Making artificial intelligence practical, productive & accessible to everyone. Practical AI is a show in which technology professionals, business people, students, enthusiasts, and expert guests engage in lively discussions about Artificial Intelligence and related topics (Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, GANs, MLOps, AIOps, LLMs & more).
The focus is on productive implementations and real-world scenarios that are accessible to everyone. If you want to keep up with the latest advances in AI, while keeping one foot in the real world, then this is the show for you!
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This episode features Chris Aquino from Thunderbird, who shares the journey of creating a privacy-first AI executive assistant for their desktop email client. He explains how they navigated design decisions like local vs. remote inference, model selection, and splitting complex tasks among multiple AI models, all while maintaining user data confidentiality through end-to-end encryption with Flower Labs. The discussion also covers the trade-offs of current AI in email and a future vision for AI-assisted personal knowledge management within Thunderbird.
The hosts explore a recent MIT report revealing that 95% of AI pilots fail, attributing this to a significant learning gap in integrating AI into complex business workflows rather than model capability. They argue against the "universal hammer" approach of relying solely on chat interfaces, stressing the importance of comprehensive AI platforms, custom solutions, and robust software architecture involving multiple models and data integration. The discussion extends to recent OpenAI developments, interpreting their moves into open-sourcing and consulting as a response to market maturation and the understanding that generic models alone don't create enterprise value.
Daniel and Chris host Rick Kobayashi and Kenny Song from Citadel AI to discuss critical AI safety and security challenges in the generative AI era. They delve into Japan's advanced GenAI adoption, driven by cultural openness and a soft regulatory stance, contrasting it with the US. The conversation covers the practical impact of AI system failures, the need for robust testing and continuous monitoring, and Citadel AI's solutions, including the "LLM as a judge" evaluation approach and open-source contributions. They highlight the importance of balancing innovation with risk management, especially for large enterprises in sectors like finance.
This episode unpacks "Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan," a White House document structured around Accelerate AI Innovation, Build American AI Infrastructure, and Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security. Dan and Chris analyze its policy suggestions, the partisan reactions it has sparked, and its impact on practitioners and geopolitical interests, including the emerging "GPU arms race." They also discuss the critical balance between innovation and safety for organizations.
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 , ...
This episode explores how Purdue University's Data Mine program is revolutionizing higher education to meet the demands of an AI-driven workforce. Guests Mark Daniel Ward and Katie Sanders detail their unique model, which combines interdisciplinary learning with corporate partnerships, allowing students from over 160 majors to work on real-world data science projects. They also discuss the benefits of living-learning communities and how their successful model is expanding to other institutions, shaping the future of education and applied AI training.
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 colle...
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. ...
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 ...
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...
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: ...
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 , L...
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...
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 Whi...
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 Whitena...
Patrick Foley from Intel discusses federated learning, a method for training AI models securely on decentralized data. He explains the process, use cases like healthcare, challenges with privacy and governance, and frameworks like OpenFL and Flower. The conversation also covers security technologies like confidential computing and the future of FL.
Loïc Houssier, Head of Engineering at Superhuman, joins us to discuss how AI and LLMs are reshaping the email experience. He highlights challenges related to the variability of user prompts and infrastructure optimization. Loïc emphasizes that a deep focus on user experience and real human workflows is key to building AI tools people actually love to use. Featuring: Loïc Houssier – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Superhuman R...
Daniel and Chris discuss the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a new standard for AI agents interacting with external systems. They explain MCP's components (hosts, clients, servers), its support for tools, resources, and prompts, and its potential to standardize AI integrations across different models and platforms. They also explore practical implementations using FastAPI-MCP and Rust SDKs, highlighting security considerations and the protocol's evolving ecosystem.
In this episode, we explore the intersection of AI, machine learning, and healthcare through the lens of neuroimaging and epilepsy diagnosis. Dr. Gavin Winston shares insights from his work using MRI data and machine learning to uncover subtle abnormalities in brain function. We discuss the cultural and ethical barriers to AI adoption in medicine, how predictive data analysis could transform the diagnostic workflow, and what the future holds for medical imaging in a world increasingly shaped by ...
Vibe coding, agentic workflows, and AI-assisted pull requests? In this episode, Daniel and Chris chat with Robert Brennan and Graham Neubig of All Hands AI about how AI is transforming software development—from senior engineer productivity to open source agents that address GitHub issues. They dive into trust, tooling, collaboration, and what it means to build software in the era of AI agents. Whether you're coding from your laptop or your phone on a morning walk, the future is hands-free (and A...
Daniel interviews Pavel Veller about orchestrating AI agents and APIs, focusing on the challenges and solutions in connecting systems. They discuss EPAM's DIAL platform, the significance of MCP servers, and the complexities of making AI useful in real-world applications. The conversation also explores the evolving dynamics of working with AI, including maintaining code quality, balancing human oversight, and addressing the emotional and cognitive impacts on developers.
How do you enable AI acceleration (at both the hardware and software layers) that stays ahead of rapid industry shifts? In this episode, Dhananjay Singh from Groq dives into the evolving landscape of AI inference and acceleration. We explore how Groq optimizes the serving layer, adapts to industry shifts, and supports emerging model architectures. Featuring: Dhananjay Singh – LinkedIn , X Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whitenack – Website , GitHub , X Links: Groq Sponsors:...
Kyle Daigle, COO of GitHub, joins the hosts to discuss the evolving role of AI in software development, GitHub Copilot’s impact, and the challenges of AI-assisted coding. The conversation covers licensing concerns, ethical considerations, and how developers can navigate these complexities. Kyle also shares his vision for ambient AI, which seamlessly integrates into workflows to enhance productivity and innovation, shaping the future of developer tools. Featuring: Kyle Daigle – LinkedIn Chris Ben...
We often judge AI models by leaderboard scores, but what if efficiency matters more? Kate Soule from IBM joins us to discuss how Granite AI is rethinking AI at the edge—breaking tasks into smaller, efficient components and co-designing models with hardware. She also shares why AI should prioritize efficiency frontiers over incremental benchmark gains and how seamless model routing can optimize performance. Featuring: Kate Soule – LinkedIn Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , LinkedIn , X Daniel Whi...
This episode features Scott Meyer, CEO of Chipp.ai, exploring the landscape of no-code AI tools and how individuals can build personalized AI protégés. The discussion delves into the critical cultural shift required for widespread AI adoption in businesses, contrasting personal AI use with organizational hesitancy. Scott shares insights on overcoming common barriers like "blank page" fear, effective prompting strategies, and the evolving nature of AI models and user experiences, highlighting how AI can transform work by empowering every individual.
It seems like all we hear about are the great use cases for GenAI, but where should you NOT be using the technology? On this episode Chris and Daniel share their hot takes and bad use cases. Some may surprise you! Sponsors: Domo – The AI and data products platform. Strengthen your entire data journey with Domo’s AI and data products. Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps close to your users — global Anycast load-balancing, zero-configuration private networking, hardware isolation...
It seems like everyone is uses the term “agent” differently these days. In this episode, Chris and Daniel dig into the details of tool calling and its connection to agents. They help clarify how LLMs can “talk to” and “interact with” other systems like databases, APIs, web apps, etc. Along the way they share related learning resources. Notion – Notion is a place where any team can write, plan, organize, and rediscover the joy of play. It’s a workspace designed not just for making progress, but g...
There is crazy hype and a lot of confusion related to DeepSeek’s latest model DeepSeek R1. The products provided by DeepSeek (their version of a ChatGPT-like app) has exploded in popularity. However, ties to China have raised privacy and geopolitical concerns. In this episode, Chris and Daniel cut through the hype to talk about the model, privacy implications, running DeepSeek models securely, and what this signals for open models in 2025. Sponsors: Notion – Notion is a place where any team can ...
We seem to be experiencing a surge of video generation tools, models, and applications. However, video generation models generally struggle with some basic physics, like realistic walking motion. This leaves some generated videos lacking true motion with disappointing, simplistic panning camera views. Genmo is focused on the motion side of video generation and has released some of the best open models. Paras joins us to discuss video generation and their journey at Genmo. Sponsors: Domo – The AI...
Jeff Smith, founder and CEO of CHRP.ai, discusses how his platform addresses the disconnect in corporate wellness by leveraging AI to interpret employees' music preferences as an emotional signal. By replacing ineffective surveys, CHRP.ai creates a personal baseline for each user, identifying deviations in emotional states to provide both anonymized organizational trends and individualized well-being insights. The discussion covers the ethical considerations of data privacy, the technical mechanics of mapping music features to emotional attributes, and the diverse applications for this human-centric AI tool in HR, military, sports, and more.
