-changes/4553534 Understanding the new 100 GB mailbox entitlement for Microsoft 365 Business suites Microsoft explains the introduction of 100 GB mailbox storage for eligible Microsoft 365 Business plans, outlining entitlement requirements and how organizations can benefit from increased mailbox capacity. Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/exchange/understanding-the-new-100-gb-mailbox-entitlement-for-microsoft-365-business-suit/4548243 AI Available today: OpenAI GPT-6 Astra in Microsoft Copilot Microsoft has added OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra model to Copilot, giving users access to an advanced foundation model designed to improve reasoning, content generation, and productivity experiences across Microsoft 365. Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/available-today-openai-gpt-6-astra-in-microsoft-copilot/4552808 Available today: Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1 in Microsoft Copilot Anthropic's Claude Fable 5.1 model is now available in Microsoft Copilot, expanding the range of AI models users can leverage for research, analysis, content creation, and complex business tasks. Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/available-today-anthropic-claude-fable-5-1-in-microsoft-copilot/4551974 Expanding model choice in Copilot with Grok Access to Grok models is rolling out through the Microsoft Frontier Program in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. We are starting with a focused release to gather customer feedback and learn how customers use the model across common productivity scenarios. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/expanding-model-choice-in-copilot-with-grok/4555749 What's New in Microsoft Copilot | August 2026 A monthly roundup of new Copilot capabilities, including model updates, workflow enhancements, productivity improvements, and new AI-powered features designed to help users work more effectively. Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft-copilot-blog/what%25E2%2580%2599s-new-in-microsoft-copilot--august-2026/4551960 Security What's new in Microsoft Security: August 2026 Microsoft's monthly security update covering new capabilities across Defender, Sentinel, Entra, Security Copilot, and other security products, along with recent security announcements and enhancements. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/08/27/whats-new-in-microsoft-security-august-2026/ Passkey-themed social engineering leads to identity and cloud compromise Microsoft details a campaign where attackers used passkey-related social engineering techniques to trick users into compromising credentials and cloud identities, while also providing mitigation guidance. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/09/09/passkey-themed-social-engineering-leads-identity-cloud-compromise/ Protecting organizations from AI-assisted executive impersonation and invoice fraud This security guidance examines how attackers are using AI to impersonate executives and conduct invoice fraud, alongside recommendations to help organizations detect and prevent these attacks. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/09/10/protecting-organizations-ai-assisted-executive-impersonation-invoice-fraud/ Impersonating IT support: how threat actors turn a remote session into enterprise-wide access Microsoft analyzes how attackers impersonate IT support staff to gain remote access and expand their foothold within organizations, highlighting attack techniques and defensive measures. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2026/09/02/impersonating-it-support-threat-actors-turn-remote-session-into-enterprise-wide-access/ From CIAOPS Image Model Comparison A practical comparison of image generation models, reviewing differences in output quality, style, and effectiveness to help users evaluate which AI image generation model best suits their needs. Link: https://directorcia.github.io/Office365/image-comparison.html September webinar - local AI https://blog.ciaops.com/2026/09/10/ciaops-need-to-know-microsoft-365-webinar-september-5/
Send us Fan MailIntelligence is turning into a resource you can scale like electricity, and that shift changes what's actually worth your attention in the AI news cycle. In part two of their refreshed Fundamentals of AI series, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias pick up exactly where part one left off, moving from definitions and building blocks into what abundant intelligence means in practice for associations. They trace AI's growing role in drug discovery, diagnostics, and materials science, explain why a model's black box matters less now that reasoning is visible, and reframe hallucinations as a byproduct of the same creativity that makes these tools useful. They also break down how to weigh AI's energy and water costs against everyday technology, and why picking an AI vendor should never be treated like a slow, locked-in AMS purchase. Amith's throughline: build for a world where intelligence keeps getting cheaper, and protect your flexibility by keeping your agents decoupled from any single provider.
(Disclaimer: erstellt mit ChatGPT)Hallo liebe Community, Microsoft 365 nach der Sommerpause: Michael & Thorsten besprechen blockierte Teams-Transkript-Workflows, die Whiteboard-Migration nach OneDrive und Änderungen an der Microsoft Copilot-App. Ihr erfahrt, welche Einstellungen für den Zugriff von Apps und Agents auf Meeting-Transkripte relevant sind und warum der memberOf Rule Operator in Microsoft Entra ID Aufmerksamkeit braucht. Beim mobilen Copilot bleibt die Frage nach der Absicherung über MAM und Microsoft Intune im Gespräch ausdrücklich offen. Im Mittelpunkt stehen konkrete Änderungen für euren Admin-Alltag.Die Themen im Detail:
AI is already reading your emails before your subscribers do, and if you're not writing for it, your message might not make it to the inbox at all. Jay breaks down "live text," the actual HTML text in your email that AI tools like Gmail summaries and Microsoft Copilot scan to build inbox previews and rewrite preheaders. Copilot alone just hit 30 million paid users, up 10 million in a single month, so this isn't a niche problem. Jay's rule: the first 150 characters of your email need to carry your most important, most specific information (webinar details, offer terms, whatever the ask is) because that's the window AI summaries pull from. Images and JPEGs don't count, and alt text doesn't count as live text either, no matter what you've been told. He predicts that within six months, half of all preheaders will be AI generated instead of whatever Marketers actually wrote. Daniel adds that the preheader isn't dead, it's just unreliable now. His fix: write your opening body copy so it echoes what you'd want the preheader to say, so if AI does pull from it, the message still lands the way you intended. He also flags that this isn't just an email problem. The same summarization behavior is starting to show up in text messages, and Marketers need to start thinking about how their SMS gets condensed too. The bigger idea: the prettiest, most designed email templates are losing right now. If AI can't read the words inside your design, it doesn't matter how good it looks. Email Marketing is quietly reverting to a text-first format, closer to how it worked 10 to 15 years ago. If you want your emails to survive the next wave of inbox AI, this is the episode for you. Follow Jay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwedelson/ Podcast: Do This, Not That Follow Daniel: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@themarketingmillennials/featured Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Dmurr68 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-murray-marketing Sign up for The Marketing Millennials newsletter:https://themarketingmillennials.com/ Daniel is a Workweek friend, working to produce amazing podcasts. To find out more, visit:https://workweek.com/
What happens when you separate elite legal talent from the traditional law firm structure? This week on The Geek in Review, we talk with Manuel Deó, co-founder and co-CEO of Ambar Partners, about a model designed around senior independent lawyers, flexible capacity, enterprise technology, and client choice. Deó explains why he and co-founder Rosa Espín did not set out to replace Big Law, but instead to address a gap between permanent in-house hiring and traditional outside counsel.At the center of Ambar's model is a simple idea: legal demand comes in different shapes, and the delivery model should match the problem. Deó describes how Ambar gives lawyers control over the clients, projects, fees, and schedules they take on, while giving clients greater visibility into cost and the individual lawyers doing the work. He also discusses Ambar's recent Chambers recognition and argues that the term “alternative” is starting to lose some of its usefulness as clients grow more comfortable assembling legal services from a wider range of providers.Deó walks through what Ambar calls its legal operating system, built around belonging, business, backbone, and badge. The model combines a professional community with business development, compliance, contracting, billing, technology, and institutional credibility for independent lawyers and specialist boutiques. Ambar's public materials describe a shared technology environment that includes tools such as Harvey, Microsoft Copilot, Legora, and other legal technology products. The goal, according to Deó, is to give independent lawyers access to the infrastructure associated with a large firm without requiring them to give up professional independence.The conversation also turns to AI, knowledge, and professional judgment. Deó argues that legal knowledge is becoming more abundant while judgment grows more valuable. He describes Ambar's work on “expert twins,” where approved knowledge, prior work, playbooks, and experience associated with an individual lawyer form a trusted layer for AI-assisted work. That emphasis on institutional knowledge and permissions echoes a broader trend across legal AI, where vendors are increasingly focused on connecting AI systems to trusted internal work product and organizational context.Finally, Deó offers a broader view of where legal delivery is heading. He sees legal departments assembling teams dynamically from in-house lawyers, traditional firms, independent specialists, boutiques, managed services, and AI agents based on the needs of a particular matter. Instead of asking which firm to hire, clients increasingly have reason to ask what combination of people, technology, expertise, and risk structure best fits the work. For Deó, the future belongs less to a single dominant delivery model and more to legal departments acting as orchestrators of capability.Listen on mobile platforms: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Substack[Special Thanks to Legal Technology Hub for their sponsoring this episode.]Email: geekinreviewpodcast@gmail.comMusic: Jerry David DeCiccaLINKSAmbar PartnersAmbar CommunityAmbar Hauss Membership PlansDr. No Newsletter
(Lander, WY) – Central Wyoming College is teaming up with Manufacturing Works to host a one day AI For Business event on September 23rd in Lander. Participants will learn more about; – AI fundamentals and how today's tools work – Tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and other AI platforms – Privacy, security, ethics, and responsible AI use – How to write more effective prompts – How to create repeatable AI-powered workflows – Practical applications for marketing, customer communication, research, planning, document creation, operations, and administrative work – How AI agents and assistants can support common business processes CWC’s Tash Harris dropped by to tell us more about the event. Listen to that conversation in the player below. More event details can be found here.
Send us Fan MailA drug company CEO just made the best case yet for why platform choice matters less than most associations think. Marking three years of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dig into Pfizer's new playbook for organizing around AI, Thomson Reuters' $40 million bet on building its own legal model instead of renting one, and the six-day mystery of Ox Alpha, an anonymous coding model that became OpenRouter's biggest launch ever. They trace Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla's three moves — structuring data, federating decisions, and building AI fluency — and translate each for associations of any size. They also unpack why Thomson Reuters trained its own model on Alibaba's open-weight Qwen instead of paying frontier labs, and how that differs from deploying a knowledge agent like Betty. Whether you're weighing a custom model or just trying to get your team AI-fluent, this episode lays out what actually moves the needle for associations.
Who will win the AI race in 2026?
Growing Your Firm | Strategies for Accountants, CPA's, Bookkeepers , and Tax Professionals
Is your accounting firm stuck between AI enthusiasts who move too fast and skeptical team members who refuse to adopt new technology? Bridging the gap between enthusiastic leadership and hesitant team members is one of the biggest challenges facing modern firms today. In this episode of Growing Your Firm, host David Cristello sits down with Jan Haugo, founder and AI researcher at smartaccountant.ai and co-author of Intuit's official AI certification curriculum. Jan researches and validates 50+ emerging AI tools annually for controllership, Record-to-Report (R2R), AP/AR, and advisory workflows. Jan breaks down how to bring your entire firm onboard with AI safely, navigate critical security and redaction requirements, and use AI to transform sales, onboarding, and advisory workflows. In this episode, we explore: Bridging the Team Divide: How to align AI enthusiasts and detractors to move the entire firm forward together. The Enterprise Security Advantage: Why staying within Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini ecosystems solves the PII (Personally Identifiable Information) and redaction hurdles. The Danger of Adobe Redaction: Why blacking out text in PDFs isn't enough to hide underlying metadata from AI models. Mapping Workflows Backward: Why defining the desired outcome before selecting software leads to better automation. Building a Custom AI "Sales Agent": How to train AI on your unique brand voice to research prospects, analyze websites, and guide discovery calls in real time. The Bleeding Edge: How unified AI awareness layers (like Town.io) aggregate transcripts, email, and task managers into an automated personal assistant. Key AI Tools & Solutions Mentioned: Smart Accountant AI: smartaccountant.ai Enterprise AI: Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and NotebookLM Workflow & Data Aggregation: Town.io, Notion, Asana, and SharePoint Custom AI Prompting: Claude and ChatGPT About Jan Haugo Jan Haugo is a leading AI researcher, trainer, and founder of smartaccountant.ai. She specializes in testing, validating, and deploying practical AI tools for controllership, financial close, and firm operations. Featured Guest: Jan Haugo
AI is moving faster than most organizations can govern it, and Tom Dagger, CISO at ADM, explains why that speed is now a cybersecurity, compliance, and business risk problem all at once. If you care about AI in the enterprise, exposure management, or what happens when innovation outruns control, this conversation is essential listening. Tom and I get brutally honest about the reality behind AI adoption at a global enterprise. ADM is already using tools like ADM Chat, Microsoft Copilot, and AI-powered SaaS, but Tom makes the case that the real challenge is not whether to use AI - it is how to manage the constant churn of models, harnesses, data sharing, and operational risk without breaking the business.You'll hear Tom break down the three buckets of AI usage every security leader needs to think about: personal productivity tools like chatbots and copilots, AI embedded inside third-party SaaS platforms, and enterprise-built AI use cases that create real operational value. We also dig into why “tokenomics,” model switching, and continuous patching are now board-level concerns, especially in regulated industries where a simple software change can mean downtime, lost productivity, or regulatory scrutiny. They unpack why vulnerability ops and exposure management are replacing old-school patch Tuesday thinking, and why security teams can no longer treat AI like just another software upgrade.The conversation gets even sharper when they turn to data governance and accountability. Tom warns that the biggest blind spot may not be model performance - it is the data being handed over to third parties, the hallucinations that can slip into workflows, and the dangerous myth that AI removes human responsibility. From fake legal citations to discriminatory automated decisions, the stakes are real, and the accountability still lands on the organization.They also look ahead at what AI and quantum could mean for transportation, manufacturing, food production, and even the future of entry-level jobs. As AI takes over more routine work, what happens to the ladder people traditionally climb to build experience? We go on to explore the long-term impact on talent pipelines, human judgment, and the roles that will still need a person in the loop. Essential listening for CISOs, security leaders, tech executives, and anyone trying to figure out how to adopt AI without surrendering control. This is a candid, practical conversation about where enterprise AI is headed, what can go wrong, and how leaders need to think now if they want to stay ahead. In this episode we bring cybersecurity, AI strategy, and real-world enterprise operations into one timely conversation. I hope you enjoy it!
Varonis AI Threat Lead on Copilot Exploits, Prompt Injection, and the AI Hacking Trifecta The host interviews Mark Vaitsman, AI threat research lead at Varonis, about Varonis Threat Labs' research into AI vulnerabilities, including a chain of single-click exploits in Microsoft Copilot (including "CoSnitch") and an Atlassian Confluence issue dubbed "RovoBlast" involving prompt injection, bypassing guardrails, and data exfiltration via a web-capable subagent. Vaitsman explains why built-in model guardrails are insufficient, citing AI's lack of loyalty and "unlimited hunger for data," and argues for layered controls like least privilege, monitoring, and restricting data access. He discusses psychological guardrail bypasses, introduces an "AI Hacking Trifecta" framework—enter, evade, escape—and comments on research showing AI-generated patches often fail, emphasizing human-led validation and guidance when using AI tools for security research. 00:00 Weekend Show Kickoff 00:44 Meet Mark Vaitsman 03:38 Teaching the Next Gen 04:19 Copilot Exploit Code Snitch 06:04 Atlassian RoboBlast Breakdown 08:52 Why Guardrails Fail 13:15 Manipulating Models to Comply 17:06 Securing Agents Without Handcuffs 20:11 AI Hacking Trifecta Framework 23:43 AI Patches and Human Research 27:43 Hope and Closing Thoughts
If your entire company was using ChatGPT in 2022.... good chance you ended up in some trouble.
How did prompt engineering die so quickly? ☠️And what the heck does context engineering even mean? One of the trickiest things about LLMs is they're changing daily, yet they're the engines that drive business results. But if the engine is constantly changing, then you also have to change how you drive and the roads you take. That's why we're tackling context engineering in this installment of our Start Here Series, the essential beginners guide to understanding AI basics and growing your skills. Context Engineering: How to Get Expert-Level Outputs From AI Chatbots -- An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageJoin the discussion on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Evolution from Prompt to Context EngineeringWhy Prompt Engineering Is Now ObsoleteDefining Context Engineering in AI ChatbotsSix-Part Framework for Context EngineeringFour Layer System for Structuring AI ContextBuilding Reusable Context Vaults and SkillsConnecting Business Data to AI ModelsTechniques to Achieve Expert-Level AI OutputsImportance of Context Windows in Large Language ModelsContext Engineering Best Practices and ScalabilityTimestamps:00:00 "Access AI Community & Tools"03:08 "Mastering Context in AI"07:23 "Smart Models Require Less Precision"12:01 "Context Engineering Beats Prompt Engineering"15:49 "AI Context: Six Key Blocks"16:47 "Building Context for Better Results"19:53 "AI: Training, Not Easy Button"25:17 "Chain of Thought Prompting Decline"29:11 "Show, Don't Tell Techniques"32:13 "Context, Reuse, and Scalable Systems"33:19 "AI Chatbots: Memory and Skills"Keywords: context engineering, AI chatbots, expert level outputs, prompt engineering, large language models, business context, AI models, custom instructions, data access, context window, prime prompt polish, reusable context vaults, context vaults, skills file, memory enabled models, ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, connectors, apps, searchable index, business data, personalized AI, context clues, reference material, examples, procedures, evaluation rubric, chain of thought prompting, generative AI, nondeterministic behavior, show don't tell technique, few shot examples, rubric first technique, grading criteria, output quality, scalable AI systems,Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info)
Send us Fan MailYour career doesn't stall because you “lack drive.” It stalls because nobody taught you how to run it like a real project. We talk with Tyler Norman, Director of Strategic Supply Chain Programs at Scholastic and a longtime PMI speaker, about turning career growth into a roadmap you can execute instead of a wish you revisit every January. We get into what separates education-only project management from experience-built project management and why internships, volunteering, and getting close to the work matter so much for new PMs. Tyler shares how he uses job descriptions like requirements, then performs gap analysis to identify the skills, certifications, and “component projects” that move him toward the next role. If you've ever wondered which PMI certification to pursue next or how to keep a steady continuous learning rhythm without burning out, you'll get a practical framework you can borrow. The conversation also goes beyond work. Tyler explains the moment he realized he was “killing it” professionally while his personal life was falling apart and how that sparked his most requested talk: managing your career path like a project. We dig into planning as a total human, building swim lanes for family, health, and career, and using seasons to prioritize what matters most right now. We also talk about modern AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude, including how to set your AI up to push back and be objective instead of acting like a cheerleader. If you want a clearer plan, better priorities, and a weekly rhythm that holds up in real life, subscribe to PM Mastery, share this with a PM friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.Links: Connect with Tyler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-norman/Website: https://navigatewithpurpose.comPM-Mastery Links:For a full podcast episode list, visit here: PM-Mastery Podcast Episodes.For a full list of blog posts, go here: PM-Mastery Blog PostsBecome a PURE PM: https://pm-mastery.com/pureCheck out Instructing.com for all your PM course needs: https://www.instructing.com/?ref=bd5e5cGet your free PDU Tracker here: https://pm-mastery.com/resource_links/
Two days of operator meetings in Melbourne shape the WOMA 2027 agenda, from performance upgrades and cable faults to foundations and bolts. The Uptime Wind Energy Podcast is brought to you by Weather Guard Lightning Tech, creators of the StrikeTape Ultra LPS retrofit. Subscribe to Uptime’s Substack newsletter. And check out Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” Youtube channel. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Allen Hall: Welcome to the Uptime Wind Energy podcast. I’m your host, Allen Hall. I’m here with Matthew Stead and Rosemary Barnes. And Rosemary, where are we? Rosemary Barnes: We’re in Melbourne, and we have been visiting future attendees and sponsors and people interested in, in the event to see what topics that we should be talking about. What are the hot topics of the moment? Allen Hall: Which is a very interesting two days, Matthew, in that, uh, we h- did meet with a number of operators based in Australia, but, uh, they’re also very worldly. They have talked to companies all over about operations and, and maintenance, and there are some really eye-opening topics- Mm that will be- Mm … at WOMA 2027 this year. Matthew Stead: Yeah. The thing that was interesting for me was [00:01:00]that actually the topics have changed each year. So, um, they’re evolving and the industry’s continuing to, to do better, and so that, that was really interesting. Performance upgrades was probably one of the big areas of, of new interest, I think. I think we heard with the pressure on pricing, uh, the market and so forth, you know, that, that 1% or 2% now is becoming more important. Um, so I think, uh, upgrades will definitely feature quite a lot. Um, balance of plant was also a big topic. Um, you just can’t ig- ignore the, um, transmission, you can’t ignore the transformers, you can’t ignore, uh, condensers and all these sorts of things, so yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Cables. Matthew Stead: Cables. Rosemary Barnes: Terminations. Terminations of cables. Specifically raised several times. Allen Hall: Yep. Yeah. It’s all about being more efficient, uh, getting more production, and then with the PPA prices, uh, that are changing- Matthew Stead: Mm … Allen Hall: rapidly, uh, everybody is paying more attention to the bottom line. Matthew Stead: Mm, mm. Allen Hall: Absolutely. There, there’s less cash running around, uh, chasing new development. It’s [00:02:00] more of a focus on making sure your, at least your existing assets are performing as, as well as they can be- Mm … which then opens up the, uh, Pandora’s box of opportunity. Mm. Because there are 1%’s all around a wind turbine. More specifically, uh, all the drive train issues, the blade issues, the generator issues, and even going into the substation. Mm. I, I was really shocked on BOP e- the, the one topic that came up, uh, yesterday and today was buried cables. Mm. Like- Matthew Stead: Faults … Allen Hall: faults. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Junctions. Finding- Yeah … finding faults and what to do about them. Yeah. Yeah. But I think in addition to just wanting more revenue, I think people have, are getting more sophisticated about what actually matters and then the finances. You know, everyone’s focused so much on availability, and now people- Mm … are like, okay, yeah, like once you’re at a certain level of availability, gets harder and harder to get more. And actually, you know, not all availability is equal. Is good. It, it [00:03:00] depends. Yeah. Yeah, like you wanna, um, you wanna focus on how much you’re generating at the times when electricity prices are high specifically, which usually means during lower wind speed periods. Yeah. Which is actually good because that matches really well with what is actually possible. It’s, it’s hard to get more power out of the turbine if it’s at, you know, its rated power, then you’re not g- More efficiency is not gonna get you any more, um, power output, whereas lower in the power curve- Mm … um, when wind speeds are lower, there’s less electricity in the grid and so prices are higher. And so- Mm … yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s why people are really asking to know more about what efficiency upgrades are possible, better ways to operate, scheduled maintenance, um, all those sorts of things. Mm. So that will be really interesting. Matthew Stead: Raising the bar on sophistication. Um, but also life extension Allen Hall: Yes, a lot of discussion about life extension Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, end of life and life extension End of life Yeah, um- Matthew Stead: Foundations, structures Which is Allen Hall: tied to PPA. Mm. A lot of that [00:04:00] discussion I, at least I looked at it as, uh, if I had a PPA and I can continue with that PPA with an existing turbine, I want to do that. Mm, Matthew Stead: mm, Allen Hall: mm. But how do I do that and how do I know that that existing turbine can last another five years? It seemed to go in five-year blocks, like can we get to another five years and then another and then, then another. Wow. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Once you get to 20, 20, 25 years, I think people like, uh, they, you know- It’s getting a little- Their original agreement might have been for 20, then they kind of just assume that there will be another five, and then after that they’re- Yeah … kind of reassessing cyclically and yeah, I know that people make plans for, you know, what components are replaceable, what would they have to get in, and I think that sometimes, uh, people doing those plans aren’t as familiar with the, you know, actual technical issues that are being faced. Like, is a blade a replaceable component? It may be early on in the life it sort of is, not easily, but you know, like a 25-year-old wind turbine, you know, good luck trying to order 10 new blades because you’ve got a, you know, an issue that’s- Allen Hall: Oh, well you, you need to read the news. Did you [00:05:00] see the news today about, uh, the, the wooden wind turbine blades as a replacement for aged blades? That, that’s happening- … in real time, Rosa. Rosemary Barnes: Okay. I know they- Yeah. Yep, yep. Okay. Okay. So that, that’s, that’s good. Making carbon new blade. E- even so, I don’t think that they’re- Okay. … gonna be, like, super-duper cheap, so you’re still gonna wanna be, um, doing a trade-off between y- you know, like, what kind of repairs. You might be able to change the way you’re operating to reduce loads. Um, you might be able to monitor to make sure that your blades are safe. You know, if you know that there’s an issue, um, you just wanna get some advanced warning before blades start falling off your, your tower. Mm. You know, and then you can push it further. Yeah. Whereas if you’ve got no information, then you have to be conservative and shut it down. Yeah. So yeah, I think there’s a whole lot that can be g- can be done there in that area. Matthew Stead: There was a point that came up today, which I think was close to your heart, on, you know, if you’re going to be going for 1% or 2% or 0.5% AEP improvement, how do you actually measure that and how do you set up a proper experiment? So- Rosemary Barnes: Yeah … Matthew Stead: I, I, I love that topic. [00:06:00] Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. No, it’s one that I, um, yeah, I deal with m- my clients I, I’m often… It’s one of the things that Pablo really loves to do, is to organize trials of that nature of new technologies and see if they work. But, um, yeah, asset managers are usually very, uh, focused on fast results. You know, they’ve got a, a big problem and they want a solution now, so they wanna just roll out the new technology over an entire wind farm. But if you do that, then it’s almost impossible. Unless you get, like, a huge benefit, like, uh, 10% gains or, you know, like reduce your failures by 50% or more, it’s really hard to actually- Mm pick that out if you just replace everything. Mm. Whereas if you do a really, really good, um, trial plan- Systematic. Yeah … and you match pairs very well so that you have, you know, a control for each turbine and there’s- so many variables in a wind farm. It’s not, it’s not as easy as just, like, randomly choosing 50% to do and not do. Mm. Mm. Mm. Like, you have to, you know, put some work into the trial design, and then, you know, like, do your statistical calculations ahead of time to know how long it’s gonna take you to get s- statistical [00:07:00]significance. So then you don’t just have a gut feeling about- Yep … how something went. You’ve actually got numbers, and then you can take those numbers to, you know, other wind farms that you’ve got- Yeah and, and know what’s going on much better. Matthew Stead: Worst study is an inconclusive study. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. Definitely. Allen Hall: Well, that comes back to the data analysis- Mm … which a lot of operators mentioned, and how much data there is and what to do with it, and it did seem like a couple of operators have chosen some AI tools, varying degrees, all the way down from Microsoft Copilot to something much more complicated. Uh, but I think there’s, uh, getting that d- to the last 1, 2, 3%, you’re going to need those tools- Absolutely … because what do you choose? Do you choose a blade? Do you choose a gearbox? Do you choose a generator? Do you go to the substation to get that percentage point or two Without having some really powerful tools- Mm. you may be wasting your time [00:08:00] and money. Matthew Stead: Mm. Allen Hall: Which is a, a, a very interesting, uh, aspect to wind energy because it’s such an industrial business that, uh, we haven’t used heavy computational tools, uh, un- until really now. Matthew Stead: Mm. Allen Hall: And maybe Australia’s at the forefront because of the PPA and negative pricing is that that will, uh, actually lead an industry. Because I haven’t seen a lot of that being used globally. Mm. So this is the first time an operator- Mm … that I’ve talked to has said, “We’re using it.” Matthew Stead: Yeah. It’s quite a different discussion, um, I think, you know, this year compared to previous years in that I think in the past it was getting to know what’s possible, but now it’s like real case studies are coming through. And a few of the people had some really good examples that we can talk about at the conference as to how they’ve actually been helped and how they did this and what the outcome was. I think, yeah, that would be really great content on that. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I think it’s gonna be a good mix of people who have used third party tools and have experience with it, people that are doing it in-house and can share- Mm some of the kinds of results- Mm … that, that you can get just from analyzing your own- Mm … [00:09:00] SCADA data. Um, people talking about how they get the data that they want. Mm. ‘Cause it’s not always so easy. You would think that, you know, you own a wind turbine, you have a right to have all of the data that comes through it, but it’s not. Um, even if you do technically have a right, it’s, uh, it, it’s harder to actually get it than you might think. Mm. So yeah, sharing all, all those kinds of things. But I think also, like just as important as talking about the successes is talking about the, the gaps that– people still feel lots of gaps. Like, okay, we’ve got all the data, we’re collecting it. We know that there’s so much potential here- Mm … but we don’t really- Mm … know what we can do, or it’s hard for us to, you know- Mm … make headway in this particular pain point. And that is really useful for companies that are developing tools to know what are the, the problems. Mm. Because then they can e- you know, they’re well placed to fix them. Allen Hall: Mm. Which leads to the discussion we had with the operators and, uh, some of the suppliers for WOMA 2027. There’s a lot of interest. And as we’re sitting in the conference rooms, I’m thinking, we may not have enough room to [00:10:00] seat everybody. Uh, the WOMA 2027 website is up and running, and you can register now. So just go to woma2027.com and get started there. At the same point, we’ve had a lot of contact with, uh, pretty much everybody that wants to sponsor the event, and there’s only a limited number of ways to sponsor. So if you’re interested in doing that, you, you need to go to woma2027.com and look at those, uh, part- particular packages and see what- Mm fits your, your business. Uh- Going back to some of the, the comments we were just discussing downstairs about what we heard at 2026, like, which is only a couple of months ago, right? It’s back in February this year. Uh, there’s, they’re still discussing what happened at WOMA 2026- Mm. Which was very fascinating- Mm because I think Rosemary, you and I have been to conferences that I have not thought an iota … about what happened at those conferences. Just nothing interesting does occur. There’s no new, new information, there’s [00:11:00] no new science, there’s no new operator approaches. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Allen Hall: But we’re gonna see a number of those- Yeah. Mm … come next March. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Well, I think it’s partly because I don’t know what other conference organizers do, but, you know, we’ve had a exhausting few days here. You’ve come all the way from America, obviously, and, and Claire as well, also come over, our producer. Um, so, y- you know, like, we’re working really hard to make sure that the topics… Like, it’s not an accident that the topics are ones that people are talking about later, because we come here to make sure that we get the right topics. And it’s not just these meetings as well. People get in touch, and- Mm … anybody watching, listening, who has, you know, something that they wanna talk about, then definitely, you know, send us a message, and yeah, we’re working on the agenda. We’ll, we’ll have a draft agenda in the next couple of weeks based on what we’ve learned here, but then we’ve got the hard job of it’s not just that you have a really interesting topic, you need to have a really great speaker- Yeah … or several really great speakers, usually covering several different aspects of the problem. You know, maybe it’s, uh, yeah, an asset [00:12:00] owner, an OEM, and some, some technology provider, you know, all together giving different, um, yeah, perspectives. That’s, I think, what makes a really great session. Mm. So yeah, we need the ideas for the sessions, and we also need the ideas for great speakers. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Right. Matthew Stead: Yeah. I think we’ve, we’ve already matched a few of those dots, so- Yeah … I, we’ve heard people asking for certain topics they wanna hear about, and then we’ve heard other operators saying, “Well, this is what we could talk about.” So I think we’ve already- Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, yeah … got some great Matthew Stead: progress. Rosemary Barnes: It was, it was interesting ’cause we, we built up a list of, you know- Matthew Stead: Yeah Rosemary Barnes: frequently raised topics, and then you’d say it to the next person that you went to- Mm … and they’re like, “Oh, that’s not a problem for us because we’ve done X, Y, Z.” And you’re like, “Okay. Well, excellent. You can, you can present the solutions that we know that other people- Yeah. Yes … are, are looking for.” Yeah. So it has been… Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s definitely worthwhile coming, as, as tiring as it is. Yeah. Um, definitely worthwhile, and we’ll get a much better agenda for the- Yeah … for the effort. Matthew Stead: And I think, I mean, it has been tiring. Um, but what, what made it for me was one of the operators said that [00:13:00] this is the only conference they will go to So I think, I think we’re doing the right thing. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think so. I understand too, like, you know, all of us, we kind of are forced to go to events because that’s where our, our clients and customers are, and so you need to see them. And yeah, like I’ve even gone to the extent of some events where I don’t particularly like the event, but I know everyone’s going. Mm. I just go and sit near the event for a couple of days and meet people at a cafe. So yeah, like we can’t get away from it. But if you’re an asset manager or, um, yeah, somebody in that kind of type of work, like you’ve got better things to do than listen to sales pitches aggressively thrown at you that aren’t relevant- Yeah to what you’re doing. So, um, yeah. Like I, I definitely love to hear that kind of feedback- Yeah … and wanna make sure that we get it every, every year. Like that’s- It’s, it’s Matthew Stead: encouraging. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah … yeah, that’s, that’s the point of the conference, so. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Matthew Stead: The other big topic was we would really love more OEM involvement. Um- Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Everybody wants more- … a lot of the operators- … OEM involvement- Yeah … all of the asset owners. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Like we want to [00:14:00] hear from OEMs more, have them there. Um, so yeah, we’re, we’ll be trying to To get those sorted Allen Hall: Well, WOMA is a global conference, although it’s Australia-based and there’s a, a number of Australian operators. There are Danish, Americans, uh, plenty of Europeans. Uh, we’re gonna see some from Southeast Asia, I think, this year. Mm-hmm. And, and Japan hopefully will come. Uh, because it’s a, it’s a global conference, there’s global knowledge- Mm … and wind is such a big industry. You may not have the solution in the United States, it may be sitting in Australia, and we need to exchange those ideas. Mm. And that, that’s the point. So w- we are continuing to look for those world experts as we have received all the inputs of these are all the topics we wanna go hear about. Great. Now it’s on us three to go find some of those world experts and, and try to get them to Melbourne. Yeah. And I, I think that’s a great opportunity. So if we do call you and ask you to participate in WOMA [00:15:00] 2027, please take it seriously because- Mm … you will be bombarded with great questions- Mm … and contacts and information. Uh, it’s an event you won’t wanna miss. Yeah. And- But I would- … there’s opportunity there. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I’d say we’re, we’re prioritizing OEMs, um, to, to get more participation, ideally to speak, but at least to be there. And we have heard from multiple asset owners in Australia that they want, they, they want to know what are some of the upgrades that they can do- Yeah … that you’re offering. They wanna know what’s coming next in terms of technology. They wanna know what are some of the non-Western options. So, you know, like it would be great to get some Chinese wind turbine, um, manufacturers as well. Like, they want all this information. They don’t want a slick sales brochure pitch that doesn’t give them any technical information. So we’re hopeful that we’ll be able to get, you know, some technical people to speak on, yeah, what are the upgrades you offer and how does it work- Mm-hmm … and show us a case study that demonstrates the improvements. Um, ’cause that [00:16:00] sometimes is really hard to get out of- Mm … out of OEMs. You know, that, “We’ve got this thing, it’s so amazing, you should get it.” Okay, well, what’s the business case for it? “Oh, well, we don’t have any numbers. Just trust us.” Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Um, it’s so common to get a pitch like that. So yeah, any, any OEM that has any- anything like that, either for the next generation of wind turbines or for upgrading the current fleet, yeah, if you’re willing to bring the data, then people, they are desperate to hear this information. Allen Hall: Mm. Matthew Stead: Yeah. That came up so many times. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Allen Hall: So what were the other, uh, topics that we’re… I’m just not thinking off the top of my head. I know foundations came up quite a bit- Foundations, yeah … which was an odd one, I think, because we haven’t seen that a lot in Australia. Yeah. But this year, foundations, foundations, foundations. Basically, the health of foundations. Yeah. Matthew Stead: Yeah. I think really there was a lifting of the maturity. Um, I think the topics were sort of showing that, you know, Maslow’s hierarchy and moving into the more of optimization rather than making do, and I think life extension around the foundations was a, a really good example of that. Allen Hall: And bolts. Matthew Stead: Bolts? Yeah, bolts. Allen Hall: [00:17:00] Everybody said bolts. Bolts. Matthew Stead: Bolts. Allen Hall: You think the world’s simplest device, we’ve been making bolts for nearly 1,000 years or at least a couple hundred. But it does- And, you know- … come up quite often … cable, cable Matthew Stead: terminations, again, some really Rosemary Barnes: basic- Yeah, that, really specific ones that were raised multiple times. Yeah. Um, yeah, which, which is great- Yeah … ’cause it gives us a good direction to go. But I do love how it changes so much every year- Yeah … ’cause it makes me feel like, okay, yeah, like we’re actually, you know, it’s worthwhile, um, putting on another event. Mm. Um, not just recording one event and then just, you know, like replaying that every year or something. Re-educating. Allen Hall: Yeah. Well, I, I think there’s a learning exercise that has happened over the past two years where people now are knowledgeable about those things we talked about- Mm … two years ago. Uh, was it, was it even two years ago? It was a year and a half ago when we first started this, so we’re, we’re not that deep into it. Although our third conference will be next March, uh, you just see more energy, more industry knowledge in some of the references that I heard, uh, in terms of other companies and the approaches they’re taking clearly came from WOMA. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Matthew Stead: Yeah, Allen Hall: yeah. Which is, which is [00:18:00] fascinating. Yeah. That’s Rosemary Barnes: good. I mean, we want- It, it is Allen Hall: sticking Rosemary Barnes: we want tech conferences to get better, right? That was the- No … the reason why we, uh, we started this conference was ’cause we didn’t think that it was sufficient, what we had available. So, you know, it’s not a bad thing if other conferences, um, get better. Yeah. Yeah. We should also mention that blades were, were raised a fair bit. We talked so much about blades in the previous years, and we will be talking about blades a lot again, including we’ve got a master class on the Friday. Uh, it’s… Yeah, we’ll go back to some of the basics about how the composite materials work and how a blade is designed and certified and manufactured, and, um- Lightning. Y- yeah, yeah, a little, a little bit about lightning. Um, I don’t wanna cover it too much because we did the master class on lightning- Right … last year. Mm. Um, yeah. And yeah, some of the common damage methods anyway. And of course- Mm … yeah, lightning is probably the most- … common, or I guess leading edge erosion is the most, and then lightning would be the most expensive. Um, yeah, so we’ll be, we’ll be covering all that and just try and raise the knowledge level a little bit, um, for [00:19:00] everybody to… It’s a very complicated kind of, uh, yeah, component. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Matthew Stead: And workshops. So each year we’ve run sort of workshops or roundtables or whatever, so we’re still thinking about the format for them, but, um, thinking about how we’ll reintroduce them again this year. You know, specific topics, specific questions, specific answers. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Allen Hall: And the three of us will be in Hamburg in a couple of weeks at Wind Energy Hamburg, so if you see us and you’re interested in coming to Australia, that’s the place to grab us and- Yep … and shake us and say, “I wanna go to Australia. How do I do it?” Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Allen Hall: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Especially if you’ve got a, a t- technology that addresses some of those specific issues that we’ve mentioned- Mm … then, um, yeah, just know ahead of time that Australia needs, needs more information and more, um, solutions available to them. So, yeah. And Matthew Stead: that reminds me, we had a really discussion a- around safety and, you know, reasonable and [00:20:00] practicable, and discussion around all the lessons learned about how… or what is best practice on a site, what is best practice about how to manage risks and- Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Yeah. I know you, you, you enjoyed that one. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And we’re not talking about, like, safety the- Ear muffs or hats. The, um, rou- Yeah, the routine safety that if you- The goggles, yeah … yeah, trip over and graze your knee, then you need to let the site supervisor know. You, you know, it’s not that stuff, ’cause sites have that under control. That’s a given, yeah. Or at least the ability to get that under control. We’re talking about the bigger- Yeah … bigger things, you know. Like, uh, is there a issue that is causing blades to fall off turbines every now and then? Is there an issue that, uh, can lead to, you know, a fire? I, I think everyone, like- Yeah … a big fear of everybody’s. There’s never been, um, in Australia at least, there’s never been a wind turbine fire that has caused a bush fire, but it is a possibility, and it would be so bad for the industry. So, you know, it’s those things- Mm … that could be just terrible, preventing those before they happen. Mm. So that’s the kind of safety that we’re gonna mainly focus on. Mm. Although, you know, we’re not gonna [00:21:00] turn down questions on, um, some of the smaller stuff as well. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Matthew Stead: And we even thought about getting some lawyers- Rosemary Barnes: Yeah … Matthew Stead: you missed out on this discussion, Rosie. Okay. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Matthew Stead: So Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. Lawyers, this is news to me. Well, I mean, are we talking contracts or, um- Matthew Stead: No, no … no … it’s really operations. I mean- Right … the environmental, um, issues- Oh yeah … the operational issues. Mm. You know, there’s, there’s a few things in there that the lawyers can add. Rosemary Barnes: Yeah. I mean- … I’ve, I constantly find myself having to interpret, you know, legal, um, legal text and also anticipate, you know, it’s one thing about what’s the right engineering, but then there is also the legal interpretation of it- Yeah uh, as well, you know, in terms of contract law, but then also in, in terms of safety. Yeah. Um, yeah. Was this certification done correctly? You know- Yeah … that’s got some legal aspect to it. So yeah, that- Yeah … makes sense to me. Insurance is another one where I would say- Yeah, actually that came up … you know, like some, some people might think that that doesn’t sound interesting, but yeah, in- insurance is the other- Matthew Stead: Mm Rosemary Barnes: aspect that you [00:22:00] just can’t, um, you can’t get away from it. Like, you can’t just think that you’re, you’re doing your engineering without bothering about Mm … yeah, like finance and law and, um, and insurance. Those are things that- Mm … you spend a lot of time thinking about. Matthew Stead: Yeah. Mm. And I guess we would also love to hear, you know, about potential speakers, but we’d also love to hear any other topics that people are attending and want to know about as well. Rosemary Barnes: Mm-hmm. Allen Hall: Absolutely. And if you haven’t registered for WOMA 2027, which will be March 3rd through 5th at the Pullman in East Melbourne, right? East Melbourne, yeah. They just redefined it. It’s Pullman in East Melbourne. Uh, go ahead and go to woma2027.com and register now. Uh, Matthew and Rosemary, it’s great to see you in person again, and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks, uh, hopefully in, in Germany. Rosemary Barnes: Mm. Allen Hall: Very [00:23:00] exciting.
AI implementation
Reformed Brotherhood | Sound Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Brotherly Love
In episode 502 of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse begin what promises to be a multi-part deep dive into the Parable of the Good Samaritan — one of the most culturally embedded and theologically rich stories Jesus ever told. But before a single character hits the Jericho road, the hosts ground listeners in something easily overlooked: the charged context in which this parable is told. A lawyer — trained, confident, adversarial — steps forward not to learn but to test. What follows is a masterclass in how Jesus turns the law back on those who wield it as a weapon. This episode covers Luke 10:21–36, explores the covenant of works and covenant of grace, the noetic effects of sin, and why the Good Samaritan is far more than a lesson in being a helpful neighbor. Buckle up. Key Takeaways The lawyer's question is self-contradictory from the start. Asking "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" smuggles a works-righteousness assumption into the very grammar of the question. Inheritance by definition is received, not earned. Jesus does not give the lawyer a new paradigm — He reorients him to the true one. The covenant of grace is not a New Testament innovation. It runs through every Old Testament covenant administration. The lawyer should have already known this. "Do this and you will live" is not a Pelagian concession. Christ is holding out the law's own terms — perfect, total, unrelenting obedience — not to suggest it is achievable, but to expose its impossibility and drive the lawyer (and us) to the only alternative: mercy. "Desiring to justify himself" is more complex than it first appears. Tony argues that the desire to fulfill the covenant of works is not inherently wicked — it is the misguided belief that one can which is the problem. This distinction creates room for reading Christ's response as genuinely merciful instruction, not merely rebuke. The noetic effects of sin mean accurate theology can be deployed in service of self. The lawyer knows the right answers and still uses them to avoid repentance. Correct doctrine alone does not save. The fundamental human problem is not ignorance — it is the will's bondage and the heart's self-love. The parable is primarily Christological, not merely ethical. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. The story is not first about mercy ministry; it is about who binds up our wounds when we are left for dead on the road, unable to save ourselves. The priest and the Levite are not exonerated by their ritual obligations. Considerable ink has been spilled trying to justify their passing by on grounds of Levitical purity concerns. The parable refuses that exit. Everyone in the story — and everyone listening — already knows what the right thing to do was. Key Concepts The Covenant of Works Is Not a Black Box One of the more quietly important arguments Tony makes in this episode is that the covenant of works was never meant to be mysterious or inaccessible. When Jesus responds to the lawyer's question by asking, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" — He does so with a visible assumption: there is a clear, knowable answer, and the lawyer should be able to give it. And he does. Love God completely, love your neighbor as yourself. The covenant of works was always coherent and comprehensible. The problem has never been that its demands were obscure. The problem is that no one — save the Mediator — has ever kept them. Jesus is not introducing a new ethical framework. He is forcing the lawyer to confront a standard he has always known and has never met. The Lawyer as a Warning to Reformed Christians Jesse closes the episode's first movement with a pointed and personal application that cuts across theological self-satisfaction. The lawyer is not a caricature of ignorance — he is a portrait of someone with accurate, affirmed theological knowledge who instinctively deploys it in the service of self-justification the moment he senses conviction. Jesse names this directly as a danger particularly acute in Reformed circles, where doctrinal precision can become a subtle mechanism of self-defense rather than an occasion for repentance. The Reformation's great recovery of grace must not become a new form of the very disease it diagnosed. Knowing the right words about total depravity, the covenant of grace, and the mediator does not exempt anyone from the need to actually be humbled by them. Theology is not armor against repentance — it is, rightly received, the road toward it. Context Is Not Just Setup — It Is Part of the Lesson Tony and Jesse both emphasize that Luke 10:21–24 is not merely throat-clearing before the real content begins. The theological statement embedded there — that the Father has hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to little children, that no one knows the Son except the Father or the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him — is the hermeneutical key to everything that follows. The lawyer approaches Jesus as one rabbi testing another. But Luke has already told his readers that this is not a conversation between equals debating interpretive options. It is the Lawgiver being questioned by someone who does not recognize Him. The parable that follows is not just an answer to a legal question. It is a revelation — the kind that only happens when the Son chooses to give it. Memorable Quotes You do not want to pit the law against the one who has given the law, the one whose character is represented in the law — because you're always going to get owned, and you'll get owned before you realize you've just gotten owned on multiple levels. - Jesse Schwamb Jesus is trying to sort of reorient them back to the true paradigm of grace that is present under all of the Old Covenant administrations. It's not so much a matter of developing a new framework and imposing it on this guy. It's really trying to say, 'Listen — think about this for a second. Think about the fact that, yes, you know you have to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole strength, your whole mind, and you have to love your neighbor as yourself. You've answered correctly. If you can do those things, you will live.' — with the subtext: and of course you cannot possibly do those things. - Tony Arsenal The fundamental human problem is not primarily ignorance, but the will's bondage and the heart's self-love. It's a problem no amount of correct discipline or doctrine alone can fix apart from some kind of regenerating grace — which is exactly what Jesus is going to illustrate for us in the mercy he's about to display in this parable. - Jesse Schwamb Full Transcript Tony Arsenal: [00:00:00] This parable is not primarily about us figuring out how to do mercy ministry. Like, that's important. It's probably an outcome of this. It's probably something for us to think about. But really, this is actually Christ saying, like, "Hold on a second here, dude." Like, "Let's just think about this." Do you need someone who is going to tell you to pick yourself up off your bootstraps and cross to the other side of the street and leave you to your own devices? Or do you need someone who's gonna throw you on their donkey, who's gonna bind up your wounds, who's gonna pay the innkeeper, and is gonna pledge to pay everything that is owed for your salvation? Right? That's not too on the nose here, I think. Welcome to episode 502 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm [00:01:00] Jesse And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey, brother. Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. Well, we've got a big one to talk about on this episode. We're marching further and further into all of the glorious parables Jesus told as part of His teaching. And as you and I kind of joked before we began, I mean, what did you call it? Did you say this is, uh, the big daddy? Tony Arsenal: It's the big daddy, one of the big daddy parables. Jesse Schwamb: It's one of the big daddy parables. Now, this one is probably second maybe only to the prodigal son. Yeah But in terms of its ubiquity and its kind of just common knowledge in culture, this one ranks right up there. And before I reveal what it is, which you may already know, I was thinking how so many times we look at the Beatitudes as expression of a master class in Jesus teaching the law, and I think that's true. But as I was reading and thinking about this particular parable, I thought, "I don't know. I think this one is, uh, right up there," because [00:02:00] this is like law on law. It's double law. Yeah It's law coming back at the law giver who's trying to use the law to test Jesus, and then Jesus tests him with the law that He himself gave His people. It's... I'm already getting too excited- ... and we've got something to do before we get there. But we're talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan. And so I can't imagine, can I just make a prediction up front? I, you know where I'm going with this, and probably everybody else does. Uh, this is gonna be like two conversations- Tony Arsenal: At least ... Jesse Schwamb: probably. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, at least two. Jesse Schwamb: Is that fair? Because I realize we, of course, wanna get to the parable itself, and oh, my goodness, how much ink has been spilled. Even going back to, like, if you read, like, Augustine or, like, the early church, like the Patristics, the Church Fathers, there are so much that could be said, and maybe some stuff that just shouldn't be said about all the allegorical potential intent here about these characters. But [00:03:00] there's so much amazing stuff that happens in the opening of this, that's not just the setup, but it is its own lesson, and I'm real excited actually to talk about that with you before we even get into, like, all the good stuff that everybody expects that you wanna talk about. So we're gonna do it all. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: We're gonna do it all, but it'll take time. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. I'm interested to see if we're even on the same page about where to start reading, 'cause I, I think we might not be, and that's gonna be fun. So we'll, we'll let it fly and see what happens. It'll be our own little, uh, podcast game. Jesse Schwamb: But, uh, I think- Well, I mean, we're gonna be in Luke chapter 10, but I guess to your point, we should be starting in Luke chapter one to get to this. Yeah. Tony Arsenal: Exactly. But Jesse Schwamb: we, we do have to back up quite a bit, and I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah. But I, apparently we're just gonna play that on the fly and see where we go. Affirmations Denials Segment Jesse Schwamb: But of course, the Reformers had their five solos. Chalcedon had its, what, seven withouts. We've got opinions, and we're just as confident about ours, so of course it's time for affirmations, denials, where we affirm something that we think is good or awesome or [00:04:00] we wanna recommend, and we deny, again, something that is not so great or maybe just plain annoying. So before we talk about the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Tony, what do you got for us on this episode? Are you affirming with something, or are you gonna come in with a denial? Tony Arsenal: Well, I've got two affirmations. That's fine. One is just- I will allow it ... a declaration of joy, and one is, like, a real affirmation. I, I just can't... It would be remiss of me not to share with our podcasting family that my son August and my daughter Adeline, uh, joined the visible church today as- Hear, hear ... uh, non-communicant members. Uh, Augie and Addie were baptized on the 16th of August of 2026, uh, into the visible church, into the name of Jesus Christ. Uh, was, it was just a great service. Um, it's funny because I've been- been talking with Augie. One of the thing with toddlers when you're doing something big like this is you kinda have to talk about it and practice and rehearse, rehearse it and, and get them ready for it. And up until maybe, like, I don't know, three days [00:05:00] ago, every time it would come up he would be saying, "I don't wanna be baptized. I don't wanna be baptized." And, um, you know, I, I, I, you know, I don't wanna force him to do something, but also, like, I make him eat vegetables. But, um- ... he, I, I think it was nerves, and I think something clicked in his head and all of a sudden he was very excited to be baptized. So, um, it was great. We've been talking about, you know, what baptism is, God's promise to you that if you trust him he'll save you. And so today he- Right ... he was like, "God's gonna make a promise to me to save me." So he was very excited. Nice. And he did a great job just standing quietly and listening to the pastor talk. Uh, and Addie was, was, was just a beautiful little girl, and she, um, she loved it as well. So that's just a bonus affirmation. I don't know that I could get through a podcast without gushing over that. Glorify App and Devotionals Tony Arsenal: Uh, but the, the affirmation I have, uh, this is an, an app that I think some of our listeners may have heard of. Um, some may roll their eyes at it, to be honest with you. Um, I stumbled on this because, uh, you have an Oura Ring, don't you, Jesse? Jesse Schwamb: I do. Tony Arsenal: You [00:06:00] do, yeah. So for those who don't know, an Oura Ring is like a little wearable ring that's like a, almost like a fitness tracker, but it tracks biometrics, pulse rate, temperature, all these different things, sleep. Um, there's a startup, uh, that has been doing a GoFundMe or a funding kind of thing for, uh, what they're calling like a Christian version of an Oura Ring. So it does a lot of the same things, sleep tracking, basic biometric tracking. Hmm. But it also has like alerts built in, and it's tied into an app that they use for devotionals. So it'll, it'll remind you to pray. It'll remind you, you know, bring you to an app to do a devotion. But the app it uses is a standalone app that I looked up, and it's called Glorify. Have you ever heard of this app before this evening? I have heard of Jesse Schwamb: this, yeah. Tony Arsenal: So Glorify is just a small devotional app. Uh, it's not much different than you would expect based on the name. It is connected to this, uh, to this Glorify ring, which again is, is sort of like an Oura Ring tied into this app. But this app basically is, is [00:07:00] designed to help you complete short daily devotional exercises, and they're usually very brief. They're based on a very brief, um, a very brief passage of scripture. Today's passage, uh, c- there's a quote. So today's quote is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It says, "True love does not consist in finding the perfect person, but in faithfully loving an imperfect one." Not sure why this devotional app is using a romance, uh, quote from Bonhoeffer of all people. But that was today's. Um, and the passage is Proverbs 5:15-17. So it's a, it's a devotional based on two verses, which is fine. So you read the passage. There's a very brief devotional on that passage, and then sort of a guided prayer, and they have both premium and free models. The premium model includes like you can listen to the devotional, you can listen to the prayer. Um, but just for example, today's prayer, it, it's very simple. "Loving Father, thank you for, uh, thank you because you're faithful and unchanging. In a world [00:08:00] marked by broken promises, disposable relationships, you remain the same. Teach me to reflect that faithfulness in my relationships. Help me to love with perseverance, grace, and commitment following the example of Christ. Protect marriages, strengthen families, restore what needs healing. May every relationship be marked by respect, truth, and genuine love. Shape in me a heart of integrity that honors you in both the small and significant choices of life. In Jesus' name, amen." So I think what I love about this, and this, I mentioned last week that there was, this is kind of like, sort of like the fluffy evangelical devotions. Like- Right ... there's not a ton of like solid doctrinal meat- But like, it's still nourishing. And sometimes we need a little bit of help. Sometimes we don't know what to pray, we don't know what to read, we're not sure. Sometimes in, I think in our Reformed circles, we feel like if we're not reading large portions of scripture and reading deep theological treaties or long, complex devotionals, that we're really not doing anything, and that's just not the [00:09:00] truth. So I've been using this in addition to other devotional studies I'm doing. I don't do it every day. I mean, there's some like streak functionality, kinda like habit tracking type stuff that's built into it. Um, but it's nice. It's nice to be able to pick it up, read a very short scripture, a brief devotional thought, and then have some guided prayer. I know one of the reasons I don't pray as often as I ought to is because I struggle to know what and how to pray. So even having some written prayers, I mean, this is why the Psalms are good, things like the Valley of Visions are good. Um, having some pre-written prayers that you genuinely pray but you're not having to come up with in the moment can really help. Right. So the app is called Glorify. I know it's available on iPhone. I'm not sure about Android. I'm sure it probably is. I'm sure they wanna have a pretty broad ecosystem. Um, and, and it's good. Again, it's, it's not anything fancy. It's not anything like super technical. Uh, and as I kind of alluded, like some of it's a little weird. Um, I, I didn't read the proverb. I think maybe the proverb is about romantic relationships, why they're, why they're tying in that, um, Bonhoeffer quote in, in the prayer. [00:10:00] But, um, even that, like it's pretty innocuous. And the quotes, like you don't have to read the quotes. It's not like you have to have to do that. Um, you could jump in, just read the scripture or just read the devotion and just do the prayer and you would be fine. So check it out. It's called Glorify, available on iPhone for sure. I'm pretty sure it's on, on Android. And maybe it's something you add daily, you know, this kinda thing like you do when you're on the bus or you're waiting at the grocery store, something quick you can do when you might be wasting that time just sorta sitting around or scrolling Twitter. Again, Twitter's fine. You can use your leisure time as you see fit. But if you wanna fill it with something like this, something that is more spiritual, then this would be a good option to just add a little bit of, uh, a little bit of nourishment to your diet where you might not otherwise be getting it Jesse Schwamb: I have no proof of this, but I just keep saying it anyway. It might be that we're living in the golden age of really great- ... daily worship resources. Like, something to actually cultivate, not just, like, a devotional nugget, but something that actually leads you into a pattern and a habit of [00:11:00]worship, giving your attentive focus on Jesus. And I love that. So, uh, uh, 'cause I was just thinking, like, I was trying to look back on some of our past affirmations here. We've talked about the book Walking in Faith. I just gave everybody Awake My Soul last week. You're coming in with the Glorify app. I- we've talked about Dwell, if not recently, we've talked about that for some time. It's like a great Bible reading app, and there's lots and lots of new features, by the way, coming out on that- Yeah that are fantastic. And then, yes, all these other great prayers. I, I see, like, these books on prayer, like, actually, I'm sorry, like, prayer books, I guess, as, like, a great way to kinda... It's like a jumper for your car. You know what I mean? Like, just gets you started. What a, what a lovely thing to come into a place and have a launching pad. And I've been using a lot of Into His Presence, which is a collection of Puritan prayers, sometimes because, for instance, this just happened, where I wanted to pray for someone who was just going through a rough time, a good friend of mine. And I went to that place to kinda start and frame, knowing that I was gonna sit down with him and pray, how I might be able to do that well and [00:12:00] effectively. And these things are just, like, really phenomenal resources. It's just an amazing time to have all these things at our disposal. So that's another great option. It's, it's really more about, like you and I have talked about, Tony, like, whatever gets us into that pattern, whatever gets us, like, authentically experiencing under our own volition, coming in the discipline of sitting before God in daily worship with that expression being pretty broad in its representation- Yeah is to really include something of devotional time in the scriptures, memorization, metabolation, metabolizing. Metabolation, I'm just gonna make that up as, like- ... what happens when you, when you take the scripture and metabolize it into your own life. Meditating on it and, you know, again, maybe looking through the confessions and creeds that have shaped our distilled understanding of what the scripture teaches so that we're enhancing and edifying our mind. We're also engaging the heart, and then we're engaging God and ourselves in communication with Him through prayer. I'm all for anything [00:13:00] that gets us into those rhythms, reminds us of the importance of them, and like we talked about last week, makes it so that when we think about what it means to be married to Christ, so to speak, it's not just about whipping out some kind of marriage certificate to prove that, but that we actually have a frame and a behavioral pattern that fits a married person, that- Yeah how they act, how they think, how they behave, how they communicate, they're never too far away from their lovely spouse in some way or another. And so I think that these tools are great ways to get us exactly into that kind of mindset and practice. Tony Arsenal: Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, like, I think- In our Reformed circles, we can, you know, we, we tend to be maybe a little eggheaded, and we, we tend to be a little more intellectual and, and a little more, I don't know, studious. And there's nothing wrong with that. Um, but I think sometimes it can breed a sort of, uh, elitism and arrogance. Sure. Uh, this is a perfectly valid devotional tool. Yes. Mm-hmm. And, and I think, [00:14:00] you know, kinda like the old adage, like, well, what's the best translation of scripture? Well, whichever one you're gonna read. Exactly. Like, what's the best devotional tool? Whichever one you're gonna use, whichever one's actually gonna bring you into the Word, uh, on a, on a regular basis. Um, and again, like, two verses of the scripture is two verses of the scripture that you might- Right ... not have other spent time, otherwise spent time reading. And it really is short enough, and it saves your progress. Like, you can do, you can do the quote in the morning, and then you can check the scripture on the way to the, you know, the word work, on a stoplight or whatever. Um, if you have the, the paid subscription, you can listen to this stuff, you know, on the, the bus or whatever. Um, so check it out. Glorify app, they have a ring they're making. It's in funding, I guess, if you wanna check it out, you can check that out too. I am neither affirming nor denying whatever this Glory ring is, Glorify ring. But, um, but yeah, the app is great. The, the app is free, and it's, it's worth even just checking out and adding once in a while to your day Jesse Schwamb: The glory ring or the glorify ring sounds like almost too Tolkien, even for me Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. It's the one ring to rule all of your devotions. [00:15:00] Uh, and in the, and in the morning bind them. Jesse, save me from the trail I was about to go on, and, and I was gonna speak in the language of Mordor, I think, on accident. Uh, save us from this. What are you affirming or denying? Jesse Schwamb: That's Tony Arsenal: beautiful. Please tell me it's the language of Mordor. Elvish AI and Music Pick Jesse Schwamb: Uh, no, but can I just say at the risk of really taking us really far afield so early on, which is not necessarily off-brand for us, I have done this... I, I don't know if I should be ashamed by this or I should be excited by this. But- ... um, the Elvish tongue in the Tolkien universe- Tony Arsenal: Oh, no. ... Jesse Schwamb: is like, there's several... If you're super nerdy, you'll know there's like several different kind of iterations or formulas of it, and there's no, like, official language like Klingon, but there ha- it has been studied, and basically, like, it's kind of like the Eugene Peterson of the language. Like, there's, like, just kind of a dynamic equivalent or an expression of words. Anyway, all that to say- ... there's several languages that, uh, Microsoft Copilot will just not [00:16:00] translate because it says, like, "This one, this language doesn't actually exist. There's not enough for me to do anything." Let me tell you something. Tolkien Elvish is not one of those languages, and I actually built an agent, because I have a coworker who can, uh, who can appreciate all this stuff, that takes a text, translates it into this kind of academic high-level Elvish from Tolkien, and then translates it back to English. That makes anything you're saying way better and far more poetic and just absolutely amazing. So if you wanna have some fun, go and do that with whatever your favorite AI model is. Anyway, that's free of charge. Real quick, my affirmation is more music. It just turns out I've found this band, and I've been listening to them a lot. The band's name is Thronebreaker, which is just a phenomenal name, I think, for any group. Uh, it's amazing. Uh, th- this is... I'm gonna read you their description from Spotify. It just says, "Thronebreaker is Christian metalcore built for the bruised, the doubting, and the ones still fighting their way home." And what I've really been [00:17:00] loving about them is it is kind of like Wolves at the Gate adjacent. It's really lovely music. It is melodic, so it's, there's not just that there's that kind of hard edge, but that is present in it. But, uh, the music is really lovely and beautiful, and in part that's because they're going through this, like, drip of releasing music where they're taking, like, old hymns or maybe songs if you're of a certain age like I am of kind of childhood Sunday school- And they're taking the lyrics, not the melody, and they're reimagining them. So they have two versions of Jesus Loves Me that they just released. They have the old We're Gonna Cross, a song called Glory to the King Most High. These songs are just saturated with gospel. Like, they're just all power, all encouragement, and all authority represented in Jesus Christ. They're incredible, and I've j- where I've, what I've been really blessed by is these two versions of Jesus Love Me are just fantastic. Like, they're orchestral. There is a children's kind of chorus at one point, and it got me [00:18:00] singing that song again, and really, maybe to what you were saying before, Tony, like sitting in those three words, which are really phenomenal words to hear. And so I have been surprised at how moved I've been by what really I, I first understood, of course, as a children's song with simple truth that seems, you know, depending on how long you've known some part of the gospel, obvious. And yet I found them all new again, and a, a really lovely way of just sitting in the truth of God in music that I didn't expect to find. So if you're interested in any of that or maybe just curious of what it would sound like if a Christian metalcore band took Jesus Loves Me and turned it into their genre, then honestly you should just go check out Throne Breaker. I mean, you pretty much have to at this point. Tony Arsenal: I, I don't ever have anything to add to your musical affirmations or denials, 'cause I, I just don't. What I do have to add is that Throne Breaker actually sounds like some sort of really [00:19:00] amazing, like, mace-type weapon in Lord of the Rings. Yes. Jesse Schwamb: Yes, Tony Arsenal: it does. Or like a big hammer that a dwarf carries. And I would also like to say that if you ask Google Gemini to translate something into Tolkien English, it not only will do it, it will tell you how to pronounce it. Google Elf: A ava aini Ilai amel i trona se. Tony Arsenal: What do you think that was, Jesse? Jesse Schwamb: No idea. Tony Arsenal: First of all, that was elevated Quenya, a Quenya. Yes. Jesse Schwamb: Yes, that's Tony Arsenal: the one. Classic Quenya. Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Google Elf: A leta Ilai amel aima. Tony Arsenal: I would be willing to bet... Actually, let's do this. Jesse Schwamb: Ugh. Tony Arsenal: Uh, we don't give out prizes very often. Uh, I will say to anyone who can tell me what that is, the first person that emails, uh, or, or goes into the Telegram chat, we'll do this. We'll be professional podcasters and drive people to one of our channels. Here we Jesse Schwamb: go. Tony Arsenal: The first person who goes to our telephone, our Telegram chat and tells me what that [00:20:00] means, what that, uh, Elvish means, will get a Reformed Brotherhood T-shirt. Jesse Schwamb: Oh, that is big. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: That- Tony Arsenal: So I'm gonna, I'm gonna play it one more time. Jesse Schwamb: Okay, here we go. Everybody listen. Every- All right, pull over. Stop your vehicles. Here we go. Google Elf: A leta Ilai amel aima. Tony Arsenal: There it is, everybody. Jesse Schwamb: I'm not being a cry- I have a guess, but I, I, I wanna try to win the T-shirt, so I'm gonna- Yes ... wi- withhold. All right. Uh, yeah, that's, that's super fun. Did it, um... Did you also translate it back into English from that Tony Arsenal: just to see- No, I'll do that later, 'cause that would give away the, that would Jesse Schwamb: give away the prize. Yeah, it's, it's... We'll have to save that for next week, because that, that is the fun. It creates, like, what I was doing to, to have fun with this coworker is take very technical, like, work-related emails, and I would send it through. It would go through that iterative process, and I actually loved how it, it was talking. Like, it wa- this was an email about risk, and it, it gave, like, these beautiful grand metaphors that didn't sound corny or cheesy. That's the beautiful thing. That's amazing. It [00:21:00] was like true Elvish. Like, you were just like, "I wish I spoke that way all the time about, about risk." And it, like I said, it wasn't just like... You could, you could obviously throw something in and be like, "Make this Shakespearean," or, you know, "Make this, you know, sound like, you know, Milton." This is way better. This is way better, because it's not, like, actually trying to manipulate what you're saying. It's takes, like, the dynamic equivalent of what you said, then translates it back with way more kind of poetic infrastructure while maintaining, like, the essential meaning that you have. I'm, I'm selling this too hard. Everybody just has to go out and try it. So, all right, you know what's at stake here, but here's how you have to win this. If you want a chance, if you want a chance at winning this, you gotta go to t.me/reformedbrotherhood, t.me/reformedbrotherhood, and that link will take you to the Telegram app and our little corner of it, and you're gonna find there's a bunch of chats there. You gotta go to the affirmations or denials chat, and then you gotta put in what is the translation of what Tony just played.[00:22:00] I just love... Isn't it amazing, though, that, like, y- as you discovered, there's more than one version of Elvish available? Yeah. And they do differentiate between the various kinds. This is a big deal. I learned there are actually scholars who have, like, again, filled in kind of like the details of the language- Oh, yeah taking as a basis what Tolkien had there. Yeah. So I think that this is the best. We couldn't have conceived of this if we'd actually tried and planned for it, so- Tony Arsenal: It's true ... Jesse Schwamb: it's just better that it all happened in, in real time. It's true. And, and speaking of which, I think now we get to have the fun of figuring out, uh, where in Luke chapter 10 are we gonna begin? Or should we just start in Luke 1 and just let's see how far we can get reading Tony Arsenal: in this- I could have, I could have Google Gemini read it in elevated Kenya, Quenya I did try to get it to put it in Sindarin, and it wouldn't do it for some reason. I'm not sure. Maybe this anti-Sindarin bias in Gemini, Jesse Schwamb: man. Disappointing. Tony Arsenal: It's disappointing. Jesse Schwamb: Dis- disappointing. So let's kick off some Good Samaritan talk, which again, I think is gonna take us [00:23:00] through maybe in the next couple of conversations, in part because, like I said, we're not even gonna start at, uh, verse 25 because there is so much more that needs to be said, I think, before that. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think actually the proper place to start this, and I, I'm guessing Jesse probably, whether he was there or not, he probably figured out where I was going, uh, over the course of the last 20 minutes or whatever. Um, I actually think the proper place to start, at least one of the proper places to start, is in verse 21. Yeah. Um, and I- we'll talk about why that is. And I'll... I'm gonna read here, um, 21, uh, through the end of the parable. Uh, and this is Jesus talking. He says in this, uh... Well, it, this is, um... Yes, uh, I'll just read it here. "In the same hour He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one who knows who the Son is except... No, no one knows who the Son is [00:24:00] except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Himself.'" Then turning to the disciples, he said privately, "Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see and did not see it, and hear what you hear and did not hear it." And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the Law? How do you read it?" And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And he said to him, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and he saw him and passed on the other side. So likewise a Levite, [00:25:00] when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. And he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, saying, 'Take good care of him. Whatever you, whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back.' Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" And he said, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said to him, "You go and do likewise." Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right, of course, to back us up into verse 21 because I don't want to keep saying it's always a setup, but Jesus is certainly giving us like the right context in which... Well, Luke of course is the author here and as he's explaining the teaching of Jesus, he does so well to start out with some irony that we don't realize is gonna be ironic until we get to the, to verse 25 [00:26:00] when we realize who's testing Jesus, who's setting this all up. So this idea that the Holy Spirit, everybody rejoicing in the Holy Spirit and the knowledge and the wisdom, the intelligence that's revealed through the Holy Spirit to all of these lesser people and in particular here emblematic the infants That here we have kings and rulers, and in this case, this beloved scholar of the law, who all have this adventure in missing the point. They think, in fact, they're looking for the one who is to set them free, and they can't even see that it's Him who is before him. And yet, incidentally, God has already revealed all these things to the lowest, to the ones who are the most humble, the meek, the mild, the down and outs, the ones who are weak by the view of everybody else. And so it's amazing that if we just kinda, again, like blow past it into, like, just all the characters, we don't see that the teaching starts actually well above this, that even everything we're about to understand, that unfolds in our lives, ev- every spiritual incarnation and insight that we have [00:27:00] first starts with God himself in his revealing it to us both in his general revelation, but of course, in the specific revelation of his teaching. So I like that you started us there, because I, I'm with you. That's where this whole thing launches off, right? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Parables Reveal and Conceal Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and as we come into when we very, like very start of this, uh, series, the, the parable series, Jesus sort of embeds a theology of parables into this introduction, right? Or I should say Luke does. But this, uh, this is written a- as though all of this is occurring as sort of one event. Right. And likely it was, right? So sometimes, uh, in the Gospels, events are kind of, like, moved next to each other for thematic reasons. It's possible that that's the case. It seems like this may have actually just been one, one teaching, and I'll, I'll talk about why that is in a second here. Um, but at the very least, this is placed next to each other in the Gospel almost as, like a, "Here's the theology of parables. Now, here's actually that happening in real [00:28:00] time." Jesse Schwamb: Yes. Tony Arsenal: And then also, like, a parable kinda demonstrating it, right? So the theology of the parable here is that there are many prophets, kings who desire to see what it is that, that, uh, uh, the disciples are seeing, right? And all things have been handed over to the Father or to, to the Son, by the Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father. No one who knows who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal, right? So the, the theology of parables here presented in Luke is that the parable itself is being used as a way to reveal the Father and the Son to those whom the Son chooses to reveal it to. The Lawyer as the Fool Tony Arsenal: And that leaves us with this lawyer, um, sort of playing, playing the fool in almost like a dramatic sense, right? In a lot of drama, there's kind of like the fool character who's sort of like the foil or the idiot of the thing who's, who's unaware and is almost like made an example of, right? Um, I, I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but there's often a character in a play who's like, uh, it's [00:29:00] almost like the opposite of the everyman, right? The everyman in a, in a play- Right ... or in a movie is sort of like the outsider who things gets explained to, and he's sort of the proxy for, for the audience. Um, I think like, um, Hawkeye in Avengers is kind of the everyman. He's sort of just like this regular dude swept up in this thing, and oftentimes he's the one that, uh, the big characters are explaining things to. And really what that is is the big characters are explaining that to the audience through this proxy. There's also this concept of the fool in a lot of these plays or movies who's sort of like the dummy, the idiot of the play, who things are explained to, and it's still a way to explain it to the audience, but the character doesn't get it. And so that's kind of, kind of the role that this lawyer is playing in this, this narrative here. He, he steps forward. He's like, "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus answers his question, and then in this like sort of like stunning moment of, like unawareness, he's trying to justify himself. He says, "Well, who is my neighbor?"[00:30:00] As though that's a question that needed to be asked, right? I think, like, we sort of think of it as like, "Oh, yeah, that's a valid question." I actually don't think it is. Like, it's pretty obvious, in the Old Testament at least, who your neighbor is. It's the people who live immediately with you. It's the other people of Israel. It's the people in your immediate concentric circles, the people you have direct access to. Um, and so then Jesus explains it through this parable, and whether or not he gets it at the end, I guess is maybe a little bit unclear. We can talk about that as we get there. But at least in the beginning, he's portrayed as this sort of, like, fool who doesn't understand what Jesus is saying, and then this parable is taught. So it's this theology of, um, revelation to those whom it is intended to, and further obscuring from those it's intended not to, not to illuminate, which is identical. Uh, maybe it's a different flavor of the same thing, but it's the same thing as what Matthew had and what Jesus taught- Right ... in Matthew with the parables. Jesse Schwamb: Right. It definitely is, again, illustrating, again, God's divine prerogative. I think you really have to do a lot of theological gymnastics [00:31:00] to try to work yourself out of a place here that says, like, "Well, this, this knowledge is accessible to all people." Tony Arsenal: Right. Jesse Schwamb: That if somehow we just work hard enough, study hard enough, come even before God with the right attitude or do the right things, that somehow all this will be made plain to us, and that's certainly not the truth here. In fact, again, the ironic setup is you have this lawyer asking this question, which creates this strange contrast because here's a man trained in the law, and he approaches the very wisdom of God to test him while the little children already perceive what this fool cannot. So it's irony upon irony, and then I, I like what you're saying. I think, and we'll get to this to anticipate a bit, I'm reading this as he's hoping that the answer to whom is my neighbor, just like he- he's received the affirmative from Jesus saying, "Yes, you understand. Go and do these things. This is life," and we'll get to all of what that means, I think, as well in terms of the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. But I think he's hoping that the definition of neighbor is gonna mean that he has [00:32:00] already accomplished the thing then, so that if there's somehow- Yeah ... he could just set the right boundaries. He could say, "Ah, yeah, I'm already good then, Jesus. I already, already did all that stuff." So- It's wild to me that it, it all starts with, of course, like some kind of scribal specialist in the Torah, of course, likely some kind of Pharisee by theological alignment. And as I'm looking at the notes here, what I find particularly stunning as we start this out is that Luke, of course, is able to speak several times in this parable to the intent. And so he says right away with great kind of fanfare and description that the intent here from this scribal Torah person was to test or to tempt, which is the same verb used of Satan's temptation of Christ and of Israel's testing of God in Deuteronomy 6, which of course Jesus is gonna quote here later on. So it's not, of course, like sincere inquiry, like you're saying. It, it is like adversarial probing. It is like really profound setup. It is dripping with like [00:33:00] ulterior motive. It's seeking to expose Jesus as either like heterodox or as diminishing the law's demands. And I think we've talked about this before, so Tony, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure in one of the previous parables we talked about sometimes how these get set up with this kind of weird like oxymoronic setting. Inherit Eternal Life Debate Jesse Schwamb: So like this question of se- uh, uh, itself, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Jesse Schwamb: It's like more than just theologically revealing. Biblically it's self-contradictory, 'cause of course like we talked about inheritance, I think actually when we went through the, the parable of the prodigal. By definition, that's received, of course, on the ba- basis of relationship or promise. It's not earned by performance. And if the inheritance comes by a law, it no longer comes by promise, right? I think that's like Galatians. So the lawyer's question already portray- portrays like some kind of weird works righteous paradigm. E- even if you think he's really after trying to understand the true intent of God's heart [00:34:00] behind the law, he is assuming at least in this question that eternal life is some kind of wage that he can earn rather than a gift to be received by grace through faith. And that's a fundamental error that the entire subsequent exchange, including the parable, is designed to expose. It's both, like you're saying, Tony, he has not learned yet what it means to be in the kingdom of God. He's outside of that, and so he's trying... Now Jesus is bringing in this corrective action, as it were, set up in a story, but he's gonna turn the law on him, which, which I don't wanna get too excited about that yet. But he's... But essentially, here we have somebody who's the expert in the law trying to leverage the law by way of force against the one who he does not understand has all leverage and authority over him, and is in fact the law giver himself So he's gonna, Jesus is gonna drive him to see his own ability to keep the law that he claims to honor, and that's more than just brilliant. This is what the law does. You do not wanna pit the law against the one who has given the law, the [00:35:00] one whose character is represented in the law, because you're always going to get owned, and you'll get owned before you realize you've just gotten owned on multiple levels, and I think that's what basically unfolds here. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, I, I have a little bit of a different take on the, the word inherit here. Um, I don't think what you're saying is wrong, um, but I think there's a little different flavor here, and actually, I, I think it, it still sort of propels us forward to the conversation we have to have, um, about the law and the gospel and the covenant of works, the covenant of grace. The, the Greek that lays under this word is, uh, it's a compound word of the word for, like, lot or portion and the word for law. And so, so the, this force of the word is more along the lines of, like, what shall I do to have a legal right to eternal life? Like- Right ... inherit, I think we hear inherit, and we think of, like, um, like what you get when someone dies, and so, like, obviously there's nothing you do to earn it, and that's certainly an element of the way this [00:36:00] word is used in some instances. I think reading this and kind of how, how the rest of the text plays out, this lawyer is coming forward and he's like, "What do I need to do to have a rightful legal claim to eternal life?" Right? We might even be able, and this is where it comes into the covenant of grace, covenant of works k- kind of paradigm. We might even be able to say that what this lawyer or this person comes forward to ask Jesus is, how do I gain, how do I gain the benefits of the covenant of works, right? Jesse Schwamb: Right. Tony Arsenal: Yep. That's language that was developed later that's not, not, like, biblical language in terms of, like, the actual language within the text, but that's the force of what he's saying. What must I do to be a rightful legal... Uh, what must I do to have a rightful legal claim on all of the blessings of the covenant of works, is really the question that's here. And so Jesus' answer is so instructive- Right ... 'cause what he says is, "Well, what's written in the law?" Like, he, he basically says, like, "Well, you should be able to tell me, teacher- Exactly of [00:37:00] the law, like, what, what needs to happen there." And there's an assumption on Christ's part that, like, there is an answer. I think sometimes, sometimes we, we, uh, we make an error in thinking that the covenant of works was never attainable, that it's somehow this, like, um, it's almost like a black box. Like, nobody could know what we have to do to, like, obtain eternal life. That's absolutely not the assumption Jesus makes. Jesus not only knows that there's an answer, it's such a straightforward answer that he expects this scribe to be able to answer it, right? And the scribe can, right? The scribe says, "Well, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, and your neighbor as yourself," right? The summary of the law. Just good old classic Westminster larger, shorter catechism. Where's the law summarily comprehended? Summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments. And then, then again, I don't know the questions exactly, but then it also, like, says, like, "Where does Christ summarize this?" Well, you should love the Lord your God, and you should love your [00:38:00] neighbor as yourself, right? Covenant Works and Grace Tony Arsenal: So the, the lawyer comes forward and says, "What do I need to do to have a legal right to all of the blessings of the covenant of works?" Christ says, "Well, what do you think?" He says, "Well, you obey the entirety of the law." And he says, "You've answered correctly. Do this. Obey the entirety of the law and you will live." So the parable itself doesn't necessarily speak to this law, gospel, covenant of works, covenant of grace paradigm. The, the parable is used to show that not only does this lawyer know what is required of him, but that he won't do it. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Tony Arsenal: And I think that's really key, because even in the parable, within the parable itself, there are these figures that know what they should do, right? I, I think, um, we'll get into it, but there's a lot of ink spilled on almost like, um, explaining [00:39:00] why the priest and the Phar- phar- and the, the Levite almost like did the right thing by going to the other side of the room, and it points to like, well, their priestly and Levitical responsibilities, if they touch a dead body, like they can't do those things, and those things are so important. Like, there's a lot of ink spilled trying to almost explain why what they did is right, when the point of the parable is that actually we all know what the right thing to do in that sense was. And even the most righteous people in the mind of the hearers, the Levites and the priests, the most righteous people, even they don't do what they're supposed to do. Jesse Schwamb: Right. Tony Arsenal: This, this paradigm, this gospel law paradigm, law gospel paradigm, this covenant of works, covenant of grace paradigm, is so baked into the very like fabric of, of human thought that it's just there. And Christ takes this time to point out to this lawyer, like, "You know what's expected of you." And so that's why the phrase desiring to justify himself is so key [00:40:00] here. I actually think that the, the, the I don't wanna go so far as to say, like, that this person was regenerated in the midst of this conversation, 'cause I don't know that. But I actually think that there's a forward movement of this lawyer as he interacts with Christ that is optimistic. I'm optimistic about it, right? Right. He starts out trying to test Jesus, then he star- then he moves to having a desire to justify himself. I think we hear that, we read that, desiring to justify himself, we automatically think that that's a negative thing. But if we think about justifying himself in terms of what he's talking about, how do I fulfill the obligations of the covenant of works, that's not a bad thing to wanna do. Right. It's not bad to wanna obey God's law and to lay claim to His promises. It's a misguided notion of something we can't accomplish, but in itself, desiring to justify himself is to desire to fulfill the obligations of the covenant of works. That's not necessarily a bad thing. And so I think this is a merciful, a merciful [00:41:00] teaching on Christ's part. He's trying to instruct this guy to say, "Look, you can't do it. And even if you could do it, you wouldn't do it. So let's, let's talk about mercy instead and what that looks like." And that's where we get to kind of the end of the, uh, the end of the parable. Jesse Schwamb: And again, we have to remember that we know that the intent here is actually to test or try Jesus, so He's certainly being merciful by using this opportunity not to just put him on blast, but to actually provide true instruction. And of course, like, that was, to some degree, this turning the question back would've been, like, a rabbinic pedagogical technique, but theologically, this is what floors me, is from the jump, Jesus refuses to let this man treat Him merely as one more voice among competing rabbis. Yeah. Instead, He holds that lawyer to the standard of God's own revealed word by, like you said, asking not just what does it say, but how do you read it? Mm-hmm. He's pressing not just for, like, some kind of recitation, but for the lawyer's own understanding and application, and Jesus is gonna hold him [00:42:00] accountable to his own hermeneutic. So by, by the time we get the answer, we know as readers, and all those present would've understood, he already knows the right answer, and he's not ignorant to God's requirements. He already summarizes the whole moral law correctly, encompassing both tables of the Decalogue. And so I think that does lead us then to this statement that we probably should spend a little time on, like, do this and you will live, like you introduced for us. Like, what does that even mean? Because i- it's not, like, in my view It's not like a Pelagian or Arminian concession that law keeping actually saves. I mean, it is the covenant of works principle stated truly inexorably that the law as law does promise life to perfect obedience. But that's the exact problem. I, I like what you said that it's not as if we can't understand what it would be to comprehend or contemplate this perfect law and what it means to fall under the covenant of works. It's just that he also presents for us at the same time this covenant of grace in which life is [00:43:00] granted freely through faith in the mediator who alone fulfills all of these laws' demands. So it's wild in this back and forth that's happening here where it's... I don't even know if it's fair to say this is like the most incredible subtext ever. I'm imagining trying to process this in real time and realizing everything that's being said, not just listening to what's being said and like the technical answers going back and forth. But I think like you said, that the Spirit even here is at work, I would like to believe, in the life and at the heart and the mind of this lawyer who's bringing forward this question with nefarious intent first to test and to undermine, and then is being drawn in almost inexorably into this debate to more profound understanding about a covenant based on works that cannot be accomplished, uh, in perfect obedience except through the mediator who organizes and distributes liberally this covenant of grace to his children for whom he has accomplished at least passively and then actively in his obedience in life and death. And so Jesus' reply is, I [00:44:00] think, thus a very genuine like if that functions to expose an impossibility. I, I don't think he's teaching salvation by works here, of course. He is holding out the law's own terms so that the lawyer and everybody else listening, and even us as well, can discover through this narrative which is about to happen the impossibility of self-produced righteousness, which again is what this gentleman is theologically all about. He's trying to justify himself. And that is precisely the pedagogical strategy like Paul uses later when he systemizes all of this by saying that the law was our guardian or school master until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. I think- Yeah ... and it's only because God is good to us and we might sit in some of this teaching, I think this is all in play. So, so I ask you, like, have I gone too far with all this? Like, how much do you think in the real time was being processed? And maybe that's a horrible question to ask because we know the Spirit does this work of illumination and enlightenment, and we're on the other [00:45:00] side of this and have this time to sit and to kind of parse and to really kind of just be pickled in all of this. But there's so much happening here, right? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, maybe I'll answer the question a, a little bit of a different way. I think, um- We often can think about Old Testament religion, if we wanna kinda call it that. We think about Old Testament religion as though it was totally uniform and, um, entirely legalistic. Right. Uh, my- the, the listener is gonna panic a little bit when I say this, so please don't freak out, but I, I think N.T. Wright, uh, and some of the new perspective on Paul stuff is a, a little bit helpful in this, in that it gives us a foil to sorta push against. Yes. The new perspective on Paul is this idea that, um- Paul was not saying that Judaism was legalistic and Christianity is a grace-based religion, right? He, m- [00:46:00] um, N- NPP is not, is saying, um, Paul was not correcting New or Old Testament religion. And where they go wrong is that they say that Paul actually retains this concept of covenantal faithfulness, covenantal nomism fidelity. Uh, where I think, where I think they're right is that this idea that, like, the Old Testament religion is entirely legalistic and Paul was just sort of correcting that, I think that's way too simplistic. And the reason I say that is that the Mosaic Covenant for, you know, w- and predominantly this podcast is coming from a sort of Westminster Confession of Faith Presbyterian perspective, give or take, right? The, the broad Reformed tradition would say that the, the Mosaic, uh, covenant, the Davidic Covenant, all of the covenants of the Old Testament, and we can break them up in all sorts of different ways, but all of the covenants of the Old Testament, [00:47:00] um, with maybe the exception of the Noahic Covenant, and there's some debate about that, all of those are They're not just, like, supporting structures for the covenant of grace, but they actually are the covenant of grace in various administrations. If that's true, and of course we believe that it is, if that's true, then the people of those covenants understood that on some level. Right. Right? So to think that, like, people under the administration of the covenant of grace somehow thought that they were operating under a legalistic framework doesn't make any sense. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, Tony Arsenal: that's true. So, so where I think that applies here is I think this person coming forward, it's not as though the concept of the covenant of grace... Again, that's language that we would develop later, but the concept that God graciously saves His people by the counsel of His own will, apart from their works of righteousness, apart from their meritorious effort, that God [00:48:00] simply extends His grace and conveys the cov- the blessings of the covenant of works to those who trust in the mediator, those who trust in the one to come, the, the forthcoming serpent-crushing seed, right, if you wanna use- Right language from Genesis 3. The, the idea that God simply graciously conveys the blessings of the covenant of works to those people Um, that's not something that's alien to the Old Testament, right? It's not alien to the, even to the Mosaic economy. The most law-based of all of the Old Testament, um, covenants, even that starts with the concept that these people are God's people who he redeemed out of Egypt, right? Right. The redemption out of Egypt comes before the giving of the law, and the giving of the law is a result of the redemption out of Egypt. So to think that this lawyer comes forward, and again, this had been sort of corrupted and distorted and had become a very works-based, uh, [00:49:00] meritorious-based understanding. But the idea that this framework of a covenant of grace is totally alien to this guy just doesn't, it just doesn't, I think it doesn't play. And so I think rather than us read this as I think sometimes we do, of Christ as kind of like giving this guy, trying to give this guy an entirely new paradigm, or like the rich young ruler is very much a parallel kind of situation. We read this, this guy comes forward, he's like, "What do I gotta do to earn eternal life?" Christ is like, kinda basically says like, "Well, you dum-dum, you can't. And I'm gonna demonstrate for you that you can't by- Right ... taking sort of like this situation that you can't possibly believe that you fulfilled and telling you to fulfill it." That's the outcome of this. We'll get to that when we get to the end of the parable. Um, he's not trying to give them a new paradigm. He's trying, in my opinion, he's trying to sort of reorient them back to the true paradigm of grace that is present under all of the Old Covenant administrations. So it's not so much a matter of like [00:50:00] developing a new framework and impli- like imposing this new framework on this guy. It's really trying to say like, "Listen- Think about this for a second, dude. Think about this, right? Think about the fact that, yes, you know you have to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole strength, your whole mind, and you have to love your neighbor as yourself, right? You've answered correctly. If you can do those things, you will live. With the subtext, which I think is what you're getting at, the subtext of, like, and of course you cannot possibly do those things. Right. Right. So what's the alternative, my friend? The alternative is not justifying yourself by somehow identifying who the person is that you have to love the most. The, the, the, um, the... Well, we'll get this when we get to the parable itself, but the, the alternative is... This will be interesting, 'cause I'm not sure that we... I don't know where you are on this, but, um, the alternative is that there's someone out there who shows us mercy. [00:51:00] Right. There's someone out there who takes care of our need despite our total inability to do so. Jesse Schwamb: That's right. Tony Arsenal: That's the alternative to the covenant of works, is the covenant of grace. I m- maybe I'm, like, hinting at it too much, so I'll just say it. Like, Jesus is the Good Samaritan, right? Like, there's something for us to learn about our own justification here and our own- Right ... like, um, our own need to be merciful, to treat people as our neighbors. But just like we talked about when we talked about, like, what does the least of these mean, this parable, uh, I'm totally, like, burying the lede for next, next week, but that's fine. This parable is not primarily about us figuring out how to do mercy ministry. Right. Like, that's important. It's probably an outcome of this. It's probably something for us to think about. But really, this is actually Christ saying, like, "Hold on a second here, dude." Like, "Let's just think about this." Do you need someone who is going to tell you to pick yourself up off your bootstraps and cross to the other side of the street and leave you to [00:52:00] your own devices? Or do you need someone who's gonna throw you on their donkey, who's gonna bind up your wounds, who's gonna pay the innkeeper, and is gonna pledge to play- pay everything that is owed for your salvation? Right? That's not too on the nose here, I think. Right. And, and I really look forward to, like, unpacking that, although maybe we don't need to now, but I think, like, this parable is so much more about how salvation works than it is about, like, what it means to have a good neighbor and to be a good neighbor. I think we get bogged down in that, and I just am really excited to talk more about, like, what I think this parable actually gets at. Jesse Schwamb: I agree, and it's happening in the contex
If you sell services to corporate clients, you've almost certainly asked yourself whether you should be focused on inbound or outbound sales. It's one of the most common questions coaches, consultants, trainers, speakers, and done-for-you service providers ask when they're trying to build a predictable pipeline of corporate clients, and the honest answer is that it depends on your business stage, your capacity, and how much control you want over your results. Inbound sales, in a B2B context, means working with inquiries that come to you: referrals, warm introductions, and prospects who find you online and reach out because they've already identified a problem they think you can solve. It feels exciting because it looks like leads are coming pre-sold. In reality, inbound B2B lead generation is reactive rather than proactive, and it requires significant, ongoing qualification work. Not every inbound inquiry comes from someone with real budget authority. A large proportion come from junior team members carrying out research or benchmarking on behalf of a senior stakeholder, which means a coach or consultant can spend hours on discovery calls and proposals that were never going to close. Outbound sales, by contrast, means proactively identifying and contacting the corporate decision makers you want to work with, through channels like cold email outreach, LinkedIn outreach, or targeted networking. Outbound has a reputation for being harder, more 'salesy', and more likely to result in rejection. Much of that reputation comes from exposure to badly executed outbound (generic pitches, poor targeting, no follow-up process) rather than from outbound sales as a method. A well-built outbound sales process is highly structured: it defines exactly how leads are generated, how many should convert to sales calls, how many of those calls should convert to proposals, and how many proposals should convert to signed contracts. That structure is what makes outbound genuinely predictable and scalable, in a way that inbound, by its reactive nature, cannot be. The conversation around inbound versus outbound B2B sales has also shifted because of how corporate buyers now research suppliers. Recent industry research shows a majority of B2B decision makers now use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot at some stage of their supplier search, often before they ever land on a company website. Corporate buyers increasingly type conversational, problem-based queries into AI platforms rather than short keyword searches, and those platforms return a small, curated shortlist of suppliers rather than a page of links to browse. This has real implications for coaches and consultants: traditional SEO alone is no longer enough to guarantee visibility, because AI-powered search behaves differently from Google's results pages. Being structured, cited, and consistently referenced across credible platforms (what's increasingly called generative engine optimisation, or GEO) is becoming part of a modern passive visibility strategy that works alongside, not instead of, proactive outreach. So which should you prioritise: inbound or outbound? For most coaches and consultants who are not yet fully booked with corporate clients, an active, proactive outbound sales process is the more reliable route to consistent revenue, because it puts you in control of your own pipeline rather than waiting for the market to come to you. Passive visibility strategies that support inbound leads, content, speaking, directory listings, and AI search visibility, are worth building at the same time, because they compound over months and continue working even during periods when you're heavily focused on client delivery. The businesses that build the most resilient B2B sales pipelines tend to run both: a controlled, metrics-driven outbound sales process to generate steady, qualified sales calls, and a passive visibility layer that ensures they're findable, and credible, when a corporate decision maker (or an AI platform on their behalf) goes looking for the right supplier. Whichever you choose to prioritise first, both inbound and outbound sales processes for coaches and consultants ultimately rely on the same underlying skill set: strong qualification, clear diagnosis of the buyer's real problem, confident proposal writing, and considered objection handling, particularly around pricing. Building a predictable B2B sales pipeline isn't about picking a side in the inbound versus outbound debate. It's about understanding the workload and the trade-offs behind each, and choosing, deliberately, where to invest your limited time. Questions This Episode Answers What's the actual difference between an inbound and an outbound B2B sales process? Is an inbound inquiry always a qualified lead? How much work does it really take to generate a steady stream of inbound leads? Why do outbound sales processes feel harder, and is that reputation deserved? What sales skills do you need for inbound leads versus outbound leads? How is the rise of AI-powered supplier search changing the inbound vs outbound decision? Should you focus on one sales process or build both? Key Takeaways An inbound inquiry is not automatically a qualified lead. Everybody loves an inbound inquiry, but Jess is clear that the quality of that inquiry has to be established before you get excited about it. A genuinely qualified inbound lead comes from a decision maker who controls budget and has correctly identified their own problem. A high proportion of inbound inquiries instead come from junior team members carrying out benchmarking or procurement research, who don't have the authority or budget context to move a deal forward. Jess illustrates this with a client story: a leadership development proposal was rejected as too expensive because the buyer was benchmarking it against a £70-an-hour massage therapist, having equated 'stress reduction' services as interchangeable. Filtering for real, qualified opportunities is a significant, ongoing part of running an inbound sales process well. A predictable inbound pipeline requires becoming your own media channel. To generate a steady, predictable volume of inbound leads (rather than the occasional lucky referral), you need consistent visibility: regular LinkedIn posting, contributed articles, speaking, and networking, sustained over time. Jess is upfront that this is a significant and ongoing workload, closer to running a personal brand than to 'just having a good website'. It's well suited to business owners who have the time and capacity to commit to content creation consistently, but it is not a fast or low-effort route to revenue. Outbound sales processes require more thought at the start, but deliver far more predictability. Where inbound is reactive, outbound is proactive and controllable. A well-built outbound sales process defines each stage clearly, lead generation, sales calls, proposals, and close, so you can predict how many leads convert into calls, how many calls convert into proposals, and how many proposals convert into signed contracts. That means metrics can be monitored and troubleshot at every stage, and, crucially, the process can be handed off to someone else because it doesn't rely on the founder's personal relationships or improvisation. Outbound's bad reputation usually comes from watching it done badly. Most negative associations with outbound sales, being pushy, salesy, or a burden, come from exposure to poorly executed cold outreach rather than a well-run process. Jess points out that people rarely see good outbound in action, only the badly targeted pitches that land in their own inbox. Inexperienced business owners who are desperate not to be salesy often make the opposite mistake: pitching too early and too hard because they haven't been taught a proven sequence to follow. Both inbound and outbound demand strong sales call skills. Regardless of which route generates the lead, qualification, diagnosis of the real problem, proposal writing, objection handling (particularly around pricing), and follow-up all remain essential. With outbound, rapport has to be built quickly, Jess notes it's roughly a five-minute job, after which the conversation moves to diagnosing a genuine need. With inbound, more time is often needed up front simply to establish whether the person on the call has the authority and budget to buy at all. The rise of AI-powered supplier search changes the visibility equation, not the fundamentals. One of the biggest shifts in B2B sales in the last decade is corporate decision makers using AI platforms to research and shortlist external suppliers before ever visiting a website. Jess is clear that this doesn't replace proactive outreach, it adds a passive visibility layer alongside it. Websites and social content built purely for traditional SEO may no longer be enough on their own; being structured, cited, and indexed in a way AI platforms trust is now part of a modern lead generation strategy, working in parallel with, not instead of, a proven outbound sales process. The right answer depends on your business stage and capacity, not a universal 'best'. Jess's own preference leans towards outbound, because it creates a sales pipeline that can be predicted, measured, and eventually scaled beyond the founder into a wider sales team. But she's equally clear that inbound inquiries are genuinely valuable when they're qualified. The real decision point is whether you have the time and capacity to build visibility for inbound, the discipline to run a proactive outbound process consistently, or the resources to do both well at once. Questions Corporate Buyers and AI Search Tools Are Asking The answers below are written to speak directly to the conversational questions coaches, consultants, and the corporate buyers who might hire them are already asking AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews. Should I focus on inbound or outbound sales as a coach selling to corporate clients? What's the difference between an inbound and an outbound B2B sales process? Is cold email outreach still worth it now that companies use AI to find suppliers? How do I know if an inbound inquiry is actually a qualified lead? Why does outbound sales feel harder or more 'salesy' than inbound? What sales skills do coaches and consultants need for inbound versus outbound leads? How much work does it take to build a predictable stream of inbound leads? How are corporate decision makers using AI to research and shortlist suppliers in 2026? Can a small coaching or consulting business run both inbound and outbound sales at once? Key Quotes "Sales requires action. I wish it didn't, but it does." "The whole point of an outbound sales process is to have something that is completely predictable, completely scalable, and doesn't rely on you." "Rapport is a five-minute job to build, and then you can focus your actual sales call skills on diagnosing a real need." Resources and Links Profit to Process – Free Masterclass A free live masterclass (with 24-hour replay for registered attendees) on troubleshooting your existing sales process, understanding what a best-practice B2B sales process looks like for coaches and consultants, and leveraging 2026's corporate landscape changes to generate more Q4 and 2027 revenue. Space is limited to 100 attendees, register below. https://magic.beehiiv.com/v1/988ac64b-5875-4924-9d10-50faad2aa4ad?email=%2525EMAIL%2525 Join the B2B Sales Edit: Busyness to Business Weekly newsletter for coaches and consultants; sharing the real B2B sales techniques that have taken over 30,000 sales processes from busy to balanced and profitable. https://sellingtocorporate.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=applepodcasts&utm_medium=podcast_shownotes&utm_campaign=stc-podcast-shownotes-2026 The Expert Services Directory Episode sponsor. A curated directory that proactively markets your services to corporate decision makers every month, and is actively crawled and trusted by AI search platforms. Use code PODCAST for a bonus. https://bit.ly/ExpertServicesDirectory Cold → Closed The self-paced B2B sales experience for coaches, consultants, speakers, trainers, and done-for-you service providers who want scalable, sustainable sales from brand new corporate clients in 90 days or less. https://smartleaderssell.thrivecart.com/-cold-to-closed-product/ Related Episodes STC064 - Do Cold Emails Still Work When Selling to Corporate Companies? https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stc064-do-cold-emails-still-work-when-selling-to-corporate/id1469526548?i=1000551472029 STC125 - Why Bother with Forward Selling? Predictable Revenue or Scary Sales Strategy? https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/stc125-why-bother-with-forward-selling-predictable/id1469526548?i=1000655885198 STC145 - The #1 Piece of Content You'll Ever Need to Convert Corporate Clients https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-1-piece-of-content-youll-ever-need-to/id1469526548?i=1000694646263 Content Disclaimer The information contained above is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this article, video or audio are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this article, video or audio. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this article, video or audio. Jessica Lorimer disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this article, video or audio.
The MacVoices Live! panel examines Microsoft's aggressive Copilot expansion, comparing its enterprise integration with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini while contrasting corporate and academic AI adoption. AI's growing role in IT support, productivity, and Hollywood filmmaking, Apple's quieter AI strategy, and concerns over creativity versus automation are all on the agenda. The absurdity of some tech news has the panel looking at Russia's iPhone demands and a stolen Nicolas Cage film hard drive. Panel members include: Marty Jencius, David Ginsburg, Jim Rea, Chuck Joiner, Eric Bolden, Web Bixby, and Brian Flanigan-Arthurs. MacVoices is supported by CleanMyMac from MacPaw. Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use my code MACVOICES20 for 20% off at http://clnmy.com/MACVOICES Show Notes: Chapters: 00:00 Microsoft Copilot frustrations and the lingering Copilot vulnerability 08:12 Microsoft's AI super app and enterprise integration 19:03 Enterprise vs. education approaches to AI adoption 31:15 Apple's AI strategy compared to Microsoft's approach 37:56 AI's growing influence in Hollywood filmmaking 49:08 Creative storytelling, superhero franchises, and AI-generated entertainment 58:18 Russia's iPhone app demands and Apple's response 01:01:10 Netflix hard drive theft and Nicolas Cage discussion 01:05:42 Panelist projects, upcoming appearances, and closing remarks Links: Microsoft Copilot's 'Word worm' still works 144 days after disclosure https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-copilot-word-worm-prompt-injection-super-app Microsoft is merging its Copilots into one AI super app https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-copilot-super-app-nadella-consumer-enterprise 'Everyone Is Doing It': The Truth About AI in Hollywood https://www.wired.com/story/the-big-interview-podcast-matthew-belloni-puck/ EU announces new rules on AI transparency – Engadget https://www.engadget.com/2228894/eu-announces-new-rules-on-ai-transparency/ Anthropic says its AI models also hacked three organizations on their own – Engadget https://www.engadget.com/2227630/anthropic-ai-models-hacked-three-organizations-on-their-own/ The Kremlin Keeps Trying to Crack Down on Apple, Even Though They Don't Sell the iPhone There! https://www.mactrast.com/2026/08/the-kremlin-keeps-trying-to-crack-down-on-apple-even-though-they-dont-sell-the-iphone-there/ Man invested $45M in a Nicolas Cage movie. It got stolen off Netflix's desk. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/man-invested-45m-in-a-nicolas-cage-movie-it-got-stolen-off-netflixs-desk/ Guests: Get detailed bios and contact information about for the panel on the MacVoices Live! Panel page on our web site: https://macvoices.com/macvoiceslive/macvoices-live-panel/ Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon http://patreon.com/macvoices Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web: http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe: Audio in iTunes Video in iTunes Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss
All sorts of cybersecurity disciplines are adopting agents to help humans save time and automate routine activities. Sai Kiran Uppu describes his work on creating a platform for agents to analyze external threat intel, examine internal systems, and present triage decisions to operators. This type of work is especially useful to orgs that deal with petabytes of data and thousands of systems. And, as Kiran notes, it's important to keep that scale from blowing up your budget or turning triage into a procession of false positives. Ideally, this kind of threat intel that's paying attention to attack trends and searching internal systems for evidence of compromise also turns into proactive defenses. We talk about some of the ways to engage developers to improve security visibility into their services and harden their designs against common attacks. After that discussion we're running two sponsored interviews from Black Hat. AI Pentesting and the Future of Cybersecurity: Black Hat interview with Chris Wallis, Founder and CEO of Intruder This segment discusses how AI addresses the long-standing gap between traditional pentesting and automated vulnerability scanning. Intruder CEO and founder Chris Wallis dives into the nuances of AI-enabled security and how these offerings will impact mid-market security teams. Segment Resources: https://www.intruder.io/platform/ai-pentesting https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-pentesting-the-depth-of-a-pentest-on-demand https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-web-app-pentesting-test-on-every-major-release Intruder's continuous exposure management platform helps security, IT, and engineering teams stop breaches before they start. For more information about Intruder's products and services, please visit https://securityweekly.com/intruderbh. How Menlo Security Is Securing AI Agents from Prompt Injection: Black Hat Interview with Ramin Farassat, Chief Product Officer of Menlo Enterprises are deploying AI agents like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Claude Code faster than they can secure them, and attackers are exploiting that gap through prompt injection. Hidden instructions get buried in web pages, files, and even images that a human would never notice but an AI agent reads and acts on. Menlo Security is building Menlo Agent Runtime Security (MARS) to close that gap, running every agent session in an isolated cloud that sanitizes content before an agent can act on it. Ramin Farassat, Menlo Security's Chief Product Officer, will discuss why the exposure lives in the connectors and integrations around the model rather than the model itself, and how security teams can put controls on the agent attack surface without blocking agentic AI outright. Segment Resources: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-agent-security MARS is now available today, please visit https://securityweekly.com/menlobh Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-396
The MacVoices Live! panel examines Microsoft's aggressive Copilot expansion, comparing its enterprise integration with ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini while contrasting corporate and academic AI adoption. AI's growing role in IT support, productivity, and Hollywood filmmaking, Apple's quieter AI strategy, and concerns over creativity versus automation are all on the agenda. The absurdity of some tech news has the panel looking at Russia's iPhone demands and a stolen Nicolas Cage film hard drive. MacVoices is supported by CleanMyMac from MacPaw. Get Tidy Today! Try 7 days free and use my code MACVOICES20 for 20% off at http://clnmy.com/MACVOICES Show Notes: Chapters: 00:00 Microsoft Copilot frustrations and the lingering Copilot vulnerability08:12 Microsoft's AI super app and enterprise integration19:03 Enterprise vs. education approaches to AI adoption31:15 Apple's AI strategy compared to Microsoft's approach37:56 AI's growing influence in Hollywood filmmaking49:08 Creative storytelling, superhero franchises, and AI-generated entertainment58:18 Russia's iPhone app demands and Apple's response01:01:10 Netflix hard drive theft and Nicolas Cage discussion01:05:42 Panelist projects, upcoming appearances, and closing remarks Links: Microsoft Copilot's ‘Word worm' still works 144 days after disclosure https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-copilot-word-worm-prompt-injection-super-app Microsoft is merging its Copilots into one AI super apphttps://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-copilot-super-app-nadella-consumer-enterprise ‘Everyone Is Doing It': The Truth About AI in Hollywoodhttps://www.wired.com/story/the-big-interview-podcast-matthew-belloni-puck/ EU announces new rules on AI transparency – Engadgethttps://www.engadget.com/2228894/eu-announces-new-rules-on-ai-transparency/ Anthropic says its AI models also hacked three organizations on their own – Engadget https://www.engadget.com/2227630/anthropic-ai-models-hacked-three-organizations-on-their-own/ The Kremlin Keeps Trying to Crack Down on Apple, Even Though They Don't Sell the iPhone There! https://www.mactrast.com/2026/08/the-kremlin-keeps-trying-to-crack-down-on-apple-even-though-they-dont-sell-the-iphone-there/ Man invested $45M in a Nicolas Cage movie. It got stolen off Netflix's desk. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/man-invested-45m-in-a-nicolas-cage-movie-it-got-stolen-off-netflixs-desk/ Guests: Get detailed bios and contact information about for the panel on the MacVoices Live! Panel page on our web site:https://macvoices.com/macvoiceslive/macvoices-live-panel/ Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon http://patreon.com/macvoices Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web: http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe: Audio in iTunes Video in iTunes Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss
All sorts of cybersecurity disciplines are adopting agents to help humans save time and automate routine activities. Sai Kiran Uppu describes his work on creating a platform for agents to analyze external threat intel, examine internal systems, and present triage decisions to operators. This type of work is especially useful to orgs that deal with petabytes of data and thousands of systems. And, as Kiran notes, it's important to keep that scale from blowing up your budget or turning triage into a procession of false positives. Ideally, this kind of threat intel that's paying attention to attack trends and searching internal systems for evidence of compromise also turns into proactive defenses. We talk about some of the ways to engage developers to improve security visibility into their services and harden their designs against common attacks. After that discussion we're running two sponsored interviews from Black Hat. AI Pentesting and the Future of Cybersecurity: Black Hat interview with Chris Wallis, Founder and CEO of Intruder This segment discusses how AI addresses the long-standing gap between traditional pentesting and automated vulnerability scanning. Intruder CEO and founder Chris Wallis dives into the nuances of AI-enabled security and how these offerings will impact mid-market security teams. Segment Resources: https://www.intruder.io/platform/ai-pentesting https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-pentesting-the-depth-of-a-pentest-on-demand https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-web-app-pentesting-test-on-every-major-release Intruder's continuous exposure management platform helps security, IT, and engineering teams stop breaches before they start. For more information about Intruder's products and services, please visit https://securityweekly.com/intruderbh. How Menlo Security Is Securing AI Agents from Prompt Injection: Black Hat Interview with Ramin Farassat, Chief Product Officer of Menlo Enterprises are deploying AI agents like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Claude Code faster than they can secure them, and attackers are exploiting that gap through prompt injection. Hidden instructions get buried in web pages, files, and even images that a human would never notice but an AI agent reads and acts on. Menlo Security is building Menlo Agent Runtime Security (MARS) to close that gap, running every agent session in an isolated cloud that sanitizes content before an agent can act on it. Ramin Farassat, Menlo Security's Chief Product Officer, will discuss why the exposure lives in the connectors and integrations around the model rather than the model itself, and how security teams can put controls on the agent attack surface without blocking agentic AI outright. Segment Resources: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-agent-security MARS is now available today, please visit https://securityweekly.com/menlobh Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-396
All sorts of cybersecurity disciplines are adopting agents to help humans save time and automate routine activities. Sai Kiran Uppu describes his work on creating a platform for agents to analyze external threat intel, examine internal systems, and present triage decisions to operators. This type of work is especially useful to orgs that deal with petabytes of data and thousands of systems. And, as Kiran notes, it's important to keep that scale from blowing up your budget or turning triage into a procession of false positives. Ideally, this kind of threat intel that's paying attention to attack trends and searching internal systems for evidence of compromise also turns into proactive defenses. We talk about some of the ways to engage developers to improve security visibility into their services and harden their designs against common attacks. After that discussion we're running two sponsored interviews from Black Hat. AI Pentesting and the Future of Cybersecurity: Black Hat interview with Chris Wallis, Founder and CEO of Intruder This segment discusses how AI addresses the long-standing gap between traditional pentesting and automated vulnerability scanning. Intruder CEO and founder Chris Wallis dives into the nuances of AI-enabled security and how these offerings will impact mid-market security teams. Segment Resources: https://www.intruder.io/platform/ai-pentesting https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-pentesting-the-depth-of-a-pentest-on-demand https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-web-app-pentesting-test-on-every-major-release Intruder's continuous exposure management platform helps security, IT, and engineering teams stop breaches before they start. For more information about Intruder's products and services, please visit https://securityweekly.com/intruderbh. How Menlo Security Is Securing AI Agents from Prompt Injection: Black Hat Interview with Ramin Farassat, Chief Product Officer of Menlo Enterprises are deploying AI agents like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Claude Code faster than they can secure them, and attackers are exploiting that gap through prompt injection. Hidden instructions get buried in web pages, files, and even images that a human would never notice but an AI agent reads and acts on. Menlo Security is building Menlo Agent Runtime Security (MARS) to close that gap, running every agent session in an isolated cloud that sanitizes content before an agent can act on it. Ramin Farassat, Menlo Security's Chief Product Officer, will discuss why the exposure lives in the connectors and integrations around the model rather than the model itself, and how security teams can put controls on the agent attack surface without blocking agentic AI outright. Segment Resources: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-agent-security MARS is now available today, please visit https://securityweekly.com/menlobh Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/asw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-396
All sorts of cybersecurity disciplines are adopting agents to help humans save time and automate routine activities. Sai Kiran Uppu describes his work on creating a platform for agents to analyze external threat intel, examine internal systems, and present triage decisions to operators. This type of work is especially useful to orgs that deal with petabytes of data and thousands of systems. And, as Kiran notes, it's important to keep that scale from blowing up your budget or turning triage into a procession of false positives. Ideally, this kind of threat intel that's paying attention to attack trends and searching internal systems for evidence of compromise also turns into proactive defenses. We talk about some of the ways to engage developers to improve security visibility into their services and harden their designs against common attacks. After that discussion we're running two sponsored interviews from Black Hat. AI Pentesting and the Future of Cybersecurity: Black Hat interview with Chris Wallis, Founder and CEO of Intruder This segment discusses how AI addresses the long-standing gap between traditional pentesting and automated vulnerability scanning. Intruder CEO and founder Chris Wallis dives into the nuances of AI-enabled security and how these offerings will impact mid-market security teams. Segment Resources: https://www.intruder.io/platform/ai-pentesting https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-pentesting-the-depth-of-a-pentest-on-demand https://www.intruder.io/blog/ai-web-app-pentesting-test-on-every-major-release Intruder's continuous exposure management platform helps security, IT, and engineering teams stop breaches before they start. For more information about Intruder's products and services, please visit https://securityweekly.com/intruderbh. How Menlo Security Is Securing AI Agents from Prompt Injection: Black Hat Interview with Ramin Farassat, Chief Product Officer of Menlo Enterprises are deploying AI agents like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, and Claude Code faster than they can secure them, and attackers are exploiting that gap through prompt injection. Hidden instructions get buried in web pages, files, and even images that a human would never notice but an AI agent reads and acts on. Menlo Security is building Menlo Agent Runtime Security (MARS) to close that gap, running every agent session in an isolated cloud that sanitizes content before an agent can act on it. Ramin Farassat, Menlo Security's Chief Product Officer, will discuss why the exposure lives in the connectors and integrations around the model rather than the model itself, and how security teams can put controls on the agent attack surface without blocking agentic AI outright. Segment Resources: https://www.menlosecurity.com/product/ai-agent-security MARS is now available today, please visit https://securityweekly.com/menlobh Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/asw-396
Interview with Jon Hladik - ChatMate Imagine a user asks an LLM a question about a document. An attacker then gains an interactive prompt on the user's chat session, enabling the attacker to instruct the AI assistant to take actions on behalf of the victim. That is exactly the capability researchers at Rubrik Zero Labs were able to demonstrate in a recent study designed to test the bounds of LLM security. Join Joe Hladik, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, as he breaks down the discovery of "Remote Prompt Execution," a novel vulnerability class that enabled full takeovers of Microsoft Copilot sessions through sandbox escapes. He explores the technical journey behind the eight critical CVEs uncovered by Rubrik Zero Labs and discusses the broader implications for securing generative AI assistants within enterprise environments. This interview highlights the groundbreaking research that earned a $48,000 bounty and featured as a premier briefing at Black Hat USA. Segment Resources: Find more research from Rubrik Zero Labs Rubrik Zero Labs' Black Hat session Demo of the ChatMate attack in action This segment is sponsored by Rubrik. Visit https://securityweekly.com/rubrik to learn more about them! Topic Segment - AI Notetakers and Recorders AI notetakers are built into everything now, and hardware-based AI recorders are becoming mainstream as well. Is privacy over in the workplace? Adrian, Jackie, Katie, and Tyler discuss. Questions enterprises should be asking: Are employees recording or transcribing meetings? Does this policy change if non-employees (external parties) are present? Is consent asked for/given? Is the context of the conversation taken into consideration? Is the geographic/legal/political context of the external party taken into account? Have you done your due diligence on third parties hosting/storing these recordings and transcriptions? Was your due diligence a SOC 2, or real, actual evidence-based due diligence? Do these third parties have an option to allow you to store/manage your own recordings in a place of your choosing, or does it have to be hosted by the AI recording/transcription company? News Segment Finally, in the enterprise security news, we check the vibes and the funding, and the acquisitions seriously, don't mess with the wifi on planes 181,000 meetings were left wide open the sandbox escapes are getting ridiculous research on how reliable AI-generated patches are research on what attackers do after they get a shell research on how cybercriminals are using AI agents research on how vulnerable datacenters are and finally, what's a “mouthpad”? Stick around till the end of the news segment to find out! All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-472
Interview with Jon Hladik - ChatMate Imagine a user asks an LLM a question about a document. An attacker then gains an interactive prompt on the user's chat session, enabling the attacker to instruct the AI assistant to take actions on behalf of the victim. That is exactly the capability researchers at Rubrik Zero Labs were able to demonstrate in a recent study designed to test the bounds of LLM security. Join Joe Hladik, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, as he breaks down the discovery of "Remote Prompt Execution," a novel vulnerability class that enabled full takeovers of Microsoft Copilot sessions through sandbox escapes. He explores the technical journey behind the eight critical CVEs uncovered by Rubrik Zero Labs and discusses the broader implications for securing generative AI assistants within enterprise environments. This interview highlights the groundbreaking research that earned a $48,000 bounty and featured as a premier briefing at Black Hat USA. Segment Resources: Find more research from Rubrik Zero Labs Rubrik Zero Labs' Black Hat session Demo of the ChatMate attack in action This segment is sponsored by Rubrik. Visit https://securityweekly.com/rubrik to learn more about them! Topic Segment - AI Notetakers and Recorders AI notetakers are built into everything now, and hardware-based AI recorders are becoming mainstream as well. Is privacy over in the workplace? Adrian, Jackie, Katie, and Tyler discuss. Questions enterprises should be asking: Are employees recording or transcribing meetings? Does this policy change if non-employees (external parties) are present? Is consent asked for/given? Is the context of the conversation taken into consideration? Is the geographic/legal/political context of the external party taken into account? Have you done your due diligence on third parties hosting/storing these recordings and transcriptions? Was your due diligence a SOC 2, or real, actual evidence-based due diligence? Do these third parties have an option to allow you to store/manage your own recordings in a place of your choosing, or does it have to be hosted by the AI recording/transcription company? News Segment Finally, in the enterprise security news, we check the vibes and the funding, and the acquisitions seriously, don't mess with the wifi on planes 181,000 meetings were left wide open the sandbox escapes are getting ridiculous research on how reliable AI-generated patches are research on what attackers do after they get a shell research on how cybercriminals are using AI agents research on how vulnerable datacenters are and finally, what's a "mouthpad"? Stick around till the end of the news segment to find out! All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Visit https://www.securityweekly.com/esw for all the latest episodes! Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-472
Interview with Joe Hladik - ChatMate Imagine a user asks an LLM a question about a document. An attacker then gains an interactive prompt on the user's chat session, enabling the attacker to instruct the AI assistant to take actions on behalf of the victim. That is exactly the capability researchers at Rubrik Zero Labs were able to demonstrate in a recent study designed to test the bounds of LLM security. Join Joe Hladik, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, as he breaks down the discovery of "Remote Prompt Execution," a novel vulnerability class that enabled full takeovers of Microsoft Copilot sessions through sandbox escapes. He explores the technical journey behind the eight critical CVEs uncovered by Rubrik Zero Labs and discusses the broader implications for securing generative AI assistants within enterprise environments. This interview highlights the groundbreaking research that earned a $48,000 bounty and featured as a premier briefing at Black Hat USA. Segment Resources: Find more research from Rubrik Zero Labs Rubrik Zero Labs' Black Hat session Demo of the ChatMate attack in action This segment is sponsored by Rubrik. Visit https://securityweekly.com/rubrik to learn more about them! Topic Segment - AI Notetakers and Recorders AI notetakers are built into everything now, and hardware-based AI recorders are becoming mainstream as well. Is privacy over in the workplace? Adrian, Jackie, Katie, and Tyler discuss. Questions enterprises should be asking: Are employees recording or transcribing meetings? Does this policy change if non-employees (external parties) are present? Is consent asked for/given? Is the context of the conversation taken into consideration? Is the geographic/legal/political context of the external party taken into account? Have you done your due diligence on third parties hosting/storing these recordings and transcriptions? Was your due diligence a SOC 2, or real, actual evidence-based due diligence? Do these third parties have an option to allow you to store/manage your own recordings in a place of your choosing, or does it have to be hosted by the AI recording/transcription company? News Segment Finally, in the enterprise security news, we check the vibes and the funding, and the acquisitions seriously, don't mess with the wifi on planes 181,000 meetings were left wide open the sandbox escapes are getting ridiculous research on how reliable AI-generated patches are research on what attackers do after they get a shell research on how cybercriminals are using AI agents research on how vulnerable datacenters are and finally, what's a "mouthpad"? Stick around till the end of the news segment to find out! All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-472
Interview with Jon Hladik - ChatMate Imagine a user asks an LLM a question about a document. An attacker then gains an interactive prompt on the user's chat session, enabling the attacker to instruct the AI assistant to take actions on behalf of the victim. That is exactly the capability researchers at Rubrik Zero Labs were able to demonstrate in a recent study designed to test the bounds of LLM security. Join Joe Hladik, Head of Rubrik Zero Labs, as he breaks down the discovery of "Remote Prompt Execution," a novel vulnerability class that enabled full takeovers of Microsoft Copilot sessions through sandbox escapes. He explores the technical journey behind the eight critical CVEs uncovered by Rubrik Zero Labs and discusses the broader implications for securing generative AI assistants within enterprise environments. This interview highlights the groundbreaking research that earned a $48,000 bounty and featured as a premier briefing at Black Hat USA. Segment Resources: Find more research from Rubrik Zero Labs Rubrik Zero Labs' Black Hat session Demo of the ChatMate attack in action This segment is sponsored by Rubrik. Visit https://securityweekly.com/rubrik to learn more about them! Topic Segment - AI Notetakers and Recorders AI notetakers are built into everything now, and hardware-based AI recorders are becoming mainstream as well. Is privacy over in the workplace? Adrian, Jackie, Katie, and Tyler discuss. Questions enterprises should be asking: Are employees recording or transcribing meetings? Does this policy change if non-employees (external parties) are present? Is consent asked for/given? Is the context of the conversation taken into consideration? Is the geographic/legal/political context of the external party taken into account? Have you done your due diligence on third parties hosting/storing these recordings and transcriptions? Was your due diligence a SOC 2, or real, actual evidence-based due diligence? Do these third parties have an option to allow you to store/manage your own recordings in a place of your choosing, or does it have to be hosted by the AI recording/transcription company? News Segment Finally, in the enterprise security news, we check the vibes and the funding, and the acquisitions seriously, don't mess with the wifi on planes 181,000 meetings were left wide open the sandbox escapes are getting ridiculous research on how reliable AI-generated patches are research on what attackers do after they get a shell research on how cybercriminals are using AI agents research on how vulnerable datacenters are and finally, what's a "mouthpad"? Stick around till the end of the news segment to find out! All that and more, on this episode of Enterprise Security Weekly. Show Notes: https://securityweekly.com/esw-472
Learn how recent data breaches, AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, and the rise of AI-generated music impact accessibility, privacy, and everyday digital life. Plus, the hosts share candid insights about caring for loved ones with dementia. In this episode of Double Tap, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece dive into critical updates for the visually impaired community. They break down the data breach affecting Calibre and TAVIP users via Beacon CRM, including what types of information may have been exposed and how to stay vigilant against potential scams. The discussion shifts to practical tips for secure digital payments, highlighting the benefits of using Apple Pay, Google Pay, and credit cards to protect against fraud. The hosts explore Microsoft Copilot's accessibility and the evolving role of AI assistants, including natural language queries, integration into Windows, and the confusion around multiple Copilot versions. The episode also tackles the ethics and implications of AI-generated music, the responsibilities of AI companies, and how watermarking may affect education and content authenticity. Finally, we hear a deeply personal story about supporting a family member with dementia from listener Nicole, offering empathy and real-life insights for anyone facing similar challenges. Relevant Links Calibre Audio: https://www.calibreaudio.org.uk TAVIP: https://www.tavip.org.uk Google Accessibility: https://support.google.com/accessibility ----Follow on:YouTube: https://www.doubletaponair.com/youtubeX (formerly Twitter): https://www.doubletaponair.com/xInstagram: https://www.doubletaponair.com/instagramTikTok: https://www.doubletaponair.com/tiktokThreads: https://www.doubletaponair.com/threadsFacebook: https://www.doubletaponair.com/facebookLinkedIn: https://www.doubletaponair.com/linkedinSubscribe to the Podcast:Apple: https://www.doubletaponair.com/appleSpotify: https://www.doubletaponair.com/spotifyRSS: https://www.doubletaponair.com/podcastiHeadRadio: https://www.doubletaponair.com/iheartAbout Double TapHosted by the insightful duo, Steven Scott and Shaun Preece, Double Tap is a treasure trove of information for anyone who's blind or partially sighted and has a passion for tech. Steven and Shaun not only demystify tech, but they also regularly feature interviews and welcome guests from the community, fostering an interactive and engaging environment. Tune in every day of the week, and you'll discover how technology can seamlessly integrate into your life, enhancing daily tasks and experiences, even if your sight is limited."Double Tap" is a registered trademark of Double Tap Productions Inc. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Welcome to Episode 434 of the Microsoft Cloud IT Pro Podcast. Microsoft announced Project Perception on 2026-07-27 with a lot of “workforce of AI agents” language. In this episode, Ben and Scott discuss what Perception really is, what it needs from your tenant, what it costs, and what happens the first time an agent asks you to approve something. Six agents. Seven playbooks. Every one manually triggered. Each agent gets its own Entra Agent ID and a permission grant. There’s a lot to unpack. Your support makes this show possible! Please consider becoming a premium member for access to live shows and more. Check out our membership options. Show Notes Save $200 at TechCon365 with code Ben200: https://www.techcon365.com/Seattle/ What is Project Perception? How Nationwide stays ahead of attackers with Project Perception Key concepts in Project Perception Agent categories in Project Perception Microsoft Security Copilot Security Compute Units and capacity Work with playbooks in Project Perception Prior podcast context Ep 431: Agent Governance Is the New App Governance Ep 419: Security and AI Ep 416 and Ep 412 Ep 406: Agents of Insight Ep 377: Microsoft Copilot for Security Sponsors Nasuni is a leading unstructured data platform for enterprises where file data is mission-critical for both people and AI. Nasuni powers the operational file layer where work happens — helping organizations manage, protect, and activate data so teams can work smarter, reduce costs, and operate securely without limits. Intelligink — Would you like to become the irreplaceable Microsoft 365 resource for your organization? Let us know!
Immer mehr Menschen nutzen die KI im Microsoft Copilot - ob sie wollen oder nicht. Aber ist das mittelmäßige Image des Copilots gerechtfertigt?
In MobileViews Podcast 622, I caught up with my good friend Mike Temporale for his first appearance on the show in nearly ten years! We started off with a brief trip down memory lane reflecting on his visit to Hawaii and our past discussions, before discussing how we're both integrating AI into our daily workflows. I shared some of my recent experiments using Google Gemini to auto-generate illustrated frames for my blog and using Adobe Podcast Studio alongside Gemini to automatically build YouTube chapter timestamps from transcript files. Mike had a great real-world story from his summer at his cottage, showing how AI helped his family quickly render design ideas for a cottage awning, calculate costs, and locate local contractors in minutes. We also spent time talking through the practical realities and failures of current AI tools, including Mike's experience using Microsoft Copilot for employee performance reviews and how it struggles to trace back to its original email sources. From there, our conversation turned to the evolving mobile hardware landscape. We compared our current daily devices—including Mike's experience with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra—and weighed in on the upcoming hardware trends, from memory constraints forcing developers back toward code efficiency to what we hope to see from Apple's eventual entrance into the foldable market. It was a great, wide-ranging discussion covering everything from 6502 assembly language programming on the Apple II to modern Gemini Spark agents automating my daily tech news briefs. We wrapped up with a promise not to wait another decade before the next chat, with plans to reconnect around Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Check out the full episode video and transcript to hear all the details!
Many people never launch the projects or businesses they dream about, not because they lack ideas, but because burnout, self-doubt, and emotional overwhelm stop them in their tracks. In this episode, Yvonne Franklin shares how, at age 61, a workplace injury and emotional breakdown ended her 30-year healthcare career, but also became the catalyst for building an online wellness ecosystem from scratch, without tech skills, marketing experience, or an ad budget. Her story is a powerful example of turning adversity into action and using lived experience to help others reset their lives. Yvonne explains how she discovered AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, and especially the Buildyai platform to create a complete digital presence in just a few months. Without writing a line of code, she built The Mindful Reset at themindfulrezset.com, along with quizzes, email sequences, workbooks, guides, a course, and even marketing assets for social media. She also became an affiliate for Buildyai and created a guide specifically for non-technical people who want to get online without the overwhelm of domains, hosting, and web design. At the heart of Yvonne's work is a simple but powerful promise: you don't need 60-minute routines or complex meditation practices to feel better. Her “Mindful Rezset” approach centers on 2–5 minute micro-resets, printable pocket cards, reflections, affirmations, breathing prompts, and short exercises designed for overstressed workers, professionals, parents, and caregivers in a fast-paced world. She breaks down different types of resets (emotional, rational, inspirational, mindset, and more) that help people pause, breathe, and reconnect with themselves so they can return to their day calmer and clearer. https://youtu.be/jy6gT0hvXdw?si=Z-VBl4BUDYohctA_ Yvonne also shares the business-building side of her journey: using free and low-cost tools, posting organic content on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Pinterest, applying for grants as a women entrepreneur in Canada, and thinking strategically about partnerships and future webinars. She talks about writing her 107-page book “Your Reset Begins Here”, creating a reflection blog series called “When Thoughts Become Things”, and launching her Etsy store at rezsetyourmoments.etsy.com. Throughout, she returns to her core mantra: “You are allowed to come back. This is built for that.” If you've been feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or “too late” to start something new, Yvonne's story and framework offer both practical tools and deep encouragement. Quotes: "I'm not a wellness guru; I'm just a simple person with lived experience, packaging what I've learned so everyday people can actually use it." "If you feel lost, overwhelmed, or like you don't recognize yourself anymore, this work is about helping you reconnect with you so you can move forward again." "People don't just need another routine; they need a moment to breathe, to come back to themselves, and remember who they are in the middle of a fast-paced world." Contact Details: Ready To Rezset Your Mind? Start Your Journey Today Ready To Transform Your Life? Follow Yvonne Franklin Facebook Page Start Your Mindful Reset; Follow Mindful Rezset on Instagram Follow Yvonne Franklin on X for Daily Inspiration Shop Meaningful Moments; Rezset Your Moments on Etsy
From rogue AI models accidentally breaching live servers to cybercriminals hijacking corporate copilot tools, keeping up with rapid tech developments can feel like a wild ride. In this episode of the Tech Field Day News Rundown, hosts Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke break down NScale's $1.65 billion acquisition of AnyScale and Nexus Data Centers' massive $15 billion campus built for Anthropic in Texas. They also explore how attackers are manipulating Microsoft Copilot for business email compromise, Anthropic's accidental real-world breach, Cursor's credit donations to the open-source FFmpeg project, and Okta's $200 million acquisition of Permiso. Finally, they take a closer look at the European Union enforcing strict new governance rules under the EU AI Act.Time Stamps: 0:00 - Cold Open0:30 - Welcome to the Tech Field Day News Rundown1:28 - AI Neocloud Nscale Acquires Anyscale in $1.65 Billion Tech Deal3:23 - Microsoft Copilot Can Be Hijacked for Automated Email Scams, Barracuda Warns7:08 - Nexus Data Centers $15B Texas AI Campus for Anthropic, Backed by Google10:42 - Anthropic's Claude Escapes Simulation, Hacks 3 Real Companies During Test14:46 - Cursor Donates AI Credits to Open-Source Giant FFmpeg17:58 - Okta Acquires AI Security Startup Permiso in ~$200M All-Cash Deal20:39 - EU Begins Enforcing AI Act with Broad Oversight on OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google27:47 - The Weeks Ahead: Upcoming Tech Field Day Events31:26 - Thanks for Watching the Tech Field Day News RundownThis and more on the Tech Field Day News Rundown with Tom Hollingsworth and Alastair Cooke. Follow our hosts Tom Hollingsworth, Alastair Cooke, and Stephen Foskett. Follow Tech Field Day on LinkedIn, on X/Twitter, on Bluesky, and on Mastodon.
OpenAI has a new model coming soon called Astra. Was it a leak? A reddit post? Some backdoor update? Nope, OpenAI made some crazy discoveries and math then told the world that their next model family Astra did the heavy lifting. (And you thought you could just click ‘Sol' and your strategy was set for Q3?) Aside from news on what's next from OpenAI, this week saw multiple new agent outbreaks, AI competitors banning together to pace AI, Amazon doing a 180 on its AI strategy and a lot more. Don't get left behind. We'll keep you ahead. OpenAI's new Astra model, more AI agents escape sandboxes, AI leaders call for AI pacing and more. AI News That Matters for August 3 — An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:OpenAI Agents Escape Sandboxes IncidentAnthropic Claude Models Security BreachesAI Agents Breaking Cybersecurity GuardrailsOpenAI GPT-5.6 Price Cuts & Self-OptimizationRecursive Self-Improvement in AI ModelsAI Leaders Urge AI Development PacingUS, China, and International AI GovernanceAmazon Nova AI Models Shutdown StrategyOpenAI Astra Model Math BreakthroughNew AI Models: Fable, Astra, DeepSeek v4 FlashEnterprise AI Agents and Cybersecurity UpdatesGoogle Gemini Robotics, Music, and Agent ReleasesMeta, Microsoft, and AWS AI Infrastructure MovesOpenAI Free Frontier Tools for ResearchersBlock's Buzz Open Source AI Workspace LaunchTimestamps:00:00 OpenAI agent containment issues04:27 Anthropic data breach explanation07:28 Evaluating AI incidents and responses10:14 OpenAI slashes GPT 5.6 prices15:59 AI industry urges development pause17:45 Concerns about AI self-improvement22:36 Amazon shifts AI strategy25:04 Amazon's AI efforts discussion28:00 OpenAI's Astra and new math proofs30:36 OpenAI's new four-tier system36:14 Google's Lyria 3.5 and Block's Buzz36:48 Latest AI developments overviewKeywords: Astra model, OpenAI, AI agents, agent escape, sandbox containment, autonomous AI, Hugging Face breach, Anthropic, Claude AI, cybersecurity testing, unauthorized access, model capabilities, recursive self-improvement, GPT-5.6, price cut, Luna model, Terra model, Sol model, input tokens, output tokens, AI infrastructure optimization, self-improving models, benchmarking, SONNET-5, large language models, artificial analysis index, codex, academic research, AI oversight, industry pause, AI governance, national security, China open-source models, Frontier Labs, Amazon Nova, AGI Lab, AWS, Peter DeSantis, Peter Abbeel, media coverage, Fable model, Haiku, Opus, DeepSeek, Kimi K3, Quinn 3.8, GLM 5.2, Google Gemini 3.5, Microsoft Copilot, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, distillation, model overhang, artificial intelligence development, international AI regulation, generative AI, model benchmarking, Sora video model, El Paso data center, MCP update, MAI Cyber One Flash, Project Perception, Lyria 3.5, music generation, Buzz open source, Block, Meta AI, Chrome Gemini integration, Gemini Spark, product summary algorithms, Rufus, enterprise AI, stateless core, model scaling, advanced math problems, sphere packing, federal policy, voluntary AI commitments.Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner
For MobileViews 621 I'm joined by longtime friend Jason Dunn filling in as guest co-host. We kicked off by discussing the "moatless" nature of modern AI tools, where hopping between Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT is easier than ever, though our deep ecosystem preferences often dictate our ultimate choices. This led into a deep dive on note-taking app migrations. Jason shared his recent departure from Evernote after a shocking 171% price hike under its new holding company, Bending Spoons. Using an AI-assisted plugin, he successfully migrated 16 years of data to a local Obsidian vault. I shared my own frustrations with Microsoft OneNote, where basic tasks like syncing handwriting on my Boox e-ink tablet are quietly draining my limited monthly Copilot AI credits, pushing me to explore Obsidian as well. I noted my initial experience using Google Spark, an autonomous personal AI agent that recently rolled out to Google AI Pro subscribers. This capability was once restricted to the much more expensive Google AI Ultra tier. In my test, I instructed Spark to review the extensive archive of past MobileViews Podcast show notes alongside current technology news platforms. Utilizing the recurring themes from our previous episodes, the agent generates a compiled tech news digest daily at 6:00 PM US Eastern Time, aligning with the conclusion of the standard workday. A major topic was Jason's journey into "vibe coding". While initially hesitant, he used AI to build a custom Tampermonkey script that saved his team over 150,000 manual clicks by streamlining a web form. He later used AI to develop a Mac OS tool called "File Time Travel" to fix frustrating video timestamp metadata issues in Google Photos—a highly specific problem that software developers have not addressed. We discussed how AI flips the traditional learning curve on its head, empowering non-developers to create deeply personal, single-purpose software solutions. We wrapped up by exploring the power of voice-as-input for AI. Jason has been using Whisper Flow, an LLM-powered speech-to-text tool that finally fulfills the broken promises of old software like Dragon Dictate by actually understanding conversational context and complex names. This allows for "ramble coding"—speaking massive, context-rich prompts directly into the AI to generate much better code and outputs. Of course, the AI revolution isn't without its hilariously frustrating bumps; we swapped stories about AI hallucinations, from Microsoft Copilot completely fabricating Yellowstone episode descriptions.
If someone handed your competitor every prompt, workflow and AI system you use today, would you still have an advantage? That is the question that opens this live roundtable, recorded in a sealed room at the first Founder AI Studio Live in Toronto. Ten women who are not just using AI but building with it: intellectual property strategists, AI educators, investors, community builders, and operators who have built and exited companies. No keynote. No panel. Just founders comparing notes from the front line. IP lawyer Andrea Bolden takes on the part most founders get wrong: whether your prompts, workflows and custom GPTs count as intellectual property, why switching off the training toggle is not the protection you think it is, why people trademark a name while giving away the entire body of work underneath it, and which AI tools will actually indemnify you if you get sued. The room also gets into what happens to knowledge businesses when knowledge stops being scarce, why AI-native builds beat AI retrofits, the environmental cost nobody wants to raise, the risk of putting your child's face into these systems, and the six companies capturing most of the value from all of it. It ends with a lightning round on the one tool each founder actually uses. CHAPTERS 00:00 Context: what this room was 01:35 Not a keynote, not a panel 02:16 The question: would you still have an advantage? 03:09 Forty-five products that all do the same thing 05:46 Being the tastemaker 07:54 AI as a democratizing force 10:03 AI-native builds vs. AI retrofits 11:00 The contractor line item that changed everything 14:24 From "done for you" to "done for you-ish" 16:01 Building instead of talking about building 18:35 The real unlock is the speed of learning 23:00 If you sell knowledge, what are you selling now? 24:42 Dyslexia, ADHD and AI as a translation layer 28:22 Are your prompts and GPTs your IP? 29:28 The training toggle myth 30:30 Trademarking the name, losing the body of work 32:15 Tim Ferriss and what is already public 34:08 Can AI legally be an author? 35:32 Which AI tools will indemnify you 37:03 Writing a book with AI 39:27 Just because AI can, should it? 43:14 Share the why, not the whole how 44:00 The one thing to do next week 45:22 Canada's AI strategy and where the money is going 47:32 Environmental impact and who absorbs it 49:55 Your child's face inside an LLM 50:52 Sycophancy and outsourced thinking 51:58 What work do we reserve for humans? 54:16 Six companies and who holds the stake 56:14 Lightning round: the one tool 1:01:27 The advantage was never the tool TOOLS MENTIONED Claude / Claude Code / Claude Cowork, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Lovable, Gamma, Codex, DeepSeek, Kling, Go High Level LINKS Next Founder AI Studio Live IN THE ROOM Host: Monique Bryan, Brand Authority Strategist Featuring: Andrea Bolden, IP and business lawyer PARTNERS Captured by Perspective Studio Productions Presented in partnership with BDC Capital, Inclusive Entrepreneurship Founder AI Studio Live is an invite-only working session for established women founders already building with AI. The room is the asset. #AIforFounders #IntellectualProperty #WomenInAI Who Knows You is hosted by Monique Bryan, brand authority strategist and built for founders, operators, and experts who are doing real work and ready to be picked for it. Take the AI Visibility Audit to find out where your positioning is breaking down and what to fix: [RUN YOUR AUDIT] Connect with Monique:Before we build, let us talk. https://moniquebryan.com/book/ - Website: moniquebryan.com LinkedIn: Monique Bryan Instagram: @moniquebryan
AI is changing the way patients find chiropractors, but that doesn't mean traditional SEO is dead. It means the rules are evolving.In this episode, you'll learn what AI Search Optimization really is, how it differs from traditional SEO, and what chiropractors can do today to improve their chances of being recommended by AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, Gemini, Perplexity, Microsoft Copilot, and Grok.We'll cover why authority matters more than ever, the trust signals AI looks for before recommending a clinic, common mistakes chiropractors make with their websites, and practical strategies to help your practice stay visible as search continues to evolve.Whether you're just starting to explore AI search or looking to stay ahead of your competition, this episode will help you prepare your practice for the future of online visibility.Episode webpage and blog post: https://propelyourcompany.com/ai-seo-for-chiropractors/Send in your questions. ❤ We'd love to hear from you!Webinar: The Hidden SEO Mistakes Costing Clinics Patients Right Now (And Easy Fixes You Can Start Making This Week)Save your spot: https://propelyourcompany.com/june/** Can't make it live? Register anyway. You'll get access to the limited-time replay. ***
What does a founder learn from watching the CEO of a 32 billion dollar company make his biggest AI bets from the inside?Mahesh Ram has built and sold three companies. Thomson Reuters acquired his first, GlobalEnglish went to Pearson after teaching English to more than ten million people at companies like IBM and HP, and Solvvy, one of the first conversational AI companies, was bought by Zoom in 2022. He then spent two and a half years heading AI products at Zoom, sitting beside founder Eric Yuan as the company raced Microsoft into the AI era.In this conversation, Mahesh takes apart the three decisions that put Zoom ahead. Eric refused to charge for AI Companion because he believed everyone in the world should have AI, he publicly promised to never train models on customer data; and he built a model-agnostic layer instead of betting the company on any single lab. Zoom shipped weeks before Microsoft Copilot. Mahesh also shares the operating habits that made it possible, from the five-part rule Eric demands on every decision to the radical transparency that turned his own team into owners.He is just as direct about the question every founder now asks: whether OpenAI or Anthropic will simply take their market. He answers that the model companies cannot see the hundreds of custom applications running quietly inside every enterprise, so the durable business is the one that owns the messy, multi-party workflows they will never touch. On the wider fear that AI will kill SaaS, he thinks the shift is real but that Silicon Valley badly overestimates how fast it arrives, which leaves a huge opening for founders willing to go out and become the educators their market trusts.He closes on what he has learned selling three companies, why the best ones are bought and never sold, and the community of Indian origin founders he now runs that grew from three hundred people to more than two thousand in a single year.If you are excited about building enduring AI and software companies, this episode is for you.00:00 - Trailer01:27 - The three time founder who keeps destroying complexity03:08 - Two billion people learning English with no teacher04:45 - Building conversational AI before anyone knew what AI was07:21 - How Zoom came to acquire Solvvy11:08 - Working with Eric Yuan, a true force of nature13:43 - The three bold AI bets that beat Microsoft to market15:09 - Why Eric made Zoom's AI free and refused to touch your data17:29 - The five part rule Eric demands on every decision21:25 - Radical transparency: share everything except one thing23:32 - What Mahesh would build differently today29:05 - The moat question: how do you survive OpenAI and Anthropic35:33 - What Claude and OpenAI can never see inside a company41:01 - Will AI kill SaaS? And why Silicon Valley is too early42:25 - Become the educator: the biggest opening for founders45:39 - The Indian founder community that 10x'd in a year52:43 - Where the founder DNA actually came from1:00:42 - Why he has no regrets building Solvvy too early1:01:57 - What actually gets a startup acquired1:05:14 - Why you keep the acquisition circle very tight1:07:47 - The real job in enterprise sales: get your buyer promoted-------------India's talent has built the world's tech—now it's time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It's about shifting the centre of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that's done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we're doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us Fan Mail
If you thought calculators were stuck in high school, check your phone! This episode finds the formula behind conversions, math notes, and custom shortcuts that could totally change how you crunch numbers on your everyday Apple device. Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard run the numbers and reveal which apps truly multiply your productivity. iOS calculator app features: history, copy, mode switcher, and conversions Math Notes and Apple Pencil support for handwritten equations on iPad Spotlight's built-in calculator vs. dedicated calculator app usage Deep dive into PCalc: customization, layouts, and advanced features Soulver 4 brings notepad-style, sentence-based calculations and variables (Not Boring) Calculator offers simplicity and a clean design for basic math News: Public beta releases for Apple operating systems explained App Caps: Safari's new webpage monitoring vs. Distill Web Monitor app, and Microsoft Copilot for streamlining messy data into formatted documents Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.
If you thought calculators were stuck in high school, check your phone! This episode finds the formula behind conversions, math notes, and custom shortcuts that could totally change how you crunch numbers on your everyday Apple device. Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard run the numbers and reveal which apps truly multiply your productivity. iOS calculator app features: history, copy, mode switcher, and conversions Math Notes and Apple Pencil support for handwritten equations on iPad Spotlight's built-in calculator vs. dedicated calculator app usage Deep dive into PCalc: customization, layouts, and advanced features Soulver 4 brings notepad-style, sentence-based calculations and variables (Not Boring) Calculator offers simplicity and a clean design for basic math News: Public beta releases for Apple operating systems explained App Caps: Safari's new webpage monitoring vs. Distill Web Monitor app, and Microsoft Copilot for streamlining messy data into formatted documents Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.
If you thought calculators were stuck in high school, check your phone! This episode finds the formula behind conversions, math notes, and custom shortcuts that could totally change how you crunch numbers on your everyday Apple device. Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard run the numbers and reveal which apps truly multiply your productivity. iOS calculator app features: history, copy, mode switcher, and conversions Math Notes and Apple Pencil support for handwritten equations on iPad Spotlight's built-in calculator vs. dedicated calculator app usage Deep dive into PCalc: customization, layouts, and advanced features Soulver 4 brings notepad-style, sentence-based calculations and variables (Not Boring) Calculator offers simplicity and a clean design for basic math News: Public beta releases for Apple operating systems explained App Caps: Safari's new webpage monitoring vs. Distill Web Monitor app, and Microsoft Copilot for streamlining messy data into formatted documents Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.
If you thought calculators were stuck in high school, check your phone! This episode finds the formula behind conversions, math notes, and custom shortcuts that could totally change how you crunch numbers on your everyday Apple device. Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard run the numbers and reveal which apps truly multiply your productivity. iOS calculator app features: history, copy, mode switcher, and conversions Math Notes and Apple Pencil support for handwritten equations on iPad Spotlight's built-in calculator vs. dedicated calculator app usage Deep dive into PCalc: customization, layouts, and advanced features Soulver 4 brings notepad-style, sentence-based calculations and variables (Not Boring) Calculator offers simplicity and a clean design for basic math News: Public beta releases for Apple operating systems explained App Caps: Safari's new webpage monitoring vs. Distill Web Monitor app, and Microsoft Copilot for streamlining messy data into formatted documents Hosts: Mikah Sargent and Rosemary Orchard Contact iOS Today at iOSToday@twit.tv. Download or subscribe to iOS Today at https://twit.tv/shows/ios-today Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free audio and video feeds, a members-only Discord, and exclusive content. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Club TWiT members can discuss this episode and leave feedback in the Club TWiT Discord.
Is Kimi K3 the shocker of 2026? Could be. Now, we have a new (soon to be) Open Model that's competing with Fable 5 and GPT-5.6, a feat few would have believed possible. And that was the only new and important drop this week in AI. Claude brought useful browser to the desktop, ChatGPT made a big fix to how ChatGPT Work works and Google rolled out avatars that could change content creation. Don't miss our Friday Features show, where we recap the most important AI updates and features you can use today. Claude Desktop Gets Upgrade, New Open Source Model Shocks, ChatGPT Desktop Gets Better and 7 More AI Features You Can Use Today -- An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Anthropic Claude Desktop App Browser UpgradeOpenAI ChatGPT Work Desktop App ImprovementsChatGPT Universal Search Feature LaunchSuperhuman Email Auto-Draft with GPT-4Spotify AI Voice/Text Conversation FeatureGemini Omni Personal Avatar Video CreationGoogle Vids Integration with Personal AvatarsMoonshot Kimmy K3 Open Source Model ReleaseKimmy K3 vs Fable 5 and GPT-5.6 BenchmarksTimestamps:00:00 New open source AI model release03:41 Microsoft Copilot and Claude app updates07:22 Improving chat history search12:30 Spotify's data personalization benefits14:52 Launching Google Avatar Feature18:24 Mainstream avatar video tools21:33 Improved ChatGPT project syncing24:15 Introducing Kimmy K Three Model29:30 New Kimmy k three for enterprises30:45 Friday feature show wrap-upKeywords: Claude desktop, Claude desktop upgrade, open source AI model, proprietary AI, open vs closed AI, Anthropic, built-in browser, Claude app, API docs, browser integration, permissions card, security layers, ChatGPT desktop app, OpenAI, universal search, ChatGPT search, chat history, project sync, mobile AI apps, Codex, ChatGPT work, Codex mode, Superhuman mail, auto draft, Anthropic Frontier models, GPT-3.5, Gmail integration, Outlook integration, Spotify, Talk to Spotify, personalized AI conversation, Gemini Omni, Google Gemini, personal avatars, Google Vids, video editing AI, video avatars, L&D AI, content creation with AI, Kimi k3, Moonshot AI, 2.8 trillion parameter model, 1 million token context, vision mode, benchmark leaderboards, Fable 5, GPT 5.6, Opus 4.8, open model weights, self-host AI, enterprise AI solutions, long context AI, front-end design AI, subscription AI tools, API pricing, AI benchmark, arena rankingsSend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Ready for ROI on GenAI? Go to youreverydayai.com/partner
"Being on Shopify means you get access to agentic automatically, out of the box." Your store is already selling inside ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Shop, whether you've noticed or not. Aaron Glazer, Director of Product at Shopify, joins Kurt to explain Agentic Storefronts, the new Admin experience that finally makes that presence visible and controllable. The buyer behavior has already shifted. Shoppers now have long conversations with an AI about a whole use case, a camping trip, a problem, a gift, and arrive at your store already sold. Agentic Storefronts shows you the traffic, sales, and conversions from each AI channel, plus the real queries surfacing your products, so you can see where you rank and where you don't. Aaron and Kurt get into why this is the new SEO, why complete product data is the whole game, how Shopify Catalog structures your catalog for agents, what native checkout in an AI channel actually means, and why you stay the merchant of record with the customer relationship intact. Plus a bonus on Rollouts and SimGem heading into BFCM. SPONSORS Swym - Wishlists, Back in Stock alerts, & more getswym.com/kurt Cleverific - Smart order editing for Shopify cleverific.com Zipify - Build high-converting sales funnels zipify.com/KURT LINKS Agentic Storefronts: Shopify Admin > Agentic Storefronts (left nav) Shopify Catalog (for developers): build on the product discovery API Rollouts and SimGem: in Shopify Admin WORK WITH KURT Apply for Shopify Help ethercycle.com/apply See Our Results ethercycle.com/work Free Newsletter kurtelster.com The Unofficial Shopify Podcast is hosted by Kurt Elster and explores the stories behind successful Shopify stores. Get actionable insights, practical strategies, and proven tactics from entrepreneurs who've built thriving ecommerce businesses.
Anthropic had a really bad week.
All frontier AI models are reportedly delayed. ⏳New reports show that frontier models there were supposed to be released this month like GPT-5.6 and Gemini 3.5 Pro have been delayed as a result of the ongoing Anthropic vs. U.S. Government dispute. So while we may have to wait a few more weeks for SOTA AI models, we DID get a ton of new AI features and model updates that are available now. Tune in as we dish the 7 new AI features that can change your workflow today. Claude Tag, Gemini Home, Copilot Excel Skills and 7 other AI Features Available Today you Should Be Using — An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:GPT 5.5 Instant Model Upgrade DetailsGoogle Finance AI Portfolio Tracker LaunchGemini-Powered Google Smart Speaker ReleaseClaude Tag Collaboration in Slack ExplainedCanva Grow 2.0 Automated Marketing PlatformGemini in Chrome Select from Screen FeatureMicrosoft Copilot Skills Automation in ExcelTimestamps:00:00 Upcoming AI Model Releases Delayed05:44 Switching between AI models07:15 AI-powered portfolio analysis tools12:51 Setting tasks with voice commands15:20 Introducing Claude team plan17:55 Discussing Anthropic's new feature21:50 Canva's New Feature at Cannes25:11 New Chrome Feature Overview28:45 Using Copilot skills in Excel31:33 Show schedule and subscribingKeywords: GPT 5.5 Instant, OpenAI, AI model update, conversational AI, large language models, Gemini 3.5 Pro, Google AI, Anthropic, Claude Tag, Slack integration, Claude Enterprise, Claude Team Plan, Claude Slack app, multiplayer AI in Slack, channel manager AI, proactive AI assistant, Google Finance app, portfolio tracking, AI research tool, finance AI, Android AI apps, iOS AI rollout, AI-powered key moments, smart speakers, Gemini for Home Assistant, Google smart speaker, natural language conversations, Siri, Alexa Plus, bidirectional voice mode, Google Calendar integration, AI home assistant, Canva Grow 2.0, performance marketing AI, ad automation, campaign optimization AI, Magic Layers integration, LinkedIn ads, TikTok ads, Meta ads, Gemini in Chrome, select from screen, computer use capabilities, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Chrome AI features, Microsoft Copilot, Excel AI, Copilot skills, reusable Copilot workflows, finance skills in Excel, business intelligence AI, custom Excel skills, markdown skills for AISend Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Start Here ▶️Not sure where to start when it comes to AI? Start with our Start Here Series. You can listen to the first drop -- Episode 691 -- or get free access to our Inner Cricle community and all episodes: StartHereSeries.com Also, here's a link to the entire series on a Spotify playlist.