What's buzzing at the AI conferences Cris is attending? Context Engineering. 

Matt and Cris catch up after a while, and talk about recent FileMaker conferences (Matt) and AI conferences (Cris)  Early on we had a podcast about Prompt Engineering – which is but a small part of Context Engineering.

Follow Cris:
https://www.youtube.com/@iSolutionsAI
https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisippolite/
https://twitter.com/ISolutionsai
https://www.isolutionsai.com

Follow Matt:
https://www.navarre.training
https://www.linkedin.com/in/navarre/

Matt and Charles talk about practical ways FileMaker developers can start using AI right now — both as developer tools to make us stronger, faster, and more productive, and as customer-facing features.

Charles shares a rich set of use cases, design patterns, and architectural approaches that are already shaping FileMaker + AI development. While his powerful fmBetterForms solution often comes up in conversation, here the focus is squarely on the broader state of AI in FileMaker.

Follow us:
Matt Navarre
🔗 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@navarre.training
🌐 Website: https://www.navarre.training
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navarre/

Charles Delfs
🌐 fmBetterForms: https://www.fmbetterforms.com/
🌐 Delfs Engineering: https://www.delfsengineering.ca/
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesdelfs/

Cris Ippolite
🔗 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iSolutionsAI
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisippolite/
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISolutionsai
🌐 Website: https://www.isolutionsai.com

Matt and Jonn talk about the upcoming FileMaker Conference

https://fullaccess.us
We meander on to the subject of AI, good web development, past lives as priests, the FileMaker Boot Camp that Jonn organized in the past, and lots more.

👥 Follow us
Cris Ippolite
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iSolutionsAI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisippolite/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISolutionsai
Website: https://www.isolutionsai.com

Matt Navarre
Website: https://www.navarre.training
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navarre/

Matt and Cris talk about the key factors that make AI great in FileMaker, and that personalization is the next big one. How much does your database know about you? Does it have memory of what reports you've run? Your job title and main responsibility? Your KPIs? Shoe size? 

📌 Show Notes & References
Key Clips & Talks
Steve Jobs at WWDC 1997 – “Start with the customer experience”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE
Eric Schmidt on WIMP model and UIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfm3A8wO7A
Bill Gates on personal agents – Reuters coverage
https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS123456
Sir Ken Robinson on personalization in education – Edutopia
https://www.edutopia.org/article/ken-robinson-education
Alpha School AI Tutor Coverage – Fox News
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/ai-tutor-education

Reports & Articles
McKinsey Report on Personalization ROI
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right
Edutopia – Resources on Personalized Learning
https://www.edutopia.org/personalized-learning
Exploding Topics – Marketing Personalization ROI
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/personalization
AI Report 2025 (PDF)
https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/ai_report_2025.pdf
Ephemeral UI
Cris Ippolite on Medium
https://isolutions.medium.com/ephemeral-ui-in-ai-generated-on-demand-interfaces-81dbc8cd4579
Context Engineering
LangChain Blog – Rise of Context Engineering
https://blog.langchain.com/the-rise-of-context-engineering/

👥 Follow us
Cris Ippolite
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@iSolutionsAI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crisippolite/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ISolutionsai
Website: https://www.isolutionsai.com

Rev. Dr. Matt Navarre
Website: https://www.navarre.training
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navarre/

"Sage on the stage" versus "guide on the side" teaching 

Cris and Matt look back on how we taught FileMaker in the past, and what changes happened with ChatGPT 4, how the Sal Khan book 'Brave New Words'
https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Words-Revolutionize-Education/dp/0593656954

Discussed the "2 Sigma problem" - how one-on-one tutoring dramatically improves learning outcomes, and looking for a large change (2 sigma is nerd-speak for that) is the goal.

All well and good, but how can AI provide personalized tutoring at scale?
Shared examples of AI tools being used in education (Alpha School, Khan Academy). And the day after we recorded, OpenAI released Study Mode!

FileMaker and AI:
Discussed semantic search and embeddings in FileMaker and how they are not the same thing. Embedding allows for many more uses other than search. One of Matt's favorites is using it to find duplicate images (which may be a different size, resolution, file format, etc)
 
Explored use cases for Generative AI  (and other forms) in FM development, and that some are on Claris website and that Matt and Cris are developing good uses. The community really needs a library of these, with sample files. A boy can dream.

AI is changing our roles as developer from coders to "orchestrators." This aspect is one part of all that we do. To continue the music example, we are also songwriters and editors, engravers, performers, music stand movers, conductors, and more. As we can shift to the 'higher' types of our work, we can spend more time using the skills that set us apart, provide the most value, and bring us the most joy. 

Useful links:
https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-study-mode/
https://www.evenrealities.com/products/g1-b
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/87567555.1993.9926781

-
Personal technology nerd moment:
Cris showed his new AI-enabled glasses with teleprompter capabilities
https://www.evenrealities.com/

Matt mentioned Eva Cassidy, which was sparked from our discussion about orchestration. An amazing orchestrator took her recordings, used AI to separate out her voice stem, composed orchestral arrangements, and edited them together with her voice, and the results are amazing. One of Matt's top 10 albums. It's so sad that she died in 1996 at the age of 33 (of melanoma, not ovarian cancer)
https://music.apple.com/us/album/i-can-only-be-me-orchestral/1651033448

https://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/eva-cassidys-impeccable-voice-paired-london-symphony-orchestra-i-can-only-be-me-album-0

Cris and Matt are joined by our friend Ronnie Rios from Claris, and rising star Michael Wallace from Empowered Data Solutions. Michael does an amazing demo of a solution he just released for free that allows you to interact with a FileMaker database entirely through natural speech. You have to see it to believe it. He then shows and explains how it works, and compares it to a solution that Ronnie showed at FM Engage that has similar features. This will spark your imagination.

Michael's Links
https://empowereddatasolutions.com

Ronnie's Links
https://www.folgerscoffee.com

Cris' Links
https://isolutionsai.com

Matt's Links
https://navarre.training

Matt and Cris review the AI focus of Engage in Austin TX, and weave in the main subject: The impact AI has on work, workers and jobs, and where it's headed. 

Cris referred to this video: Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke told employees in a memo that artificial intelligence is making its way across the company, including when it comes to hiring.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/07/shopify-ceo-prove-ai-cant-do-jobs-before-asking-for-more-headcount.html

One of the videos Cris showed was 
https://www.llama.com/events/llamacon/2025/

Then, Matt referred to Russell's Teapot about the burden of proof
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsN3DCCTqpo

And this, why AI Doomers are wrong about job replacement
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/EQZe22pW0Fc

While presenting a JSON and Beyond session at the CodeWave conference in Spain, I had the chance to sit down with Javier Durá and Doug Wallis.

Javier of Afterdata and Jesús Sánchez of dbFile have been hosting this conference for years to serve the large and healthy FileMaker community in Spain. There were 61 people at the conference this year, and about 10 of us were non-native Spanish speakers. Sessions were in either English or Spanish, and all are welcome. The feel of the event was great - lots of time to socialize and meet other members in the community, and some deep and immediately useful content in the presentations. 

Doug Wallis is the Claris Platform Evangelist, and was previously the Senior Product Manager at Claris. Doug talked with Matt about the current and coming AI features in the platform, and lots of other product details. He presented the conference keynote, and we talked about that, his work evangelizing the platform, what meaningful activities are in process to extend the platform and attract new young developers, and much more.

Claris is very fortunate to have Doug and Rick Kalman as the Evangelists, preaching the gospel of FileMaker, patron saint of FileMaker developers. 

https://www.codewave.es
filemakermagazine.es
[email protected]

https://www.navarre.training

https://isolutionsai.com/

Alexis Allen teaches design classes at FM Design university and she is hosting a 1 day FileMaker conference in Toronto, with a training day following the conference. The dates are May 26-27 2025.

Alexis and Matt talk about Engage with all the AI and other goodness, approaches to design, our collaboration on teaching, and we nerd out a little bit about music. Many in our community are musicians, and the similarities in the two forms are instructive, and I think can lead us to be become better developers. Why? Music is a high art, which requires practice, and is all about beauty, expressiveness, but also it serves a purpose in life. Databases of course are much more functional, but they should also evoke a positive emotion. Does anyone actually read these notes? Well, I have fun writing them anyway. Shout to to Alexei Folger for always listening to the end.

Matt and Ian talk about running local models, the emergence of Agents, different models for Semantic Search, upcoming conferences, and more.