Practical AI

As AI accelerates innovation and adoption, leaders are facing rising cognitive load, shifting systems, and new emotional realities inside their organizations. In this episode, Deloitte’s Chief Innovation Officer Deborah Golden joins us to explore how AI is reshaping leadership, why vulnerability and empathy are critical in this moment, and how anti-fragility, not just resilience, will define the future of work. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: DeloitteSponsor: framer.com/PRACTICALAIUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

AI is moving fast from research to real-world deployment, and when things go wrong, the consequences are no longer hypothetical. In this episode, Sean McGregor, co-founder of the AI Verification & Evaluation Research Institute and also the founder of the AI Incident Database, joins Chris and Dan to discuss AI safety, verification, evaluation, and auditing. They explore why benchmarks often fall short, what red-teaming at DEF CON reveals about machine learning risks, and how organizations can better assess and manage AI systems in practice. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: AI Verification & Evaluation Research InstituteAI Incident Database38th convening of IAAIBenchRiskState of Global AI Incident ReportingUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

AI agents are moving from demos to real workplaces, but what actually happens when they run a company? In this episode, journalist Evan Ratliff, host of Shell Game, joins Chris to discuss his immersive journalism experiment building a real startup staffed almost entirely by AI agents. They explore how AI agents behave as coworkers, how humans react when interacting with them, and where ethical and workplace boundaries begin to break down. Featuring: LinkedInXWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXLinks: Shell GameUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

As AI increasingly shapes geopolitics, elections, and civic life, its impact on democracy is becoming impossible to ignore. In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by security expert Bruce Schneier to explore how AI and technology are transforming democracy, governance, and citizenship. Drawing from his book Rewiring Democracy, they explore real examples of AI in elections, legislation, courts, and public AI models, the risks of concentrated power, and how these tools can both strengthen and strain democratic systems worldwide. Featuring: XWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: Schneier on SecuritySponsors: framer.com/PRACTICALAIzapier.com/practicalUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

As generative AI moves into production, traditional guardrails and input/output filters can prove too slow, too expensive, and/or too limited. In this episode, Alizishaan Khatri of Wrynx joins Daniel and Chris to explore a fundamentally different approach to AI safety and interpretability. They unpack the limits of today’s black-box defenses, the role of interpretability, and how model-native, runtime signals can enable safer AI systems. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

In this start-of-year FC episode, Chris and Daniel break down what really mattered in AI in 2025, and what to expect in 2026. They explore the rise of AI agents, the practical reality of multimodal AI, and how reasoning models are reshaping workflows. The conversation dives into infrastructure and energy constraints, the continued value of predictive models, and why orchestration (not just better models) is becoming the defining skill for AI teams. The episode wraps with grounded 2026 predictions on where AI systems, tooling, and builders are headed next. Featuring: WebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXSponsor: framer.com/practicalaiUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

As AI reshapes the workplace, employees and leaders face questions about meaningful work, automation, and human impact. In this episode, Jason Beutler, CEO of RoboSource, shares how companies can rethink workflows, integrate AI in accessible ways, and empower employees without fear. The discussion covers leveraging AI to handle routine tasks (SOPs or "plays") and reimagining work for smarter, more human-centered outcomes. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXSponsor: framer.com/designUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

Chris and Daniel talk with returning guest, Ramin Mohammadi, about how those seeking to get into AI Engineer/ Data Science jobs are expected to come in a mid level engineers (not entry level). They explore this growing gap along with what should (or could) be done in academia to focus on real world skills vs. theoretical knowledge. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXSponsors: shopify.com/practicalaiUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

Chris and Daniel unpack how AI-driven document processing has rapidly evolved well beyond traditional OCR with many technical advances that fly under the radar. They explore the progression from document structure models to language-vision models, all the way to the newest innovations like Deepseek-OCR. The discussion highlights the pros and cons of these various approaches focusing on practical implementation and usage. Featuring: WebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXSponsors: shopify.com/practicalaiFabi.aifabi.aiframer.com/designUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

This episode is a special crossover between the Practical AI podcast and The Changelog podcast. Chris was recently invited by longtime friends Jerod Santo and Adam Stacoviak, cohosts of The Changelog, to join them on the show. They discuss AI, drones, robotics, swarming technology, and the rise of high-performance edge computing with Rust. Chris points out that open source software, small AI models, and affordable hardware are making home automation and local AI accessible to everyone. From automating household functions to experimenting with drones and single-board computers, Chris describes how hands-on maker projects are shaping a bright future for physical AI, on small budgets and right from the comfort of your own home. Featuring: LinkedInLinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXSponsors: Miro.comshopify.com/practicalaiUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here This week we have extended show notes below from Chris! Swarming & Fully Autonomous Multi-Agent UxV Systems Chris’s Definition of Swarming (anchor link in show notes) Chris’s definition of Swarming “Swarming occurs when numerous independent fully-autonomous multi-agentic platforms exhibit highly-coordinated locomotive and emergent behaviors with agency and self-governance in any domain (air, ground, sea, undersea, space), functioning as a single independent logical distributed decentralized decisioning entity for purposes of C3 (command, control, communications) with human operators on-the-loop, to implement actions that achieve strategic, tactical, or operational effects in the furtherance of a mission.” © 2025 Chris BensonConceptual Foundations Swarm Robotics – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_roboticsSwarm Robotic Platforms – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotic_platformsSwarm Intelligence – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligenceAnt Robotics – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_roboticsOpen Research & Multi-Robot Resources (Stepping-Stones Toward True Swarms) Programming Multiple Robots with ROS 2 (online book) https://osrf.github.io/ros2multirobotbookSimulation with ROS 2 & Gazebo (ROS 2 Humble tutorial) https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Tutorials/Advanced/Simulators/Gazebo/Gazebo.htmlSpawning Multiple Robots in Gazebo with ROS 2 https://www.theconstruct.ai/spawning-multiple-robots-in-gazebo-with-ros2ROS 2 Multi-Robot Simulation Best Practices (Discourse thread) https://discourse.openrobotics.org/t/multi-robot-simulation-best-practices/38987Getting Hands-On: Consumer Robotics, ROS 2 & Gazebo ROS 2 (Robot Operating System 2) Official ROS 2 Documentation – Humble (LTS) https://docs.ros.org/en/humbleROS 2 Installation Guide (Humble) https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Installation.html“From Zero to Robotics Hero: A Beginner’s Guide to ROS 2” (article) https://riyagoja.medium.com/from-zero-to-robotics-hero-a-beginners-guide-to-ros-2-90ac9c3b87baROS 2 Tutorial for Beginners (2025 guide) https://www.timesofexplore.com/2025/10/ros2-tutorial-beginners-build-first-robot-2025.htmlGazebo Simulation Gazebo Sim – Official Site https://gazebosim.orgGetting Started with Gazebo (Docs) https://gazebosim.org/docs/latest/getstartedClassic Gazebo Tutorials https://classic.gazebosim.org/tutorialsmicro-ROS (ROS 2 on Microcontrollers) micro-ROS – ROS 2 for Microcontrollers https://micro.ros.orgmicro-ROS GitHub Organization

Fireflies CEO, Krish Ramineni shares how the company is transforming AI-powered note-taking into a deeper layer of knowledge automation. He breaks down the technology behind real-time functionality like Live Assist, the user behavior patterns driving product evolution, and how Fireflies is innovating far beyond meetings. Krish also shares insights on future trends in AI and the potential for hardware integration, emphasizing the ongoing evolution of AI in knowledge work. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: Fireflies AISponsors: https://miro.comframer.com/design](https://www.framer.com/design/)Upcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

Waymo’s VP of Research, Drago Anguelov, joins Practical AI to explore how advances in autonomy, vision models, and large-scale testing are shaping the future of driverless technology. The conversation dives into the dual challenges of building an onboard driver and testing that driver (via large scale simulation). Drago also gives us an update on what Waymo is doing to achieve intelligent, real-time performance while ensuring proven safety and reliability. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: Waymo ResearchNew Insights for Scaling Laws in Autonomous DrivingAI in MotionSponsors: AGNTCY.orgshopify.com/practicalaiFabi.aifabi.aiUpcoming Events: upcoming webinars here

Dan and Chris unpack whether today’s surge in AI deployment across enterprise workflows, manufacturing, healthcare, and scientific research signals a lasting transformation or an overhyped bubble. Drawing parallels to the dot-com era, they explore how technology integration is reshaping industries, affecting jobs, and even influencing human cognition, ultimately asking: is this a bubble, or just a fizzy new phase of innovation? Featuring: WebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: Powell says that, unlike the dotcom boom, AI spending isn’t a bubble: ‘I won’t go into particular names, but they actually have earnings’Sponsors: AGNTCY.orgshopify.com/practicalaiFabi.aifabi.aiUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

Dan and Chris sit down (again) with Jared Zoneraich, co-founder and CEO of PromptLayer, to discuss how prompt engineering has evolved into context engineering (and while loops with tool calls). Jared shares insights on building flexible AI applications, managing tool calls, testing and versioning prompts, and empowering both technical and non-technical users in AI development. Along the way, they dive into coding agents and the “crawl-walk-run” approach to AI deployment. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: PromptLayerUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

In this fully connected episode, Daniel and Chris explore the emerging concept of tiny recursive networks introduced by Samsung AI, contrasting them with large transformer based models. They explore how these small models tackle reasoning tasks with fewer parameters, less data, and iterative refinement, matching the giants on specific problems. They also discuss the ethical challenges of emotional manipulation in chatbots. Featuring: WebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: Less is More: Recursive Reasoning with Tiny NetworksResearchers detail 6 ways chatbots seek to prolong ‘emotionally sensitive events’Sponsors: AGNTCY.orgFabi.aifabi.aimiro.comUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

As AI systems move from simple chatbots to complex agentic workflows, new security risks emerge. In this episode, Donato Capitella unpacks how increasingly complicated architectures are making agents fragile and vulnerable. These agents can be exploited through prompt injection, data exfiltration, and tool misuse. Donato shares stories from real-world penetration tests, the design patterns for building LLM agents and explains how his open-source toolkit Spikee (Simple Prompt Injection Kit for Evaluation and Exploitation) is helping red teams probe AI systems. Featuring: LinkedInXWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: ReversecSponsors: AGNTCY.orgshopify.com/practicalaiFabi.aifabi.aiUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

Daniel sits down with Chelsea Linder, VP of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TechPoint, to explore the what AI innovation and impact look like on the ground. They discuss Chelsea's journey from the VC world into economic development/ innovation, the growth of an AI innovation network in Indiana (funded by the SBA), lessons learned from fostering AI communities, and how businesses are actually adapting to AI. Chelsea also shares insights from Techpoints AI workforce impact study, which explored AI related job creation and levels of AI adoption among other things. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteGitHubXLinks: TechpointSponsors: shopify.com/practicalaiFabi.ai fabi.aiUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

Longtime friend of the show Rajiv Shah returns to unpack lessons from a year of building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and reasoning models integrations. We dive into why so many AI pilots stumble, why evaluation and error analysis remain essential data science skills, and why not every enterprise challenge calls for a large language model. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteGitHubXUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by Chris Aquino, software engineer at Thunderbird to hear the story of how they developed a privacy-preserving AI executive assistant. They discuss various design decisions including remote (but confidential) inference, local encryption, and model selection. Chris A. does an amazing job describing the journey from "let the big LLM do everything" to splitting apart the workflow to be handled by multiple models. Featuring: LinkedInWebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: ThunderbirdThunderbird ProSponsors: shopify.com/practicalaiUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here

In this Fully Connected episode, we dig into the recent MIT report revealing that 95% of AI pilots fail before reaching production and explore what it actually takes to succeed with AI solutions. We dive into the importance of AI model integration, asking the right questions when adopting new technologies, and why simply accessing a powerful model isn’t enough. We explore the latest AI trends, from GPT-5 to open source models, and their impact on jobs, machine learning, and enterprise strategy. Featuring: WebsiteLinkedInBlueskyGitHubXWebsiteGitHubXLinks: The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025MIT Report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failingSponsors: miro.com shopify.com/practicalaiUpcoming Events: Midwest AI SummitAI Engineering Loungeupcoming webinars here