In this special summer episode, we do something a bit different. Our usal host Ather Gattami steps into the guest seat and is interviewed by close friend; Joseph Michael, Venture Partnerships at Google. Ather shares his journey from PhD researcher to leading Sweden’s top AI podcast. He reflects on AI’s evolution, the shift from theory to compute-driven progress, and why reasoning and real-world learning are the next big steps. Ather urges everyone to embrace AI tools or risk falling behind and s...
Jul 01, 2025•54 min•Ep. 161
In this episode, Ather Gattami and one of our favourite guests; Anders Arpteg, Head of AI and Data at GlobalConnect, explore Meta’s shifting AI strategy, including its investment in Scale AI amid doubts about LeCun’s JEPA model and LLaMA 4 performance. They compare Tesla’s vision-based Robotaxi rollout to Waymo’s sensor-heavy approach, highlighting Tesla’s edge in scalability and real-world data. They also dive into Apple’s “Illusion of Thinking” paper, questioning whether today’s LLMs genuinely...
Jun 24, 2025•54 min•Ep. 160
In this week's episode, special guest; Eva Fors, Managing Director at Google Cloud Nordics returns to the podcast. Eva and our host, Ather Gattami look at how companies in the region are shifting from AI pilots to real deployments, with leaders like Klarna, EasyPark, and Bonnier News using generative AI in areas like customer engagement, M&A, and personalization. While adoption is growing, Eva notes traditional industries are slowed by governance and execution gaps rather than tech limitatio...
Jun 17, 2025•30 min•Ep. 159
In this episode, Stephen Jenkins, VP of Technology Strategy at Magna Electronics, shares practical insights into how AI is reshaping the automotive industry - from cutting development timelines with synthetic data to building smarter, more efficient autonomous parking systems. He explores the challenges of trust, safety, and explainability in AI, the current state of self-driving technology, and why full autonomy may be closer than we think.
Jun 10, 2025•28 min•Ep. 158
In this week's episode, we host one of our favourite guests; Anders Arpteg, Head of AI and Data at GlobalConnect, to discuss how AI could enable “single person unicorns” by handling core business functions, based on his keynote at the Data Innovation Summit. The episode also explores leadership shifts at Meta and OpenAI, the growing divide between research and product focus, and a promising new approach to training AI without human data, inspired by AlphaZero.
May 20, 2025•42 min•Ep. 157
In this week's episode, Ather chats with Magnus Hambleton, investor at byFounders and former data lead at Natural Cycles. Magnus has successfully applied transformers to improve fertility predictions in a medical setting. As an investor, he focuses on agentic AI and backs startups slightly ahead of what’s currently possible, betting on near-future model capabilities. He remains cautious about LLMs’ reliability and generalization, believing new architectures may be needed for AGI. While big tech ...
Apr 15, 2025•37 min•Ep. 156
In this episode, Salla Franzén, Investment Manager at Navigare Ventures, returns to AI-Podden to explore how AI accelerates discovery in fields like life sciences and neuroscience. She unpacks the risks of tech hype, the need for explainable, trustworthy AI, and the importance of tools that bridge disciplinary gaps. Salla also shares insights on scientific investing, technical depth, and improving EU funding processes.
Apr 08, 2025•38 min•Ep. 155
In this week's episode we host John Lamb, Solutions Lead AI & Analytics at TietoEvry. John emphasises that while tools like LLMs are useful for automating repetitive tasks such as code generation or data prep, they fall short when it comes to reasoning and interpreting structured data. He explains that data cleaning still dominates much of a data scientist’s time and that current AI tools, though helpful, cannot yet be trusted for end-to-end analysis. John also discusses why he believes AGI ...
Apr 01, 2025•27 min•Ep. 154
In this episode, we host special guest; Senior Business and Tech Correspondent at SVT and author, Alexander Norén. We discuss how AI is transforming warfare, especially through autonomous drones and decision-making systems, as explored in his documentary AI War . Alexander also reflects on AI’s impact on jobs, arguing that human-made work will gain value in the future. The conversation ends with concerns about AI-driven misinformation and the importance of trustworthy, human-centered journalism....
Mar 27, 2025•44 min•Ep. 153
In this episode we speak to Anders Indset, a philosopher, deep tech investor, and best-selling author. We discuss AI’s real-world impact, emphasizing Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) that optimize industry-specific data in fields like healthcare, finance, and logistics. Anders critiques Europe’s cautious investment culture, advocating for a bolder approach in AI-driven sectors. Inset stresses the need for balanced AI regulation to foster innovation while addressing global challenges like climate...
Mar 18, 2025•29 min•Ep. 152
In this episode we chat to Niklas Silfverström, CEO of Klang.ai, about Europe's need for AI independence. We discuss data privacy risks, the Cloud Act, and AI bias, emphasizing the need for European infrastructure and language models. Niklas highlights how relying on American AI companies threatens sovereignty, and why investing in GPUs, data centers, and energy is crucial for Europe's competitive future. He also warns that without these efforts, Europe risks becoming a mere consumer of AI rathe...
Mar 11, 2025•26 min•Ep. 151
In this episode, we host Anders Arpteg to discuss GROK 3’s rapid innovation, the competitive AI landscape, and the rise of Chinese models. We explore Elon Musk’s influence, AI power concentration, open-source challenges, and the Tesla Agile DNA. The conversation concludes with insights into AI reasoning, AGI development, and future challenges.
Mar 04, 2025•50 min•Ep. 150
In this episode, Ather speaks to Galina Esther Shubina, Senior Director of AI Strategy at King. They discuss how AI improves gameplay and development at King through AI-powered playtesting bots. Galina is excited about robotics but sees major technical challenges ahead. On AGI, she is skeptical, predicting it won’t emerge for at least 100 years due to AI’s Game on limitations in reasoning. For 2025, she expects smaller generative models and a shift toward traditional AI methods like supervised l...
Feb 06, 2025•24 min•Ep. 149
In this episode, Ather speaks to Mehrdad Mamaghani, Volvo Group’s Head of Data Science. They discuss AI’s role in predictive maintenance, financial forecasting, and sustainability. Merdad critiques the hype around AGI, emphasizing transparency and practical applications, and highlights the need for AI talent and expertise in Europe.
Jan 14, 2025•31 min•Ep. 148
Merry Christmas folks! This week, guest host (Sifted's) Mimi Billing and Ather discuss December's AI news updates. Highlights included Uber's entry into AI data labeling, Google DeepMind's Genie 2 for training AI in simulated environments, and Amazon's collaboration with Anthropic to develop a mega AI supercomputer. We covered the importance of new algorithms over mere scaling and the potential of agentic AI to bring advancements toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). The year saw record ...
Dec 24, 2024•30 min•Ep. 147
This week, guest host (Sifted's) Mimi Billing and Ather discuss November's AI news updates. Topics include; OpenAI’s Slush presentation, which revealed both innovation and cultural challenges, and the diminishing returns of AI scaling laws. They explore the rise of specialized models, new players like Gemesis and Mistral, and OpenAI's ChatGPT search feature. The episode also examines AI’s growing role in medicine, highlighting its diagnostic potential alongside concerns about biases and reliabil...
Dec 10, 2024•42 min•Ep. 146
Christian Guttmann, Executive Director of the Nordic AI Institute, discusses AI as both a philosophical aspiration and a practical tool. He highlights applications like personalized banking recommendations and data querying with large language models but notes their limitations in reasoning and understanding. Advocating for hybrid AI models and richer data, he emphasizes the need for multimodal approaches that integrate various forms of input, such as speech and gestures, to advance AI capabilit...
Nov 19, 2024•38 min•Ep. 145
This week we welcome back; Reggie Townsend, Vice President of Data Ethics at SAS Institute and member of President Biden's National AI Advisory Council. We discussed AI development and regulation in the US. He stressed balancing innovation incentives with government restraint and cited the CHIPS Act as key for AI infrastructure, though most investments are private. He highlighted that AI trustworthiness varies, suggesting risk-based assessments. Townsend underscored the importance of AI educatio...
Nov 05, 2024•29 min•Ep. 144
This episode, recorded live, at the third installment of AI-Podden live at Epicenter, features Ingrid af Sandeberg, Strategic Advisor at Epicenter and Chairman of the board at Stockholm AI. She joins Ather & Mimi on the stage to discuss AI trends and tools, including Notebook LM, highlighting the shift toward smaller, specialized models like those on Hugging Face. She emphasizes the challenges of regulating AI in rapidly evolving fields and advocates for outcome-based regulations. Despite Sw...
Oct 29, 2024•12 min•Ep. 143
This episode, recorded live, is the third installment of Ather and Mimi's special news updates at Epicenter Stockholm. They discuss Elon Musk's We, Robot controversy, OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round, and AI limitations like pattern matching. They also highlighted neurosymbolic AI’s potential, Nobel winners in machine learning, and the rapid adoption of generative AI tools, and noted the unreliability of current AI agents and the promise of Google’s Notebook LM.
Oct 22, 2024•30 min•Ep. 142
Ted Schönbeck, Nordic CTO, Google Cloud discusses the current and future landscape of AI, emphasizing its ability to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, with machine learning allowing systems to learn independently. Google, an "AI-first" company since 2016, has integrated AI into products like Maps and Search. Schönbeck highlights recent advancements in large language models and generative AI, particularly the use of large token windows for analyzing extensive datasets and t...
Oct 02, 2024•41 min•Ep. 141
This episode features special guest, Tom Sodestrom, AWS Enterprise Strategist, speaking on the latest trends in AI and edge computing. Tom shares his insights on the upcoming trends in the next 5-10 years, including the rise of generative AI, increased data volume and importance, productive edge computing, and digital twins and simulation at scale.
Sep 17, 2024•34 min•Ep. 139
This episode, recorded live, is the second installment of Ather and Mimi's special news updates at Epicenter Stockholm. They discuss OpenAI and concerns about its shift from research to product development, as well as AI advancements in math reasoning by DeepMind and OpenAI’s new "Strawberry" model. The hosts also touch on Sam Altman's Worldcoin project and the intersection of blockchain, crypto, and AI. Autonomous vehicle progress is covered, particularly Uber's partnership with Wave, while an ...
Sep 10, 2024•30 min•Ep. 138
This week, guest host (Sifted's) Mimi Billing and Ather discuss June's AI news updates. Topics include Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI over a nonprofit agreement, Anthropic’s Cloud 3 outperforming ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, and major investments in Anthropic by Google and Amazon. They also cover the EU AI Act's approval, marking the first regulatory framework for AI in Europe, and the UN's resolution on ethical AI development. The resignation of Stability AI’s CEO, Emad Mostaque, is discuss...
Jul 03, 2024•38 min•Ep. 137
In this episode, Ather interviews Tom Soderstrom, AWS Enterprise Strategist, on his career and insights into innovation and generative AI. Tom shares his journey from Sweden to the US, becoming NASA’s first CTO for IT at JPL, and introducing cloud computing. He emphasises innovation through small, low-risk experiments, or “two-way door decisions,” and the formula of Return on Attention plus Return on Interest leading to Return on Investment. The discussion focuses on the potential of generative ...
Jun 25, 2024•39 min•Ep. 136
In this episode, Ather interviews Lele Cau, AI research scientist at MotherBrain, part of EQT Partners. They discuss AI as a system integrating software and hardware for intelligent decision-making. Lele describes MotherBrain’s role in aiding deal professionals with data and algorithms, emphasising the importance of knowledge graphs in large language models (LLMs) for maintaining relationships and entities. Lele highlights the need for hybrid AI systems combining various information sources and ...
Jun 18, 2024•31 min•Ep. 135
In this episode, Ather meets Caroline Ohlsson, Data & AI Director at Verdane. Caroline explains Verdane's investment in tech-enabled companies and how her team supports them with data and AI. She discusses Verdane's use of generative AI tools like Verdain GPT and Microsoft Co-pilot to boost productivity, and shares examples of AI-driven improvements in code development and sales forecasting. Emphasizing the importance of a solid data foundation and responsible AI practices, she advises compa...
Jun 11, 2024•30 min•Ep. 134
In our first ever live recording at Epicenter Stockholm, Ather and Mimi Billing open with Kai-fu Lee's prediction that AI will take 50% of jobs by 2027 and the market's projected growth to $184 billion by 2024. Despite major investments, the profitability of large language models (LLMs) remains uncertain. OpenAI's financial success is noted, but high development costs are a concern. Privacy issues with Microsoft's new AI hardware and Google's challenges with its AI overview feature are highlight...
Jun 04, 2024•28 min•Ep. 133
In this episode, Ather interviews Anastasia Varava, Research Lead at SEBX, SEB Banken, about AI in banking. Anastasia's work at KTH and SEB Banken focuses on machine learning, robotics, and AI applications to enhance employee efficiency, decision-making, crime prevention, and customer experience. She discusses data sensitivity, the shift to cloud services, and security measures. Anastasia sees potential in simulating financial markets with AI, combining classical computer science with deep learn...
May 28, 2024•31 min•Ep. 132
In this episode host Ather interviews Mikael Huss, co-founder and Principal Data Scientist at Codon. They discuss the evolution of AI, noting the shift from traditional data science to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Mikael highlights the overshadowing of other AI applications by LLMs and generative AI. They emphasize the importance of deeply understanding business problems before applying AI solutions and the potential of open-source LLMs. The conversation also covers the challenges ...
May 21, 2024•35 min•Ep. 131
