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 — More Google DeepMind Talent Woes

01:10:38 — The EU Act and Digital Sovereignty

01:13:56 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:20:05 — AI Product and Funding Updates

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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 Humans

01:17:00 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:22:12 — AI Product and Funding Updates

This week’s episode is brought to you by SiteImprove.

AI search is changing what it means to be discoverable. Siteimprove is the Agentic Content Intelligence Platform marketing teams use to track, optimize, and prove performance across both traditional and AI-driven search. From AEO visibility to content quality, Siteimprove helps you stay ahead of the shift. 

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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 governance foundations, what's driving that? 

00:32:14 — Can governance actually accelerate AI adoption rather than slow it down? 

00:34:09 — 51% want training on AI agents, what does good agent governance look like?

00:39:15 — Are traditional role definitions changing because of AI? 

00:43:09 — Are CEOs really that far ahead on AI, or just overconfident? 

00:46:23 — How do you handle institutional resistance to AI? 

00:52:00 — How do you teach AI skills to people at wildly different levels? 

00:54:15 — How are companies addressing employee concerns about AI's environmental impact? 

00:58:09 — Which industries have the greatest growth opportunity in the age of AI? 

00:59:47 — Will AI progress past the barriers identified in the report? 

01:01:36 — What was the most surprising finding from this year's research? 

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

This episode is brought to you by AI for Business Bootcamp by SmarterX — a single-day event in Columbus, Ohio on July 16th, built for professionals and leaders ready to accelerate AI adoption and value creation. The day moves from a state-of-AI keynote into two hands-on workshops on AI productivity and AI innovation, and you'll leave with an actionable plan for yourself and your team. AI Academy members and groups get discounted pricing. Use code POD100 for $100 off your ticket. Learn more at SmarterX.ai/events.

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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 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 Accounting Industry

01:12:23 — AI in Higher Education

01:16:29 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:20:29 — 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 Opposition to Data Centers

01:09:34 — AI's Political Civil War

01:14:37 — Anthropic v. the Department of War (Again)

01:17:35 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:23:24 — 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 Debate

00:48:49 — An AI Hate Wave Is Here

01:00:34 — Two Scenarios Could Unfold in the US-China AI Race

01:05:19 — AI Threats Have the US Government (and Labs) Worried

01:09:04 — The Rise of "Headless" Software

01:14:53 — Publicis Acquires LiveRamp

01:16:36 — How AI Is Changing the Way We Work (Second Brains, Apprenticeships, and More)

01:24:39 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:29:30 — 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 — Stripe's New Forward Deployed AI Accelerator Role

01:20:48 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:24:15 — 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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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 highest impact in HR?

00:33:04 — Do SMBs need a different AI playbook than enterprises?

00:35:55 — What should AI never take over?

00:39:43 — Who should be setting AI guardrails?

00:44:01 — If building software is commoditized, where is the real opportunity now?

00:47:48 — Could companies win by marketing themselves as AI-free?

00:50:15 — As generations grow up with AI, what different kinds of intelligence or capabilities do you think they’ll develop?

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

This episode is brought to you by the 2026 State of AI for Business Report webinar. 

We surveyed more than 2,000 professionals on how they're actually using AI, what's working, and what's keeping them up at night. Join Paul Roetzer, Mike Kaput, and Taylor Radey on Thursday, May 14 at noon ET for a live walkthrough of the findings, plus Q&A. \

Register at smarterx.ai/webinars for live and on-demand access — and you'll also receive the ungated report.

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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 — Anthropic Eyes $900B Valuation

00:43:53 — Trump's Anthropic Reversal and Mythos Fight

00:52:48 — Agents Gone Wrong

00:56:47 — Myths We Tell Ourselves About AI and Jobs

01:06:15 — Why Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke Says “Saying The Thing Matters”

01:11:20 — AI's Public Backlash Problem

01:15:16 — AI Use Case Spotlight

01:22:59 — AI Academy Spotlight

01:25:58 — Ben Sasse's Parting Words on AI

01:31:56 — 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 on-demand courses, live classes, certifications, and a smarter way to master AI. Learn more here.

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