Is the AI disruption we’ve been discussing more prominent than ever? Hosts Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect Matt Shumer’s viral "Something Big Is Happening" essay and a new sabotage report from Anthropic. We break down the latest departures from OpenAI and xAI, the delay of OpenAI’s device, and how AI is intensifying (not lightening) the modern workload.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:05:51 — AI Pulse Survey

00:07:58 — Something Big Is Happening

00:27:06 — Claude Safety Risks

00:46:37 — Academy Success Score

01:03:33 — High Profile AI Resignations

01:06:55 — OpenAI’s Changing Hardware Plans

01:09:17 — Does AI Actually Intensify Work?

This week’s episode is sponsored by our 2026 State of AI Report.

This year, we’re going beyond marketing-specific research to uncover how AI is being adopted and utilized across the organization, and we need your help to create the most comprehensive report yet.

It’s a quick seven-minute lift. In return, you’ll get the full report for free when it drops, plus a chance to win or extend a 12-month SmarterX AI Mastery Membership. Go to smarterx.ai/survey to share your input. That’s smarterx.ai/survey 

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Is the SaaS business model dead? Wall Street just wiped out $300B in software value as fears grow that AI agents will replace human seats. Paul and Mike break down the market drop, Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads targeting OpenAI, and the rise of "Move 37" moments where experts admit AI superiority. Plus: SpaceX buys xAI, Claude Opus 4.6, and the $650B race for compute.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:04:14 — AI Pulse Results

00:06:24 —SaaS Apocalypse

00:23:53 — Anthropic Super Bowl Ad

00:33:56 — The Move 37 Moment for Everyone

00:47:39 — SpaceX Acquires xAI

00:50:55 — Claude Opus 4.6

00:56:00 — GPT-5.3 Codex

00:59:10 — OpenAI Frontier

01:04:48 — The AI Capex Wars

01:11:01 — Latest on AI Impact on Jobs

01:14:52 — Agentic CRMs

01:17:41 — AI Product and Funding Updates

Today’s episode is also brought to you by our AI for Agencies Summit, a virtual event taking place from 12pm - 5pm ET on Thursday, February 12.

The AI for Agencies Summit is designed for marketing agency practitioners and leaders who are ready to reinvent what’s possible in their business and embrace smarter technologies to accelerate transformation and value creation.

There is a free registration option, as well as paid ticket options that also give you on-demand access after the event. To register, go to www.aiforagencies.com 

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Are AI agent swarms here? 

Paul and Mike break down the viral "Moltbook" phenomenon, OpenAI’s massive funding talks, and the sobering new essay from Anthropic’s Dario Amodei. Plus: Google’s Project Genie, Microsoft’s stock dip, and the new Marketing Talent AI Impact Report.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:02:38 — AI Pulse Results

00:05:27 — Moltbot and Moltbook Take the World by Storm

00:19:06 — OpenAI’s Insatiable Need for Funding

00:25:56 — Marketing AI Council Report

00:34:19 — AI for Departments Webinar Series

00:35:30 — Google Introduces Project Genie

00:40:49 — Dario Amodei Publishes “The Adolescence of Technology”

00:47:42 — Microsoft’s Rocky Week

00:51:47 — More Details Revealed About ChatGPT Ads

00:55:23 — Rumors of a SpaceX/xAI Merger

00:59:05 — METR Releases New AI Time Horizon Estimates

01:03:42 — Google DeepMind Researcher Founds New AI Startup

01:05:57 — New Anthropic Research on How AI Affects Knowledge Work

01:09:13 — New Gallup Research on AI Usage in the Workplace

01:11:50 — AI Product and Funding News

Today’s episode is also brought to you by our AI for Agencies Summit, a virtual event taking place from 12pm - 5pm ET on Thursday, February 12.

The AI for Agencies Summit is designed for marketing agency practitioners and leaders who are ready to reinvent what’s possible in their business and embrace smarter technologies to accelerate transformation and value creation.

There is a free registration option, as well as paid ticket options that also give you on-demand access after the event. To register, go to www.aiforagencies.com 

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Who actually owns AI learning: L&D, HR, or you? 

Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips break down the talent crisis, the rise of the generalist, and realistic timelines for AI agents. They explain the specific signals that tell you a pilot is failing due to human resistance rather than tech, why it is unlikely we will see a universal "GPT-4 moment" for agents this year, and the critical importance of maintaining human authenticity in an era of AI-generated content.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:06:11 — Question #1: Who owns AI learning: L&D or departments?

00:09:52 — Question #2: Hiring dedicated AI change management consultants. 

00:11:54 — Question #3: Middle management’s role in normalizing adoption.

00:14:27 — Question #4: Signals a pilot is failing due to culture, not tech. 

00:16:12 — Question #5: Balancing learning pace vs. rapid experimentation. 

00:20:11 — Question #6: Hiring for critical thinking and AI skills.

00:23:31 — Question #7: Experience vs. Adaptability in talent acquisition. 

00:25:35 — Question #8: Protecting and compensating AI leaders.

00:27:56 — Question #9: Using AI with confidential data restrictions.

00:30:35 — Question #10: Realistic timelines for AI agent advancement. 

00:33:21 — Question #11: Managing model selection and "agent chaos."

00:37:24 — Question #12: The rise of the Generalist vs. Specialist. 

00:41:14 — Question #13: Proving AI skills beyond certificates. 

00:44:25 — Question #14: Trust and authenticity in AI content.

00:48:35 — Question #15: AI SDRs: Vendor questions vs. building in-house. 

This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: 

Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

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World leaders and tech titans are debating AGI timelines at Davos, but Amazon’s latest moves suggest the disruption is already here. Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect the disconnect between the "powerful AI" promised by labs and the labor market "tsunami" warned by the IMF.

From the White House’s "Great Divergence" report to Anthropic’s new 84-page Constitution and xAI’s "human emulators," we explore the friction between technological acceleration and human adaptation. Plus, a look behind the curtain at how SmarterX uses AI to build courses at scale.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:03:03 — AI Pulse

00:05:10 — AGI Comes to Davos

00:21:26 — Amazon Layoffs and the “Great Divergence”

00:38:59 — AI for Course Creation

00:58:55 — Google DeepMind Is Hiring a “Chief AGI Economist”

01:02:06 — OpenAI Warns AI Is Reaching “High” Cybersecurity Threat Levels

01:07:18 — Anthropic Publishes New “Constitution” That Governs Claude’s Behavior

01:17:39 — New Survey Shows Big Disconnect Between Employees and Leaders on AI

01:24:39 — xAI Wants to Automate White-Collar Workers

01:28:29 — How Do Credit Pricing Models Work?

01:38:22 — AI Product and Funding Updates

Today’s episode is also brought to you by our AI for Agencies Summit, a virtual event taking place from 12pm - 5pm ET on Thursday, February 12.

The AI for Agencies Summit is designed for marketing agency practitioners and leaders who are ready to reinvent what’s possible in their business and embrace smarter technologies to accelerate transformation and value creation.

There is a free registration option, as well as paid ticket options that also give you on-demand access after the event. To register, go to www.aiforagencies.com 

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No business school prepared leaders for managing humans alongside autonomous AI agents. In this AI Answers episode, Paul Roetzer and Cathy McPhillips break down the immediate strategic shifts required for 2026. They explore where marketing agencies can use AI in a post-billable-hour world, the rise of the AI Output Verification manager, and why LLM’s "alien technology" requires a new approach to risk. Plus: Practical advice on building custom GPTs and knowing when not to automate.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:03:38 — Question #1: AI Leverage for Marketing Agencies

00:07:44 — Question #2: The "Alien" Nature of LLMs

00:10:06 —Question #3: Responsible AI Mistakes to Avoid

00:13:07 — Question #4: Evaluating AI Platforms

00:16:32 — Question #5: Platform Consolidation

00:18:32 — Question #6: Building Internal Systems vs. Third-Party Tools

00:20:09 — Question #7: Data Privacy Concerns

00:23:09 — Question #8:  Signaling Trust & Authenticity

00:25:47 — Question #9: Reinventing Workflows & Org Charts

00:30:50 — Question #10: How to Start Building AI Assistants

00:33:34 — Question #11: What You Should Never Automate

00:36:12 — Question #12: Scaling AI Too Fast

00:38:36 — Question #13: New Leadership Skills

00:41:42 — Question #14: AI Output Verification

00:45:29 — Bonus: AI Book Recommendations

This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: 

Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/  

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OpenAI turns to ads, while Anthropic puts an agent on your desktop.

In Episode 191, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput analyze the arrival of "Claude Cowork," an autonomous agent that could replace entry-level tasks, and OpenAI’s decision to begin testing ads in ChatGPT.

We also cover the explosive Elon Musk vs. OpenAI lawsuit, Apple’s choice to use Google Gemini for the next-generation Siri, and OpenAI’s rumored "AirPods killer" hardware.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:04:44 — AI Pulse

00:08:18 — OpenAI Begins Rolling Out Ads in ChatGPT

00:26:07 — Claude Cowork

00:37:08 — Elon Musk vs. OpenAI Goes Nuclear

00:49:49 — Elon Musk Walks Back Grok Undressing Capability After Backlash

00:53:43 — OpenAI’s Real-World Growth Data

00:56:43 — Personal Intelligence from Gemini

01:02:46 — Apple Picks Google for Siri Upgrade

01:05:31 — OpenAI’s AI Device May Try to Kill AirPods

01:08:54 — This Week’s AI-Native Chronicles

01:17:06 — Drama at Thinking Machines Lab

01:19:15 — Deepfakes Hit a Stunning New Level of Realism

Today’s episode is also brought to you by our AI for Agencies Summit, a virtual event taking place from 12pm - 5pm ET on Thursday, February 12.

The AI for Agencies Summit is designed for marketing agency practitioners and leaders who are ready to reinvent what’s possible in their business and embrace smarter technologies to accelerate transformation and value creation.

There is a free registration option, as well as paid ticket options that also give you on-demand access after the event. To register, go to www.aiforagencies.com 

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Is the AI "tipping point" already here? Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput jump into ChatGPT Health, Claude Code, and why we don't need AGI to transform work. We also break down how AI is reshaping healthcare, the $20B xAI funding round, and real-world use cases for building apps in minutes with Lovable. Plus, a look at Google Gemini’s Gmail updates and the dark side of Grok’s latest image tools.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:04:46 — AI Pulse

00:07:05 — ChatGPT Health

00:21:01 — Audience Reactions to Episode 189

00:29:33 — Real World AI Use Cases for Lovable, Claude Code, and More

00:51:12 — xAI Raises $20B Series E

00:56:28 — Anthropic Is Raising $10 Billion

00:59:09 — Google DeepMind and Boston Dynamics Partner on Humanoid Robots

01:05:10 — Google Makes Big AI Updates to Gmail

01:08:11 — Similarweb Global AI Tracker Report

01:10:41— xAI Draws Fire for AI That “Digitally Undresses” People

Today’s episode is brought to you by our AI for Agencies Summit, a virtual event taking place from 12pm - 5pm ET on Thursday, February 12.

The AI for Agencies Summit is designed for marketing agency practitioners and leaders who are ready to reinvent what’s possible in their business and embrace smarter technologies to accelerate transformation and value creation. To register, go to www.aiforagencies.com 

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A Google principal engineer claims Claude Opus 4.5 completed a year's worth of work in a single hour. Now, the industry is grappling with a sudden, massive leap in coding capabilities that has experts warning that everything is about to change.

In this week’s episode, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput dissect the signals that we may have entered the "singularity." They explore the fallout from Yann LeCun’s scorched-earth exit from Meta (including claims of "fudged" benchmarks), Sal Khan’s "1% Solution" for job displacement, and NVIDIA’s strategic acquisition of Groq talent.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:04:14 — AI Pulse

00:05:41 — How Close Are We to AGI?

00:31:48 — AI Change Management

00:38:18 — OpenAI Is Hiring a “Head of Preparedness”

00:41:59 — Khan Academy Creator Calls for Job Displacement Fund

00:47:30 — Jevons Paradox in AI

00:55:20 — The Rise of Vibe Revenue

00:57:57 — Salesforce Says Trust in LLMs Is Declining

01:03:25 — Nvidia Does Landmark Deal with Groq

01:06:21 — Meta Acquires Manus

01:08:34 — Yann LeCun Speaks Out

01:14:14 — OpenAI Preps for Largely Audio-Based AI Device

01:17:39— AI Predictions for 2026

01:20:35 — OpenAI Releases Prompt Packs for ChatGPT

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. You can get $100 off an individual purchase or a membership by using code POD100 at academy.smarterx.ai.

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Is 2026 the year society finally pushes back against artificial intelligence? In this year's final episode, Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput explore the immediate future of AGI, analyzing Demis Hassabis’s warning of a shift ten times larger than the Industrial Revolution and Shane Legg’s prediction of human-level intelligence by 2028.

The hosts break down critical developments, including Google’s Gemini 3 Flash, OpenAI’s staggering valuation talks, and the rise of world models that simulate physical reality. 

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Click here to take this week's AI Pulse.

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:03:27 — AI Pulse

00:07:05 — AI Trends to Watch in 2026

00:31:59 — Demis Hassabis on the Future of Intelligence

00:42:35 — DeepMind Co-Founder on the Arrival of AGI

00:47:53 — Are AI Job Fears Overblown?

00:56:05 — Gemini 3 Flash

00:59:38 — OpenAI Eyes Billions in Fresh Funding

01:02:19 — OpenAI Releases New ChatGPT Images

01:04:18 — Karen Hao Issues AI Book Correction

01:08:18 — AI Keeps Getting Political (Roundup)

01:12:51 — AI World Models

01:17:31 — US Government Launches Tech Force

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. You can get $100 off an individual purchase or a membership by using code POD100 at academy.smarterx.ai.

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As we close out the year, this AI Answers episode offers a reflective look at how organizations are actually navigating AI adoption. 

Cathy McPhillips and Paul Roetzer take a step back from tools and headlines to talk about the human side of AI: leadership behavior, workplace culture, and how long-held ideas about productivity and value are being quietly challenged as AI becomes part of everyday work.

Show Notes: Access the show notes and show links here

Timestamps:

00:00:00 — Intro

00:04:05 — What responsibility do leaders have to confront the fear of AI head-on?

00:05:53 — Is there value in intentionally keeping some work, not just for fact-checking or “human-in-the-loop” oversight, but as a form of cognitive reset?

00:09:18 — Should productivity still be the primary measure of an employee’s value?

00:012:13 — What are behaviors executives should model to make AI use feel safe, normal, and expected across teams?

00:17:16 — What are the clearest structural signs an organization is talking about AI transformation while actively resisting it?

00:20:47 — Why do so many organizations default to treating AI as an IT initiative?

00:22:17 — What is vibe coding?

00:23:47 — If you could go back to the very first AI Show episode and correct one major prediction or assumption you had about AI, what would it be and why?

00:28:04 — What is one listener question that fundamentally changed how you think about AI?

00:30:43 — What has been the most personally challenging part of leading conversations about AI’s impact on jobs, identity, and the future?

00:35:48 — Where do you think most companies actually over-invested in AI?

00:39:53 — What is one thing you would refuse to automate, no matter how good the tech gets, and why?

00:43:04 — What is your measure for adding a podcast or other medium to your trusted resources?

00:45:03 — How can listeners think about simplifying how they’re thinking about, piloting, and scaling AI? 

This episode is brought to you by Google Cloud: 

Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

Learn more about Google Cloud here: https://cloud.google.com/  

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