The Artificial Intelligence Show

Anthropic has filed to go public, and its S-1 lays out a future of "virtual collaborators," $40 trillion in knowledge work, and a valuation that could top Meta's. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down the filing. They debate whether Fortune 500 companies can really become "self-driving" by 2030, and dig into Google DeepMind's new research on AGI, wages, and the meaning of work. In rapid fire: Gemini 4 Carbon, Genie 4, and GPT-6.1 Terra; earnings from Google, Microsoft, and Amazon; Microsoft's 60,000-employee buyout offer; Amazon's anti-tokenmaxxing memo; and a new wave of AI security incidents. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:57 — Anthropic’s IPO Filing 00:27:42 — The Rise of the Self-Driving Company? 00:41:35 — Google DeepMind & OpenAI Say AI Could Transform the Meaning of Work 00:56:12 — Google Unveils Gemini 4 Carbon and Genie 4 as OpenAI Releases GPT-6.1 Terra 01:01:44 — Google,…

AI found a 14-year-old flaw in the code behind an estimated 70% of websites, and within 12 hours of it leaking, Cloudflare saw millions of attempts to exploit it. In Episode 248, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down this AI cybersecurity crisis: what happened, why it cascaded across banks, infrastructure, and medical records, and the steps you can take now. They also cover Dario Amodei's defense of Anthropic's safety record, outside evaluators finding gaps in OpenAI's safeguards, Meta's Muse data exposure, and Anthropic's IPO filing at a valuation approaching $2 trillion, plus product and funding news in the rapid-fire round. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:17 — The AI Cybersecurity Crisis Is Here 00:29:55 — Dario Defends Anthropic’s Safety Record 00:45:50 — Outside Evaluators Find Gaps in OpenAI’s AI Safeguards 00:56:57 — Marketing AI Institute’s 10-Year Anniversary 01:05:28 — Meta’s Muse…

A safety lead who authored OpenAI's model reports left and told Ezra Klein the industry can't reliably safeguard the systems it's already shipping. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput unpack that interview, OpenAI's fired safety researchers, and reporting that labs expect a catastrophic AI incident within a year. Then: Anthropic's new data on its own AI-run workforce, a MAICON 2026 recap, fresh interpretability research, OpenAI's contested math-proof release, Google's Gemini Argon, and micro1's $1B plan to buy how businesses actually work. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:48 — AI-Pulse Survey 00:07:11 — OpenAI's Mounting Safety Concerns 00:25:09 — The AI Expectations Gap 00:47:24 — MAICON 2026 Recap 01:02:51 — Introducing The AI Transformation Blueprint and AI Score 01:08:48 — An Interpretability Breakthrough? 01:13:17 — OpenAI's Math Reckoning 01:18:31 — The Super Intelligence Rebrand 01:22:21 —…

When will we achieve AGI? Recorded live in the podcast studio at MAICON 2026, this AI Answers episode has Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput answering questions submitted from our audience. They dig into what AGI means for everyday work, whether Claude and ChatGPT get more expensive after the IPOs, how to drive adoption when you're not the CEO, what to use now that GPTs are going away, and who owns the AI work you build at your job. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:03 What MAICON insight has challenged your thinking about where AI is headed? 00:07:46 How do you keep up with AI without burning out? 00:12:09 How do you go from following a demo to using AI in your own work? 00:15:21 How do you get AI adopted in the messy middle of an organization? 00:17:41 How do you build an AI roadmap you can stick to as models change? 00:22:09 Will Claude and ChatGPT get more expensive after the IPOs? 00:26:23 What can AI do versus what should AI do? 00:30:35 What does AGI actually look like for a regular person? 00:35:25 Can AI solve the…

Kuo Zhang, president of Alibaba.com, believes B2B commerce is becoming agent-to-agent. He joins Mike Kaput to explain Accio, Alibaba.com's agent platform, and how it collapses a 60-step sourcing process into hours. They cover the Model × Harness × Context formula, the Commerce Agent Bench benchmark, what had to change inside a 26-year-old company, and why the future of global trade runs on agents. Part of the AI Transformations series. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:7:30 — Why Accio 00:8:49 — Inside Alibaba.com's AI transformation with Accio Work 00:15:12 — The pain points Accio was built to solve 00:19:32 — Real examples of entrepreneurs using Accio Work 00:24:15 — The technology powering the transformation 00:28:50 — How AI agents will reshape commerce at large 00:32:26 — What had to change inside the company 00:37:26 — The hardest parts of shipping agent-based products 00:40:47 — How Alibaba.com measures agent performance This week’s episode is also…

An OpenAI safety researcher resigned and published an essay arguing the company's safety culture can't keep up with its own release pace; the same week OpenAI fired three safety researchers and canceled a model release over internal test results. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput also break down OpenAI's DevDay and dots, the voluntary Super Intelligence Accord signed at the White House, Anthropic's pre-Thanksgiving IPO, Google's Gemini 4 Argon preview, an FTC probe into the major labs, and a real-time AI video model that fooled nearly half its testers. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:19 — OpenAI DevDay and Dots 00:20:04 — OpenAI’s Safety Crisis Deepens 00:28:51 — Trump Signs Super Intelligence Accord 00:54:19 — Anthropic Targets Pre-Thanksgiving IPO 00:59:02 — Google Previews Gemini 4 01:02:29 — AI Companies Face New Liability Pressure 01:07:07 — Anthropic and Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical 01:17:39 —…

Three big model updates landed at once, GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Claude Opus 5.5, and Microsoft's redesigned Copilot, and the story isn't raw intelligence, it's reliability, efficiency, and a new "per-task pricing" mindset. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what that means for your work. Then: Jensen Huang's case against the AI doomers from his Ezra Klein interview, a first look at AI Score by SmarterX, and a rapid-fire run through Meta Connect, Amazon blocking Muse, OpenAI's rogue-agent disclosures, and more. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:57 — GPT-6 Sol and Luna, Opus 5.5, and the New Microsoft Copilot 00:24:16 — Jensen Huang vs. the AI Doomers 00:41:57 — Introducing AI Score 00:53:12 — GPTs Are Being Retired 01:06:30 — Meta Connect 2026 01:12:39 — Amazon Blocks Muse 01:15:20 — OpenAI Discloses More Rogue Agent Incidents 01:20:00 — OpenAI Gets Vocal on AI Standards 01:22:59 — AI Use Case…

One task at Baptist Health used to take about 10 hours a week. Now it takes roughly two minutes, and that's just one piece of a two-year AI transformation. Christine Kotler, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer of Baptist Health South Florida, joins Mike Kaput to walk through how her marketing and communications team built an AI adoption model from the ground up: a structured learning curriculum, the peer-coaching "AI Sherpa" model, real use cases, and the honest friction of doing this inside a regulated healthcare organization. Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:00 — Why marketing & comms took the lead on generative AI 00:10:57 — How the transformation started to unfold 00:14:23 — The AI Sherpas 00:20:12 — The learning hub and building their own AI curriculum 00:22:14 — How AI is changing the marketing/comms team's work 00:28:28 — The people side of the transformation 00:33:02 — Where…

AI-safety pacing became a political fight this week: Trump versus a bipartisan push, with data centers and the midterms in the middle. Paul and Mike go deeper on the part that matters more: the widening gap between the models labs keep and the ones you can use, Noam Brown's warning about it, and OpenAI's six new rogue-agent disclosures. Plus Paul's surprise book announcement and a full rapid-fire slate. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:29 — The AI Slowdown Gets (Very) Political 00:25:18 — AI Labs Could Keep the Best Models to Themselves 00:54:33 — The AI Transformation Blueprint 01:09:45 — OpenAI Discloses More Rogue Agent Incidents 01:14:03 — Claude Merges Chat and Cowork 01:17:53 — Meta Rolls Out Muse 01:20:36 — Apple Ships Siri AI 01:23:20 — OpenAI and Microsoft Face Copyright Revelations 01:27:18 — AI Use Case Spotlight 01:32:59 — AI Product and Funding Updates This episode is supported by…

David's Bridal was built around one thing for 75 years: the dress. In this AI Transformations episode, Elina Vilk (President & Chief Business Officer) and Mike Ball (Head of Product) join Mike Kaput to explain how the company is reinventing itself around the whole wedding journey, the "aisle to algorithm" strategy. We get into Pearl Planner, the free AI wedding-planning companion now used by hundreds of thousands of couples with no marketing spend; Pearl Connect, the new vendor-side platform built on Google Cloud; the vision quiz and dynamic budgeting that make it work; and how David's own teams are adopting AI internally. Presented by Gemini Enterprise. Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:01 — How the AI transformation at David's Bridal began 00:06:36 — The early phases and turning points 00:10:53 — Inside Pearl Planner, the customer-facing assistant 00:13:59 — Using AI for timelines,…

A former OpenAI and Anthropic researcher resigned with a warning that went viral, reigniting the "should we slow down?" debate. Then OpenAI said an internal model solved the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize problem - followed by a credit controversy with an NYU mathematician. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down this week’s latest stories, plus new data suggesting an AI jobs boom, Anthropic's 2030 economic scenarios, Jensen Huang declaring AGI has arrived, and a run of "agents gone wild" security incidents. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:35 — Anthropic Researcher Sounds Red Alert on AI Safety 00:45:26 — OpenAI’s Math Breakthrough and Controversy 01:00:48 — AI Jobs Apocalypse Postponed? 01:08:53 — Anthropic Maps Economic Futures 01:15:00 — Jensen Declares AGI 01:18:10 — More AI Agent Security Incidents and Concerns 01:22:25 — AI Use Case Spotlight 01:30:02 — AI Product and Funding Updates This…

A smaller bank replaced a $375,000 software contract by building its own tool, and now runs named "digital employees" that answer tickets, review its websites, and message staff in Teams. This is what an AI transformation actually looks like inside a regulated institution. CTO John Kowal joins Mike Kaput to unpack Peapack Private Bank and Trust's journey since 2023: flipping build-vs-buy, giving every AI agent a name and personality, building a network of 29 AI champions, and the guardrails that keep AI in check in banking. Part of the AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:02— What PPAC Private Bank and Trust does 00:07:41 — How the AI transformation started 00:10:24 — What's driving PPAC from chat to agents 00:12:09 — Concrete examples of AI changing daily work 00:16:23 — Re-engineering workflows, not just layering on tech 00:17:25 — The technology stack powering the work 00:19:24 — The data warehouse…

GPT-6 Astra can operate a computer for days at a time, and OpenAI is positioning it as the model that does the work, which is exactly why Paul says this launch felt less like a demo and more like a turning point. He and Mike dig into Astra's computer-use leap, the fumbled rollout, and the jobs question the labs keep sidestepping. Then: New York City's ban on student AI through 8th grade and the debate it set off, Trump going all-in on data centers as the fight reaches the midterms, the U.S. government backing OpenAI in the NYT copyright case, Wall Street banks pushing Big Law to cut fees, and MIT's warning that AI can now complete most undergraduate assignments, plus a rapid fire stacked with model releases. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:10 — GPT-6 Is Here 00:38:51 — Trump Goes All-In on Data Centers 00:45:24 — New York City Schools Ban AI Through Middle School 01:02:43 — US Government Backs…

If you stop hiring entry-level staff and quietly decimate the leadership pipeline, where do future managers come from once AI does the junior work? That's one of 15 listener questions Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips take on in this AI Answers edition, drawn from recent Intro to AI and Scaling AI classes and an Academy Live session with SmarterX's COO and legal counsel. The conversation runs from the practical (how to carve out time for AI, generic vs. custom agents, human-in-the-loop checkpoints) to the strategic (funding AI, token budgets, intelligence redundancy, and whether we're building businesses on "rented land"). Show Notes: ⁠Access the show notes and show links here⁠ 00:00:00 — Intro 00:07:15 — What are the best ways to use AI in marketing? 00:10:54 — How do you carve out time for AI when the team is already slammed? 00:14:46 — Should a small company hire outside consultants to build agents? 00:19:19 — Who should own AI transformation in the enterprise? 00:23:49 — Are there generic agents everyone…

OpenAI's Hugging Face hack keeps getting stranger; new investigations show autonomous agents that coordinated, deceived, and pursued their goal at almost any cost. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what it means for the models coming next. They also cover Bill Gates reversing his stance on AI and jobs, Nvidia doubling revenue and buying Hugging Face, Anthropic's $30 trillion revenue pitch and its court win, McKinsey's 2026 State of AI, and more in the rapid-fire section. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:53 — The Wild Truth About OpenAI’s Hugging Face Hack Comes Out 00:31:08 — Bill Gates Changes His Mind on AI and Jobs 00:39:22 — Nvidia Doubles Revenue and Agrees to Buy Hugging Face 00:50:32 — Anthropic Sees a $30 Trillion Revenue Opportunity 00:54:24 — Judge Blocks Government’s Anthropic Blacklisting 00:56:31 — Controversy Over Legendary Investor’s AI-Written Op-Ed 01:03:11 — McKinsey Maps…

For twenty years, the percentage of time a B2B sales rep spends actually talking to customers has barely moved. Jon Dick, chief customer officer at HubSpot, thinks AI is the first thing that genuinely breaks that constraint, and he has three years of rebuilding to point to. In this AI Transformations episode, Jon takes Mike Kaput through HubSpot's agentic go-to-market model: the AEO strategy built for answer engines, the AI SDR handling most website chats, the assistant that moved win rate, and the org change that put every AI engineer under one leader. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps:00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:36 — Meet Jon Dick 00:05:13 — What HubSpot was trying to solve 00:08:27 — How the transformation got started and where it stands today 00:11:48 — Beyond individual use cases: demand creation and AEO 00:15:49 — What's HubSpot native, and how they pick models 00:18:36 — What had to change organizationally 00:22:10 — Why centralizing beat the pod model 00:24:39 — What got…

OpenAI paused reinforcement learning on its most advanced models over cybersecurity concerns, saying its next model may cross a critical capability threshold. Paul's read: the labs aren't removing dangerous behaviors, they're suppressing them and suppressed behaviors can come back. Also this week: a very public argument over Anthropic's direction as it heads toward a possible $2 trillion IPO, Pennsylvania's crackdown on data centers, Nvidia's Ohio AI factory play, new Pew data on young Americans souring on AI, and humanoid robots in Beijing breaking records set by Usain Bolt. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:44 — OpenAI Pauses Some Frontier AI Training Due to Cybersecurity Concerns 00:19:25 — Debate Over Anthropic Intensifies Ahead of IPO 00:33:43 — Pennsylvania Leads Increasing State Opposition to Data Centers 00:48:19 — Jensen's AI Factory Manifesto 00:54:15 — AI Job Loss Hits Young Adults…

Claude will now watermark the content it generates, and the fight over what that means for writing, schoolwork, and "AI plagiarism" is only starting. Paul and Mike unpack the watermarking news, then move through AI's environmental reckoning, OpenAI's very public friction with the White House, Anthropic's march toward a record IPO, Grok 4.6's return to the frontier, and an AI agent that hacked a gym website while trying to book a class. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:07:04 — Claude Will Now Start Marking AI-Generated Content 00:22:41 — AI's Environmental Reckoning 00:35:58 — Drama from the White House Over OpenAI Hire 00:45:25 — Anthropic's Hidden Advisor 00:50:04 — Sanders Threatens an AI Pause 00:55:30 — xAI Releases Grok 4.6 00:58:30 — More on Google's AI Leadership Reshuffle 01:02:54 — Revisiting the Responsible AI Manifesto 01:08:09 — AI Agent Hacks a Gym Website 01:12:10 — AI Use Case…

Zapier's Chief Marketing and AI Transformation Officer Dan Slagen called a "code red" on his own marketing team, not because they were behind, but because he saw the bar moving from using AI to building with it. In this AI Transformations episode, Slagen tells Mike Kaput how Zapier moved from AI adoption to AI-native work: three tiers of builders, an AI-powered "marketing brain," the "lossless marketing" idea behind it, and why working in public mattered more than any single tool. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:50 — Who Dan Slagen is and why Zapier's marketing story matters 00:06:12 — The February “code red”: what changed and why Dan called it 00:10:53 — How the team actually adopted AI 00:12:05 — Building Zapier's AI-powered marketing brain and “lossless marketing” 00:15:52 — Bringing in agentic expertise and charting the steps 00:21:25 — The behavioral side: how people interact with the machines 00:23:25 — How the average marketer connects to the…

Google’s AI leadership is being reordered as Demis Hassabis changes roles, Jeff Dean departs after 27 years, and power appears to shift back toward Silicon Valley and Sergey Brin. But the bigger story may be OpenAI’s detailed account of agents that hacked Hugging Face, communicated across test runs, shared stolen credentials, and operated undetected for weeks. Paul and Mike break it all down, then cover the White House’s new framework for reviewing frontier models, OpenAI’s delayed Astra release, its public fight with Apple, Meta’s open approach to superintelligence, AI-driven layoffs, Gavin Baker’s AI market predictions, the collapse of the Situational Awareness fund, and more. Full links and timestamps below. Access the show notes and show links here:https://podcast.smarterx.ai/shownotes/230 Fill out this week’s AI Pulse Survey here:https://smarterx.ai/pulse Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:52 — Google’s AI Leadership Shakeup 00:24:15 — OpenAI’s Agent Hack Debrief 00:51:03 — White House AI Framework…

A rogue AI agent hacked Hugging Face to cheat on its own test. The Pope wrote 43,000 words warning about AI. Washington pulled Fable 5 offline, then reversed course. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput count down the top 10 AI trends of the quarter: AI jobs whiplash, the pillars of business transformation, Apple v. OpenAI, GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work, agents transforming work, Fable 5, soft nationalization, the Hugging Face breach, and the battle over open weights. This episode was recorded live on July 31, 2026. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:02:54 — The Pope's AI Encyclical and Popular Backlash Against AI 00:07:01 — AI Jobs Whiplash 00:11:44 — The Pillars of Business AI Transformation 00:16:21 — OpenAI vs. Apple 00:19:10 — GPT-5.6 and ChatGPT Work 00:24:36 — How Agents Are Transforming Work 00:29:47 — Fable 5 00:34:11 — US Government Intervention in AI 00:37:53 — OpenAI Models Escape and Hack Hugging Face 00:42:29 — The Battle Over Open Weights This episode is…

Both OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed this week that AI agents escaped their safety tests and reached real organizations, and one model flagged its own action as wrong before carrying it out. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what happened and why it matters for anyone deploying agents. Then: why 1,300+ AI insiders are asking Washington to pace the frontier, where the open-weights battle goes next, Sam Altman's case for an abundant future, Astra's decade-old math breakthrough, Microsoft's record year, NVIDIA's bet on Ilya Sutskever's SSI, and a take on keeping your voice in an AI world. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:18 — AI Agent Cyberattacks Get Worse 00:21:28 — AI Insiders Ask Washington to Pace AI 00:36:06 — The Battle Over Open Weights Continues 00:53:36 — Sam Altman on AI's Abundant Future 00:59:42 — OpenAI's Astra Model 01:03:44 — Microsoft Posts Record Fiscal Year 01:11:38 — Nvidia…

Good Karma Brands gave every teammate ChatGPT Enterprise on Labor Day. Less than a year later, 65% of the company uses AI daily. In the first episode of our AI Transformations series, presented by Google Cloud, Senior Director of Innovation Ty Bauschek tells Mike Kaput how they did it: the pilot, the training cadence, and the automations already saving teammates 10 to 15 hours a week. It's a candid look at what real, fast, company-wide AI adoption takes: top-down urgency, a culture that rewards experimentation, and a new innovation team turning three-hour tasks into ten-minute ones. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:01:00 — Introducing the AI Transformations Series 00:04:11 — Meet Ty Bauschek and Good Karma Brands 00:06:22 — Why AI became an urgent, top-down priority 00:08:23 — The rollout: a 50-person pilot and seven Tuesdays 00:10:17 — The tools: ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, Codex 00:11:34 — How adoption evolved 00:13:43 — Use-case spotlight 00:18:09 — Driving real…

An AI agent slipped its sandbox and hacked a real company for days before anyone noticed and that single incident reframes everything else this week. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput connect it to Kimi K3's arrival at the frontier, the "Open Weights and American AI Leadership" letter, and the regulation fight taking shape in Washington. They break down open weight vs. open source in plain terms, explain why Anthropic is standing alone, and run rapid fire on Alphabet's Q2, the data center backlash, the jobs debate, and Claude Opus 5. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:07:31 — OpenAI Models Escape and Hack Hugging Face 00:27:49 — Kimi K3 and China's Open-Source Surge 00:50:52 — Open Weights and American AI Leadership 01:07:23 — Demis Calls for a Frontier AI Standards Body 01:12:17 — Google's AI-Fueled Q2 01:15:22 — White House Redirects Research Billions Toward AI 01:17:42 — The Data Center Backlash Goes…

OpenAI shipped GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, and GPT-Live this week, and the real story is the move from chat to computer-use agents. Paul and Mike break down what changed, then get into enterprise AI agents and the "reverse information paradox," the AI 2040 report, Apple's trade-secret suit against OpenAI, Illinois's new AI safety law, the AI Safety Index, a cheating scandal at Brown, and foreign influence around data centers. AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:45 — GPT-5.6, ChatGPT Work, and GPT-Live (Plus GPT-6 Rumors) 00:31:30 — Advice on AI Agents in the Enterprise 00:46:39 — AI 2040 00:59:17 — Apple Sues OpenAI for Trade Secret Theft 01:06:14 — Illinois Signs Nation-Leading AI Safety Law 01:09:59 — AI Safety Index: Nobody Gets an A 01:13:11 — The AI Cheating Scandal at Brown 01:17:44 — China and Russia Stoke US Public Opinion on Data Centers 01:20:57 — AI Use Case Spotlight 01:26:19 — AI Product…

Are enterprises blindly surrendering their competitive edge to frontier AI labs? In Episode 224, hosts Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect the urgent power shift between AI developers, regulators, and the businesses that rely on them. We unpack the return of Claude Fable 5, Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s fiery warning on data ownership, and a new 8-pillar framework to safeguard your company's AI transformation. Finally, we cover OpenAI's massive new government pitch, Meta's internal struggles, and the harsh realities of AI's impact on the job market. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:44 — US Government Lifts Export Controls on Fable 00:21:32 — Palantir CEO on AI Sovereignty 00:37:32 — The Pillars of Business AI Transformation 00:51:48 — OpenAI Offers the US Government a 5% Stake 00:56:03 — OpenAI’s Inference Breakthrough 01:00:03 — AI Jobs Data Whiplash 01:09:35 — Meta's AI Reality Check 01:13:10 — AI…

The questions people ask about AI have changed. A year ago, they wanted to know what ChatGPT was; now they're asking how to redesign workflows around agents and whether a model can be trained the way a person is. In this AI Answers episode, Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips take on fifteen of them, straight from our Intro to AI classes. From choosing two or three models on a tight budget to building an AI virtual twin without sacrificing authenticity, it's a snapshot of where practitioners' thinking actually is right now. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:5:59 How do you balance bottom-up experimentation with CEO-level strategy? 00:9:49 How do you move from restricting AI to enabling it? 00:11:36 How do you pick two or three models on a budget? 00:14:30 How do you evaluate vendors amid AI washing? 00:17:13 Frontier models, small models, or edge AI? 00:20:52 What are the security risks of autonomous agents? 00:25:02 Do AI models really behave like people? 00:30:25 How do you prove AI value with only basic tools? 00:32:02…

OpenAI just previewed GPT-5.6, but for the first time, the U.S. government is deciding who gets access to a frontier AI model. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput break down what they're calling the soft nationalization of artificial intelligence: a staggered, government-approved release, the Dean Ball essay responding to it, and what it means when Washington, not the labs, controls the most powerful models. Plus: OpenAI's new Codex research on agents at work, the looming question of Chinese models, and the data center backlash uniting both parties. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:54 — GPT-5.6 Begins Controlled Release 00:25:12 — Dean Ball Releases Essay on Critical Safety Actions 00:43:36 — How Agents Are Transforming Work: OpenAI's New Research 00:53:01 — Will the US Government Restrict Chinese Models? 00:59:54 — The Growing Data Center Backlash 01:05:09 — The $27M Proxy War Over Alex Bores 01:08:16…

Anthropic's most powerful models are still offline, and the U.S. government now wants a guarantee no lab can give. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput unpack the ongoing export-control standoff, the Lutnick letter, and what it means for the models expected this week, then turn to Satya Nadella's "future of the firm" essay, the unsolved mess of AI pricing and usage limits, a wave of lab talent shakeups including Noam Shazeer's move to OpenAI, the G7 AI summit, Midjourney's leap into medical scanning, and research showing AI can out-persuade expert humans. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:44 — Anthropic vs. the White House 00:22:37 — Microsoft CEO on the Future of the Firm 00:34:37 — AI Pricing and Usage Strategy 00:56:04 — Noam Shazeer Joins OpenAI (and Other Major AI Hiring Updates) 01:04:57 — Trump's G7 AI Push 01:09:33 — Midjourney Launches a Medical Division 01:12:59 — AI Can Now Out-Persuade Expert…

Seventy-one percent of professionals expect AI to eliminate more jobs than it creates — but only 20% worry about their own. In this AI Answers episode, Taylor Radey joins Paul and Mike to unpack that disconnect and nine other findings from the 2026 State of AI for Business report, drawn from 2,109 respondents. From why CEOs rate themselves furthest ahead to why only 13% of organizations have the governance to scale, this is the data behind what's actually happening inside companies right now. Download the full report at stateofbusiness.ai Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:05 — Top 10 Key Findings: Executive Summary 00:12:56 — Did you use AI to build this report? 00:14:26 — What remained uniquely human in the research process? 00:17:25 — Is the 71% job elimination finding consistent across industries and company sizes? 00:19:16 — Why do 71% expect job loss but only 20% worry about their own job? 00:23:30 — How do barriers to AI adoption change from piloting to scaling? 00:28:56 — Only 13% have all four…

The U.S. government forced Anthropic to pull Fable 5 and Mythos 5 from general availability just days after they launched as the most capable models publicly available. Paul and Mike work through how it happened, Dario Amodei's policy essay, and the question every business leader should be sitting with: what do you build on when a model can be switched off? Then it's OpenAI's confidential IPO filing, Apple's long-awaited Siri AI, the real economics behind your AI subscription, and a DeepMind paper on the road from AGI to ASI. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:20 — Claude Fable 5 00:27:38 — OpenAI Files for IPO 00:36:02 — Apple’s Siri AI Is Finally Here 00:44:02 — Is the Era of Affordable AI Over? 00:48:56 — Opendoor Ends Offshoring for AI-Native Workers 00:51:49 — From Prompts to Loops 00:57:48 — From AGI to ASI 01:03:07 — Europe 2031 01:06:53 — AI Use Case Spotlight 01:11:12 — AI Product and…

Anthropic filed for an IPO and published a paper warning that recursive self-improvement may arrive faster than anyone is ready for. Paul and Mike break down both, then cover Trump's AI executive order, government stakes in AI labs, and the corporate scramble to control AI token costs. Rapid fire: Apple WWDC previews, OpenAI's Codex-ChatGPT merger, Brockman's super PAC, AI rolling up the accounting industry, Stanford law professors losing to AI 75% of the time, and product updates from Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Anthropic. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:53 — Anthropic IPO & Talks Recursive Self-Improvement 00:25:52 — Trump's AI Executive Order & Government Stakes in AI Labs 00:37:34 — The Soaring Cost of Intelligence, Part 2 00:57:34 — Apple WWDC 01:01:36 — OpenAI Is Merging Codex and ChatGPT 01:06:19 — OpenAI Distances Itself from Brockman's Super PAC 01:08:55 — AI Roll-Up Targets the…

Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, 43,000 words on AI and human dignity, and Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah was at the Vatican for the unveiling. Paul and Mike break down what the church's entry into the AI debate means for global public perception, then cover the PR emergency building among young people, the token cost crisis hitting corporate budgets, Claude Opus 4.8, competing AI jobs narratives, Illinois's landmark safety bill, Microsoft's agent data, and Anthropic's $65B Series H. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:02:49 — AI-Pulse Survey 00:05:40 — The Pope's AI Encyclical 00:25:35 — AI's PR Emergency 00:38:25 — The Soaring Cost of Intelligence 00:54:12 — Claude Opus 4.8 00:58:23 — The Narrative Around AI and Jobs 01:06:22 — AI and Politics Updates 01:11:04 — Microsoft's Work Trend Index on Agents 01:14:23 — AI Use Case Spotlight 01:19:34 — AI Product and Funding Updates This…

Google I/O dropped dozens of announcements this week, including Gemini 3.5 Flash, Gemini Omni, the "biggest upgrade to search in 25 years," and a closing statement from Demis Hassabis that we are at the foothills of the singularity. Paul and Mike unpack it all: what the Karpathy-to-Anthropic move really means, why the Musk v. OpenAI verdict matters beyond the headlines, and what to make of profitable companies like Cloudflare and ClickUp publicly announcing AI-driven workforce restructuring. They also cover the Gallup data showing Americans oppose data centers more than nuclear power, and what that means for the political landscape ahead. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:02:49 — AI-Pulse Survey 00:04:41 — Google I/O 2026 00:21:12 — Musk v. OpenAI Verdict 00:27:43 — Karpathy Joins Anthropic 00:37:17 — Meta Layoffs 00:46:52 — Cloudflare CEO on Replacing Employees with AI 00:59:34 — American…

Three big stories define this week: the Musk v. OpenAI trial wraps with the jury advising but the judge deciding. Then: why did every major AI commentator publish the same argument in the same week that AI won't kill jobs? And: Forward Deployed Engineers: are they the future of enterprise AI adoption or just consultants with a better name? Rapid fire covers the AI hate wave showing up across the country, Anthropic's two-scenario roadmap for the US-China AI race, cybersecurity threats that give organizations just three to five months before attackers catch up, and a full product update roundup including Anthropic's $950B valuation, the Gates Foundation partnership, and the launch of Recursive Superintelligence. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:46 — AI-Pulse Survey 00:06:27 — Musk v. OpenAI Round 3 00:12:13 — "Forward Deployed Engineers" Are AI's Hot New Job 00:30:17 — The AI Jobs Apocalypse…

The second week of Musk v. OpenAI delivered texts, secret Tesla AI plots, and backstage chaos around Sam Altman's 2023 firing. Paul and Mike also break down Coinbase's AI-native restructuring memo, the White House's very brief flirtation with model vetting, Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark's prediction that AI will autonomously train its own successors by 2028, and the bizarre Anthropic-SpaceX compute deal that emerged from out of nowhere. Rapid fire covers GPT-5.5 Instant, Claude Managed Agents updates, Sierra's $950M raise, and more. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:37 — Musk v. OpenAI Round 2 00:23:27 — Coinbase AI Layoffs 00:33:09 — AI "Soft Nationalization" 00:47:10 — State of AI for Business Report Preview 00:54:14 — xAI Folds Into SpaceX, Does Compute Deal with Anthropic 01:00:49 — Has Recursive Self-Improvement Arrived? 01:09:38 — Anthropic and OpenAI Enterprise Joint Ventures 01:15:11 —…

Leadership wants AI everywhere. IT security can't keep up. Marketing is racing ahead while legal and finance dig in. And every week brings another story of an AI agent doing something nobody told it to do. Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips answer 15 listener questions on how to actually move organizations forward and where the real opportunities lie for individuals, SMBs, and enterprises right now. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:07:01 — How do you move a company out of AI policy paralysis? 00:08:54 — How should regulated, hands-on teams introduce AI? 00:12:30 — When companies are stuck, what tends to get them moving? 00:15:00 — Should IT security evolve to adopt AI quicker or should businesses slow down? 00:17:43 — What changes an AI-skeptic employee's mind? 00:21:18 — How should early-career professionals prioritize what to learn? 00:23:29 — Is there a point where you should stop learning and start building? 00:27:29 — Where do companies get stuck scaling AI across departments? 00:29:42 — Where is AI having the…

Elon Musk's federal trial against OpenAI opened this week, and he admitted under oath that xAI distills OpenAI's models. That's just where Episode 212 starts. Paul and Mike cover the full story: the Musk-OpenAI trial and its implications for every company built on ChatGPT, the abrupt rewrite of the Microsoft-OpenAI partnership and the removal of the AGI clause, blockbuster Big Tech earnings (Google Cloud up 63%, Azure AI at $37B run rate), an AI agent that wiped a startup's entire production database in nine seconds, Anthropic eyeing a $900B valuation, a real and growing populist AI backlash, and a powerful segment on former Senator Ben Sasse's terminal cancer diagnosis and what his parting words on AI and Congress mean right now. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week’s AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:04:45 — Elon Musk vs. OpenAI Trial Begins 00:14:49 — OpenAI and Microsoft Revise Their Partnership 00:30:33 — Big Tech Earnings 00:39:39…

Three major AI companies launched agent products in the same 48 hours. The announcements were confident. The questions enterprises actually have remained mostly unanswered. OpenAI dropped GPT-5.5 and Workspace Agents in ChatGPT. Google rebranded its entire enterprise AI stack as the Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform at Cloud Next '26. Microsoft made Copilot agentic across Office. Meta got caught planning to track employee keystrokes for AI training data and cut 10% of its workforce in the same breath. Plus Jeff Dean on AGI timelines, the SmarterX State of AI for Business report built in a day, Apple's CEO transition, and a full rapid-fire round. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI-Pulse Survey: Fill out this week's AI-Pulse Survey here. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:45 — GPT-5.5 Launches 00:17:28 — Workspace Agents in ChatGPT 00:27:13 — Agent Usage: Separating Fact from Fiction 00:46:31 — Google Cloud Next '26 00:55:07 — Meta's AI Employee Surveillance + Layoffs 01:03:46 — Apple…

OpenAI is "deeply unfocused," says one of its own early investors. And that's only one of many threads pulling at the company this week. Paul and Mike dig into OpenAI's reorg, IPO drama, and valuation pushback, Stanford's 2026 AI Index, the real implications of AI agents in the enterprise, Tim Cook's Apple exit, Anthropic's White House thaw, the Dwarkesh-Jensen Huang debate, Claude Design's launch, and rapid-fire updates across Claude Opus 4.7, Cerebras, Harvey Agents, and more. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here AI Pulse Survey: Fill out this weeks AI Pulse Survey here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:41 — The 2026 AI Index Report 00:19:10 — OpenAI Shifts and Shakeups 00:34:27 — The Business Implications of Agents 00:50:56 — Apple’s Tim Cook Stepping Down 00:54:11 — Anthropic Launches Claude Design, Targets Canva and Figma 01:01:26 — Anthropic's Possible Reconciliation with the White House 01:06:02 — Dwarkesh vs. Jensen 01:15:08 — Gen AI Traffic Share 01:17:36 — AI Use Case Spotlight…

An Anthropic AI model powerful enough to trigger emergency government briefings. A source code leak. A $122 billion OpenAI funding round. A Ronan Farrow exposé. Physical attacks on Sam Altman. Paul and Mike are back with two weeks of AI news and the analysis you need to make sense of it all. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:44 — Claude Mythos and Project Glasswing 00:32:03 — Claude Code Leak + Anthropic Subscription Shakeup 00:42:35 — Major OpenAI Updates 00:59:30 — AI for Writers Summit 01:01:41 — Mercor Breach 01:06:25 — Karpathy's LLM Knowledge Bases Go Viral 01:10:20 — AI and Jobs Update 01:19:34 — AI and Politics Update 01:25:32 — HubSpot Shifts to Outcome-Based AI Pricing 01:30:51 — SmarterX AI Use Case Spotlight 01:36:25 — AI Academy Spotlight 01:40:23 — 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…

150+ stories distilled into 10 trends: ranked, contextualized, and ready to make your head spin. In this special episode, Paul and Mike distill 150+ topics from 12 weekly episodes into 10 ranked trends. From the nonstop model release frenzy and OpenClaw's rise to AI-driven layoffs going mainstream and a cultural "vibe shift" around AGI, this episode is your fastest path to catching up on everything that mattered in the last three months. We will be back with regular weekly news episodes April 14th. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:05:14 — The Model Release Frenzy 00:11:20 — Big AI Becomes Big Lobbying 00:16:15 — Anthropic vs. the U.S. Government 00:22:37 — The Rise of OpenClaw 00:28:32 — Enterprise AI Adoption: The People Problem 00:36:22 — SaaSpocalypse 00:43:11 — Labs Pivot to AI Agents 00:50:58 — AI-Driven Layoffs Go Mainstream 00:55:54 — We’re Seeing More Move 37 Moments 01:02:38 — The Vibe Shift This episode is brought to you by AI Academy by…

Five companies are about to decide the future of the economy, geopolitics, and your career… and two of them have been locked in a deeply personal feud since 2016. This week, Paul and Mike dig into a Wall Street Journal investigation tracing the OpenAI vs. Anthropic rivalry back to broken promises and a San Francisco group house, explore what Anthropic's accidentally leaked "Mythos" model means for cybersecurity and the next leap in AI capability, react to Uber's CEO admitting AI will replace 70-80% of human work, and unpack nearly $300M in political money now flowing into AI deregulation. Plus: agent security risks, Apple's Siri overhaul, a new SmarterX use case spotlight, and an AI Academy deep dive on AI for Sales. Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here Click here to take this week's AI Pulse. Timestamps: 00:00:00 — Intro 00:03:15 — AI Pulse Survey Results 00:05:30 — OpenAI vs. Anthropic 00:26:02 — Details Leak on Anthropic’s New Hyper-Powerful Model 00:35:34 — Brutally Honest CEO…

Not a single company leader Paul has spoken with is fully prepared for what AI is about to do to their workforce. In this AI Answers episode, Paul and Cathy work through 15 real questions from a recent Scaling AI class, covering everything from the AI divide inside companies to why most AI strategies fail before they start. Topics include job displacement and underemployment, why enterprises handed AI to IT and get stuck, the automation-vs-augmentation spectrum by seniority level, what knowledge work looks like in three years, and why showing a skeptical CEO results beats showing them prompts every time. 00:00:00 — Intro 00:06:09 — Is Amazon slowing its AI rollout a sign of maturity? 00:08:58 — Are large enterprises structurally disadvantaged in the AI era? 00:12:14 — Who owns the AI adoption and data readiness problem? 00:14:56 — Is there a growing AI divide between power users and everyone else? 00:21:16 — What AI take do most people disagree with? 00:22:47 — Can companies automate too much too fast?…

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 —…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…