Practical AI

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: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Framer – Design and publish without limits with Framer, the free all-in-one design platform. Unlimited projects, no tool switching, and professional sites—no Figma imports or HTML hassles required. Start creating for free at framer.com/design with code `PRACTICALAI` for a free month of Framer Pro. Upcoming Events: Register for 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: Jerod Santo – LinkedIn Adam Stacoviak – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Sponsors: Miro – Get the right things done faster with Miro's Innovation Workspace. AI Sidekicks, instant insights, and rapid prototyping—transform weeks of work into days. No more scattered docs or endless meetings. Help your teams get great done at Miro.com . Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Upcoming Events: Register for 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 Benson Conceptual Foundations Swarm Robotics – Wikipedia High-level overview of swarm robotics as decentralized robot collectives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotics Swarm Robotic Platforms – Wikipedia Survey of hardware platforms used in swarm robotics research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_robotic_platforms Swarm Intelligence – Wikipedia Broader algorithms and theory behind collective intelligence (beyond robots). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_intelligence Ant Robotics – Wikipedia Nature-inspired “ant-like” robotics as a special case of swarm robotics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_robotics Open Research & Multi-Robot Resources (Stepping-Stones Toward True Swarms) Programming Multiple Robots with ROS 2 (online book) Free book on multi-robot systems, ROS 2, and the Robot Middleware Framework (RMF). https://osrf.github.io/ros2multirobotbook Simulation with ROS 2 & Gazebo (ROS 2 Humble tutorial) Official tutorial on connecting ROS 2 to Gazebo simulation. https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Tutorials/Advanced/Simulators/Gazebo/Gazebo.html Spawning Multiple Robots in Gazebo with ROS 2 Hands-on tutorial to launch N robots in Gazebo, each with its own namespace.

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: Krish Ramineni – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Fireflies AI Sponsors: Miro – Get the right things done faster with Miro's Innovation Workspace. AI Sidekicks, instant insights, and rapid prototyping—transform weeks of work into days. No more scattered docs or endless meetings. Help your teams get great done at Miro.com . Framer – Design and publish without limits with Framer, the free all-in-one design platform. Unlimited projects, no tool switching, and professional sites—no Figma imports or HTML hassles required. Start creating for free at framer.com/design with code `PRACTICALAI` for a free month of Framer Pro. Upcoming Events: Register for 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: Drago Anguelov – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Waymo Research New Insights for Scaling Laws in Autonomous Driving AI in Motion Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco - The open source collective building the Internet of Agents. Backed by Outshift by Cisco, AGNTCY gives developers the tools to build and deploy multi-agent software at scale. Identity, communication protocols, and modular workflows—all in one global collaboration layer. Start building at AGNTCY.org . Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Upcoming Events: Register for 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: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: 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: Outshift by Cisco - The open source collective building the Internet of Agents. Backed by Outshift by Cisco, AGNTCY gives developers the tools to build and deploy multi-agent software at scale. Identity, communication protocols, and modular workflows—all in one global collaboration layer. Start building at AGNTCY.org . Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Jared Zoneraich – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: PromptLayer Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Less is More: Recursive Reasoning with Tiny Networks Researchers detail 6 ways chatbots seek to prolong ‘emotionally sensitive events’ Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco - The open source collective building the Internet of Agents. Backed by Outshift by Cisco, AGNTCY gives developers the tools to build and deploy multi-agent software at scale. Identity, communication protocols, and modular workflows—all in one global collaboration layer. Start building at AGNTCY.org . Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Miro – The innovation workspace for the age of AI. Built for modern teams, Miro helps you turn unstructured ideas into structured outcomes—fast. Diagramming, product design, and AI-powered collaboration, all in one shared space. Start building at miro.com Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Donato Capitella – LinkedIn , X Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Reversec Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco - The open source collective building the Internet of Agents. Backed by Outshift by Cisco, AGNTCY gives developers the tools to build and deploy multi-agent software at scale. Identity, communication protocols, and modular workflows—all in one global collaboration layer. Start building at AGNTCY.org . Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Chelsea Linder – LinkedIn Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Techpoint Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Fabi.ai - The all-in-one data analysis platform for modern teams. From ad hoc queries to advanced analytics, Fabi lets you explore data wherever it lives—spreadsheets, Postgres, Snowflake, Airtable and more. Built-in Python and AI assistance help you move fast, then publish interactive dashboards or automate insights delivered straight to Slack, email, spreadsheets or wherever you need to share it. Learn more and get started for free at fabi.ai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Rajiv Shah – LinkedIn Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Chris Aquino – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Thunderbird Thunderbird Pro Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming 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: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 MIT Report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing Sponsors: Miro – The innovation workspace for the age of AI. Built for modern teams, Miro helps you turn unstructured ideas into structured outcomes—fast. Diagramming, product design, and AI-powered collaboration, all in one shared space. Start building at miro.com Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Upcoming Events: Join us at the Midwest AI Summit on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the AI Engineering Lounge , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today! Register for upcoming webinars here !

Daniel and Chris sit with Citadel AI’s Rick Kobayashi and Kenny Song and unpack AI safety and security challenges in the generative AI era. They compare Japan’s approach to AI adoption with the US’s, and explore the implications of real-world failures in AI systems, along with strategies for AI monitoring and evaluation. Featuring: Rick Kobayashi – LinkedIn Kenny Song – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Citadel AI Register for upcoming webinars here !

Dan and Chris break down Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan , issued by the White House in July 2025. Structured as three "pillars" — Accelerate AI Innovation , Build American AI Infrastructure , and Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security — our dynamic duo unpack the plan's policy goals and its associated suggestions — while also exploring the mixed reactions it’s sparked across political lines. They connect the plan to international AI diplomacy and national security interests, discuss its implications for practitioners, and consider how political realities could shape its success in the years ahead. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Press Release: White House Unveils America's AI Action Plan Paper: America's AI Action Plan Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Register for upcoming webinars here !

Allegra Guinan of Lumiera helps leaders turn uncertainty about AI into confident, strategic leadership. In this conversation, she brings some actionable insights for navigating the hype and complexity of AI. The discussion covers challenges with implementing responsible AI practices, the growing importance of user experience and product thinking, and how leaders can focus on real-world business problems over abstract experimentation. Featuring: Allegra Guinan – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Lumiera Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Register for upcoming webinars here !

Dan sits down with guests Mark Daniel Ward and Katie Sanders from The Data Mine at Purdue University to explore how higher education is evolving to meet the demands of the AI-driven workforce. They share how their program blends interdisciplinary learning, corporate partnerships, and real-world data science projects to better prepare students across 160+ majors. From AI chatbots to agricultural forecasting, they discuss the power of living-learning communities, how the data mine model is spreading to other institutions and what it reveals about the future of education, workforce development, and applied AI training. Featuring: Mark Daniel Ward – LinkedIn Katie Sanders – LinkedIn Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: The Data Mine Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai Register for upcoming webinars here !

We unpack how AI is reshaping hiring decisions, shifting job roles, and creating new expectations for professionals — from engineers to marketers. They explore the rise of AI-assisted teams, the growing compensation bubble, why continuous learning is now table stakes, and how some service providers are quietly riding the AI wave. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows." Register for upcoming webinars here !

In this episode, Chris sits down with Igor Nikitin, CEO and co-founder of Nice Technologies, to explore how AI and modern engineering practices are transforming the actuarial field and setting the stage for the future of actuarial modeling. We discuss the introduction of programming into insurance pricing workflows, and how their Python-based calc engine, AI copilots, and DevOps-inspired workflows are enabling actuaries to collaborate more effectively across teams while accelerating innovation. Featuring: Igor Nikitin – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Links: Nice Technologies Sponsors: Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at shopify.com/practicalai

In this episode of Practical AI, Chris and Daniel explore the fascinating world of agentic AI for drone and robotic swarms, which is Chris's passion and professional focus. They unpack how autonomous vehicles (UxV), drones (UaV), and other autonomous multi-agent systems can collaborate without centralized control while exhibiting complex emergent behavior with agency and self-governance to accomplish a mission or shared goals. Chris and Dan delve into the role of AI real-time inference and edge computing to enable complex agentic multi-model autonomy, especially in challenging environments like disaster zones and remote industrial operations. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: ROS - Robotic Operating System Gazebo Hugging Face Agents Course Swarm Robotics | Wikipedia 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 Benson Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

In the first episode of an "AI in the shadows" theme, Chris and Daniel explore the increasing concerning world of agentic misalignment. Starting out with a reminder about hallucinations and reasoning models, they break down how today’s models only mimic reasoning, which can lead to serious ethical considerations. They unpack a fascinating (and slightly terrifying) new study from Anthropic, where agentic AI models were caught simulating blackmail, deception, and even sabotage — all in the name of goal completion and self-preservation. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Agentic Misalignment: How LLMs could be insider threats Hugging Face Agents Course Register for upcoming webinars here !

In this episode, we sit down with Joey Conway to explore NVIDIA's open source AI, from the reasoning-focused Nemotron models built on top of Llama, to the blazing-fast Parakeet speech model. We chat about what makes open foundation models so valuable, how enterprises can think about deploying multi-model strategies, and why reasoning is becoming the key differentiator in real-world AI applications. Featuring: Joey Conway – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , LinkedIn , Bluesky , GitHub , X Links: Llama Nemotron Ultra NVIDIA Llama Nemotron Ultra Open Model Delivers Groundbreaking Reasoning Accuracy Independent analysis of AI Parakeet Model Parakeet Leaderboard Try the Llama-3.1-Nemotron-Ultra-253B-v1 model here and here

Can AI-driven autonomy reduce harm, or does it risk dehumanizing decision-making? In this “AI Hot Takes & Debates” series episode, Daniel and Chris dive deep into the ethical crossroads of AI, autonomy, and military applications. They trade perspectives on ethics, precision, responsibility, and whether machines should ever be trusted with life-or-death decisions. It’s a spirited back-and-forth that tackles the big questions behind real-world AI. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: The Concept of "The Human" in the Critique of Autonomous Weapons On the Pitfalls of Technophilic Reason: A Commentary on Kevin Jon Heller’s “The Concept of ‘the Human’ in the Critique of Autonomous Weapons” Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

It seems like we are bombarded by news about millions of dollars pouring into AI startups, which have crazy valuations. In this episode, Chris and Dan dive deep into the highs, lows, and hard choices behind funding an AI startup. They explore early bootstrapping, the transition to venture capital, and what it’s like to trade in code commits for investor decks. Featuring: Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5bn 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Actually Indians' Pretending to Be Bots Sponsors: Miro: Feeling overwhelmed by AI? Miro brings clarity by combining human creativity with intelligent tools to help teams get great work done. Learn more at miro.com .

An recent article in Variety was titled: "Sylvester Stallone-Backed Largo.ai Teams With Brilliant Pictures for ‘World’s First Fully AI-Automated Film Company’". Obviously this caught our attention! We sit down with Sami Arpa, CEO of Largo.ai, to unpack how films are developed, funded, and brought to life using AI. We discover how tools like script analysis, financial forecasting, and digital twins are helping creators and studios make smarter decisions. Featuring: Sami Arpa – LinkedIn Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Largo AI Sylvester Stallone-Backed Largo.ai Teams With Brilliant Pictures for ‘World’s First Fully AI-Automated Film Company’ Sponsors: Outshift by Cisco : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

Chong Shen from Flower Labs joins us to discuss what it really takes to build production-ready federated learning systems that work across data silos. We talk about the Flower framework and it's architecture (supernodes, superlinks, etc.), and what makes it both "friendly" and ready for real enterprise environments. We also explore how the generative Generative AI boom is reshaping Flower’s roadmap. Featuring: Chong Shen Ng – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Episode links: The future of AI training is federated DeepLearning.ai short course on Federated Learning with Flower Flower Monthly Federated Learning in Automotive Federated AI in Finance Federated Learning in Healthcare Federated AI on IoT Systems FlowerTune LLM Leaderboard Flower Intelligence GitHub Slack Flower Discuss Check out upcoming webinars ! Sponsors: NordLayer is toggle-ready network security built for modern businesses—combining VPN, access control, and threat protection in one platform that deploys in under 10 minutes with no hardware required. It's built on Zero Trust architecture with granular access controls, so only the right people access the right resources, and it scales effortlessly as your team grows. Get up to 32% off yearly plans with code practically-10 at nordlayer.com/practicalai - 14-day money-back guarantee included.