Episodes

  • #205: AI Labs Refocus on Agents and Enterprise, Trump’s New AI Framework, Meta’s Rogue Agent & What 81,000 People Want from AI

    #205: AI Labs Refocus on Agents and Enterprise, Trump’s New AI Framework, Meta’s Rogue Agent & What 81,000 People Want from AI
    Mar 24 2026
    Claude Code didn't just change one company's trajectory, it triggered a chain reaction across every major AI lab. In this episode, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down how OpenAI, Google, Meta, xAI, and Microsoft are all scrambling to catch up in the agent and enterprise race, and why the next three to six months could look radically different from anything we've seen. In rapid fire: Microsoft shakes up Copilot leadership, a Meta AI agent goes rogue and causes a security breach, the Anthropic-Pentagon legal battle intensifies, Google DeepMind proposes 10 traits for measuring AGI, and more. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:04 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:05:50 — AI Labs Refocus on Agents and Enterprise 00:29:07 — New Polling on AI and Trump National AI Framework 00:45:46 — Company Transformation with AI (Offsite Recap) 00:59:52 — Nadella Takes Over Microsoft Copilot 01:06:06 — Meta's Rogue AI Agent 01:10:01 — Anthropic vs. Pentagon Continues 01:14:42 — DeepMind’s New AGI Scorecard 01:18:40 — What 81,000 People Want from AI 01:26:01 — AI Academy Spotlight 01:30:47 — AI Product and Funding Updates This episode is brought to you by AI Academy by SmarterX. AI Academy is your gateway to personalized AI learning for professionals and teams. Discover our new on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here. Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    1 hr and 37 mins
  • #204: AI Answers - What Should Stay Human, AI Pricing vs. Labor Cost, Leapfrogging Digitalisation, Getting Legal On Board & Do Reasoning Models Actually Reason?

    #204: AI Answers - What Should Stay Human, AI Pricing vs. Labor Cost, Leapfrogging Digitalisation, Getting Legal On Board & Do Reasoning Models Actually Reason?
    Mar 19 2026
    Billable hours are in the past, human creativity gets its strongest case yet, and Paul explains what happens when ten AI agents start collaborating like a marketing team. Paul and Cathy tackle 16 real questions on career pivots into AI, the risks of over-reliance on productivity gains, enterprise training personalization, labor replacement pricing, whether AI actually reasons, and what leaders should do with the time AI is giving back. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:05 — How do you transition into AI without a coding background? 00:06:03 — What are the best AI skills to learn while job searching? 00:08:56 — Should consultants bill for time spent experimenting with AI? 00:11:44 — How do we make sure AI productivity isn't quietly weakening our thinking? 00:14:17 — What's the best reframe for creatives who see AI as a threat? 00:19:04 — How do you wrangle a Wild West AI free-for-all at your company? 00:20:45 — How do you personalize AI training at the enterprise level? 00:23:41 — How do you get legal stakeholders to enable AI adoption instead of blocking it? 00:28:06 — How will AI adoption pick up in traditional industries like manufacturing? 00:31:24 — Can companies behind on digitalisation leapfrog ahead with AI? 00:34:33 — Will AI companies eventually price based on the labor they replace? 00:37:55 — What is a swarm of agents and why does it matter? 00:43:34 — Do reasoning models actually reason or just predict the next word? 00:46:54 — Should AI companies be regulated to preserve diversity of thought? 00:49:34 — If AI can solve advanced math, why can't it solve technological unemployment? 00:52:40 — How do we make sure AI gives us time back instead of just more work? Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/ Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    59 mins
  • #203: Anthropic vs. Pentagon Round 3, NYT AI vs. Humans Writing Test, Atlassian’s AI-Era Layoffs & Grammarly's Expert Cloning Scandal

    #203: Anthropic vs. Pentagon Round 3, NYT AI vs. Humans Writing Test, Atlassian’s AI-Era Layoffs & Grammarly's Expert Cloning Scandal
    Mar 17 2026
    Anthropic has filed two federal lawsuits to block the Pentagon's supply chain risk designation and the back-and-forth on X between the Pentagon CTO and AI policy experts is revealing what this fight is really about. Paul and Mike unpack the politics, the implications, and why a deal is inevitable. Then: 86,000 people took the NYT's AI writing quiz and most preferred the machine. Paul shares his human-to-machine writing scale and asks the question that actually matters: not whether AI can write, but when should we let it? Plus Atlassian's 1,600 AI-driven layoffs, Amazon's AI-caused outages, McKinsey's chatbot getting hacked in two hours, and more. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:11 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:07:48 — Anthropic vs. Pentagon Round 3 00:30:02 — New York Times Releases Controversial "AI Writing Quality" Quiz 00:46:18 — Atlassian Layoffs and Job Loss Dashboard 00:58:49 — Adobe CEO Stepping Down 01:07:14 — Amazon AI-Related Outages and Engineering Struggles 01:14:28 — McKinsey AI Chatbot Hacked 01:19:49 — AI Politics Update 01:24:06 — Grammarly AI "Expert Review" Controversy 01:30:51 — Andrej Karpathy's Autoresearch Agent 01:34:47 — AI Product and Funding Updates This week’s episode is sponsored by our 2026 State of AI Report. This year, we’re going beyond marketing-specific research to uncover how AI is being adopted and utilized across the organization, and we need your help to create the most comprehensive report yet. It’s a quick seven-minute lift. In return, you’ll get the full report for free when it drops, plus a chance to win or extend a 12-month SmarterX AI Mastery Membership. Go to smarterx.ai/survey to share your input. That’s smarterx.ai/survey Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    1 hr and 41 mins
  • #202: AI Answers - AI for Marketing, Sales & Customer Success, Marketing Agent Swarms, Entry-Level Job Disruption, Environmental Impact and AI Privacy

    #202: AI Answers - AI for Marketing, Sales & Customer Success, Marketing Agent Swarms, Entry-Level Job Disruption, Environmental Impact and AI Privacy
    Mar 12 2026
    A VC-backed startup just admitted its strategy is to clone incumbent software using Claude Code and sell it for 90% less. Entry-level marketing roles are vanishing as leaders realize they can generate entire campaigns in minutes. And agent swarms that function as out-of-the-box marketing teams could arrive by year's end. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput answer 15 questions from business leaders across marketing, sales, and customer success covering everything from AI's environmental impact to how to prove efficiency gains to skeptical teams. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:18 — How should a CMO get started with AI? 00:09:57 — What is the difference between an AI agent and a regular prompt? 00:12:47 — Will AI labs fix their environmental impact? 00:17:04 — How to convince skeptics that AI can help improve performance? 00:19:55 — How to deal with AI sycophancy when using it as a thought partner 00:22:06 — What efficiency gains are people seeing from generative AI in marketing? 00:25:42 — How to track and measure time saved by AI 00:27:47 — How to manage information and prompts across multiple AI platforms 00:33:59 — How to balance AI adoption with data privacy and security 00:36:17 — Which roles will be most disrupted by AI? 00:43:51 — Will AI sales calls just feel like spam robocalls? 00:46:29 — How to reinvest time saved by AI into growth and innovation 00:49:33 — When to buy software versus build it yourself with AI 00:54:35 — How to protect yourself from others using AI agents irresponsibly 00:55:58 — Why IT should not be the one driving AI adoption Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/ Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    59 mins
  • #201: Anthropic vs. Pentagon Round 2, AI Job Impact Study, Services as the New Software & GPT-5.4

    #201: Anthropic vs. Pentagon Round 2, AI Job Impact Study, Services as the New Software & GPT-5.4
    Mar 10 2026
    The data is in, and it's harder to ignore. Anthropic's new "observed exposure" study reveals AI can handle 94% of knowledge work tasks in theory and the gap between theory and reality is narrowing fast. Paul and Mike unpack what that means for your career, your company, and the broader social contract around work. This week: the Anthropic vs. Pentagon saga escalates, a Sequoia partner predicts AI will replace entire service industries (not just software), GPT-5.4 drops and outperforms professionals on economic benchmarks, a Polish mathematician has his "personal singularity" moment — plus rapid fire on AI journalism, OpenClaw security risks, AI copyright law, and Meta's smart glasses privacy scandal. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:32 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:07:00 — Anthropic vs. US Government Round 2 00:19:43 — Anthropic Analyzes AI Job Impact 00:35:30 — Services as the New Software 00:49:19 — Barriers to Enterprise AI Adoption 00:54:54 — GPT-5.4 01:00:55 — The Move 37 Moment for Math 01:05:39 — AI and Journalism Update 01:10:03 — NVIDIA CEO Calls OpenClaw “Most Important Software Release Ever” 01:13:35 — AI Art Can’t Be Copyrighted 01:16:08 — Meta Sued Over Smartglasses Privacy Concerns 01:19:21 — Microsoft Copilot Cowork This week’s episode is sponsored by our 2026 State of AI Report. This year, we’re going beyond marketing-specific research to uncover how AI is being adopted and utilized across the organization, and we need your help to create the most comprehensive report yet. It’s a quick seven-minute lift. In return, you’ll get the full report for free when it drops, plus a chance to win or extend a 12-month SmarterX AI Mastery Membership. Go to smarterx.ai/survey to share your input. That’s smarterx.ai/survey Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    1 hr and 25 mins
  • #200: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, OpenAI's $110B Round, Interview with Claude Code’s Creator & Block’s AI-Driven Layoffs

    #200: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon, OpenAI's $110B Round, Interview with Claude Code’s Creator & Block’s AI-Driven Layoffs
    Mar 3 2026
    Episode 200 arrived in the midst of a very dramatic week in AI and we recorded it live with AI Academy Mastery members for the first time! This week, Paul and Mike discuss an eventful 72 hours beginning with the Trump administration’s ultimatum to Anthropic. Eventually Anthropic refused, got blacklisted, and hours later OpenAI stepped in to take the deal. Paul and Mike unpack every twist, including why Peter Thiel's fingerprints on both sides make this even wilder. Also: OpenAI's $110B funding round, Claude Code creator Boris Cherney on why coding is "effectively solved" (and what that means for your job), Block laying off 4,000 people and naming AI as the reason, and a doomer economic essay that actually moved Wall Street. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:30 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:07:08 — Anthropic vs. US Government 00:44:55 — OpenAI Funding, Amazon Partnership, Response to DoD 00:51:19 — Interview with the Head of Claude Code 00:59:38 — Block AI Job Cuts 01:04:41 — AI Doomer Essay from Citrini 01:10:54 — Politics of Data Centers 01:15:15 — Anthropic Fluency Index 01:18:29 — Anthropic Distillation Attacks 01:21:46 — NVIDIA Earnings 01:24:19 — AI Product and Funding Updates This episode is brought to you by AI Academy by SmarterX. AI Academy is your gateway to personalized AI learning for professionals and teams. Discover our new on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here. Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    1 hr and 29 mins
  • #199: AI Answers - Do Custom GPTs Still Matter? AI Output Validation, 2026 Job Disruption, Preventing Burnout, and Build vs. Buy

    #199: AI Answers - Do Custom GPTs Still Matter? AI Output Validation, 2026 Job Disruption, Preventing Burnout, and Build vs. Buy
    Feb 26 2026
    There is no shortcut for AI verification, and that's a good thing. Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips answer 15 questions business leaders continue asking again and again. They unpack why AI output verification has no shortcut, where agent-building tools like Claude Code and Lovable actually stand, and the uncomfortable math behind which roles get disrupted next. Paul explains why enterprises are moving painfully slow even as the technology races ahead, how early adopters are creating burnout by doing the work of entire teams, and why situational awareness is the AI superpower most leaders are missing. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:07:00 — Question #1: Do you need to prompt AI the same way every time? 00:10:59 — Question #2: What problem do custom GPTs actually solve? 00:14:26 — Question #3: Are SaaS providers becoming model agnostic? 00:17:09 — Question #4: Why AI voice and tone change when models update. 00:20:36 — Question #5: AI output validation: why there's no shortcut for verification. 00:23:17 — Question #6: Tools for building AI agents: where to start. 00:26:11 — Question #7: Will knowledge workers face the same AI disruption as developers? 00:29:53 — Question #8: AI burnout: how leaders can prevent it during the AI transition. 00:36:21 — Question #9: Which roles and skills are most at risk from AI? 00:42:03 — Question #10: Traditional BI platforms vs. AI-first reporting systems. 00:45:22 — Question #11: Build vs. buy: AI decision framework for business leaders. 00:48:52 — Question #12: Competitive advantage for AI-forward agencies. 00:52:43 — Question #13: How to tell when someone just copy-pasted from ChatGPT. 00:54:39 — Question #14: Ads in AI platforms: what business users should know. 00:56:42 — Question #15: The one AI superpower every business leader needs. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner. Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/ Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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    1 hr and 1 min
  • #198: Microsoft AI CEO Predicts Job Automation in 18 Months, AI Productivity Evidence, Dario Amodei Interview & Seedance 2.0

    #198: Microsoft AI CEO Predicts Job Automation in 18 Months, AI Productivity Evidence, Dario Amodei Interview & Seedance 2.0
    Feb 24 2026
    Microsoft's AI CEO just put a 12–18 month expiration date on most white-collar work. But after spending weeks with enterprise executives, Paul Roetzer sees a very different reality: most companies haven't even gotten past giving their teams AI access. In Ep. 198, Paul and Mike unpack the growing disconnect between AI capability and AI adoption, share Paul's 7-point thought experiment on the future of work, and cover a massive week of news: Dario Amodei's warning about the AI exponential, AI productivity gains finally appearing in economic data, ByteDance's SeaDance 2.0 copyright crisis, Claude Sonnet 4.6, Open Claw's creator joining OpenAI, AI hardware moves from Apple and Meta, and a provocative editorial arguing journalism schools are failing students. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:38 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:08:48 — Microsoft AI CEO Predicts White Collar Work Automated in 12-18 Months 00:20:42 — AI Productivity Evidence 00:33:23 —Dario Amodei on Dwarkesh 00:47:55 — Dor Brothers AI Movie and the Rise of Seedance 00:55:07 — Claude Sonnet 4.6 01:00:51 — OpenClaw Creator Goes to OpenAI 01:05:00 — OpenAI Devices and AI Devices 01:14:51 — AI in Journalism Controversy 01:25:05 — Meta Patents AI for the Dead 01:26:56 — AI Product and Funding Updates This episode is brought to you by AI Academy by SmarterX. AI Academy is your gateway to personalized AI learning for professionals and teams. Discover our new on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here. Visit our website Receive our weekly newsletter Join our community: Slack Community LinkedIn Twitter Instagram Facebook YouTube Looking for content and resources? Register for a free webinar Come to our next Marketing AI Conference Enroll in our AI Academy
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