Practical AI

Practical AI LLC

Making artificial intelligence practical, productive & accessible to everyone.

  • 42 minutes 23 seconds
    Model Context Protocol Deep Dive

    In this episode, Daniel and Chris unpack the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a rising standard for enabling agentic AI interactions with external systems, APIs, and data sources. They explore how MCP supports interoperability, community contributions, and a rapidly developing ecosystem of AI integrations. The conversation also highlights some real-world tooling such as FastAPI-MCP.

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    8 May 2025, 12:56 pm
  • 42 minutes 58 seconds
    Seeing beyond the scan in neuroimaging

    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 intelligent systems.

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    30 April 2025, 12:57 pm
  • 42 minutes 4 seconds
    Open source AI to tackle your backlog

    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 All Hands).

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    17 April 2025, 11:12 pm
  • 42 minutes 52 seconds
    Orchestrating agents, APIs, and MCP servers

    In this episode, Daniel sits down with Pavel Veller, EPAM’s Chief Technologist, to explore the practical challenges of orchestrating many AI agents and managing connections to disparate systems/tools. Pavel shares insights from his hands-on work with agentic architectures and internal tools like "DIAL". Pavel also helps us understand things like MCP servers and why connecting assistants via APIs is easy—but making them useful is hard. 

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    14 April 2025, 12:53 pm
  • 43 minutes 24 seconds
    Software and hardware acceleration with Groq

    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. 

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    • Augment Code - Developer AI that uses deep understanding of your large codebase and how you build software to deliver personalized code suggestions and insights. Augment provides relevant, contextualized code right in your IDE or Slack. It transforms scattered knowledge into code or answers, eliminating time spent searching docs or interrupting teammates.
    2 April 2025, 8:51 pm
  • 50 minutes 4 seconds
    AI-assisted coding with GitHub's COO

    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. 

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    • Domo – The AI and data products platform. Strengthen your entire data journey with Domo’s AI and data products.
    21 March 2025, 9:34 pm
  • 43 minutes 38 seconds
    Optimizing for efficiency with IBM’s Granite

    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. 

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    14 March 2025, 1:28 pm
  • 47 minutes 39 seconds
    Build a workspace of AI agents

    How can every single person build a personal AI protégé and then accumulate (and share) a host of other assistants? In this episode, we dive into the world of no-code AI with Scott Meyer from Chipp.ai. We discuss AI tooling for people that can't code, the cultural shift that needs to happen for widespread AI adoption in businesses, and the predicted growth trajectory of AI assistant that you can own.


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    • Domo – The AI and data products platform. Strengthen your entire data journey with Domo’s AI and data products.

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    8 March 2025, 5:52 pm
  • 30 minutes 36 seconds
    GenAI hot takes and bad use cases

    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!

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    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, and instant WireGuard VPN connections. Push-button deployments that scale to thousands of instances. Check out the speedrun to get started in minutes. 

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    Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

    24 February 2025, 5:00 pm
  • 45 minutes
    Tool calling and agents

    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.

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    • 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 getting inspired. Notion is for everyone — whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or freelance designer, starting a new startup or a student juggling classes and clubs. 

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    Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

    14 February 2025, 3:00 pm
  • 50 minutes 47 seconds
    Deep-dive into DeepSeek

    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.

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    Sponsors:

    • 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 getting inspired. Notion is for everyone — whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or freelance designer, starting a new startup or a student juggling classes and clubs. 
    • Domo – The AI and data products platform. Strengthen your entire data journey with Domo’s AI and data products. 

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    Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

    31 January 2025, 3:30 pm
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