As Global Head of AI at PayPal, Prakhar Mehrotra is looking deeply at the ways agentic AI is affecting commerce — particularly timely given PayPal and Google’s recent announcement of a multiyear strategic partnership to advance various commerce solutions. He joins Josh and Robb for a layered conversation that speculates on the shape of future marketplaces, where machines are bidding and setting prices on behalf of individuals and businesses. The trio also discuss the ways that AI is reworking the plumbing of technology within organizations and how agent runtime environments hold the key to successful adoption of AI.

 As the world evolves into one with more AI agents than websites, digital interactions might become simplified for users in ways that add complexity for businesses. Prakahr shares his insights into how humans might interact with technology in the future and how technology will change commerce in ways that are hard to fathom but crucial to confront.

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported through partnership with OneReach.ai. Experience the runtime for AI agents — a turnkey private architecture and tools for building enterprise-grade agentic solutions. 

• Use any AI models
• Create guardrails for organizational alignment
• Equipped with enterprise grade security 
• Avoid vendor lock-in

OneReach.ai’s award-winning AI agent orchestration platform meets the many requirements for seizing powerful new technologies in this pivotal moment.

Interested in implementing an Agent Platform for your organization? Book a Demo:

https://onereach.ai/book-a-demo/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_s6e5&utm_content=1 

--------------------> The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about successful adoption of AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available anywhere you buy your books:

Amazon — https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

Chapters -

0:00 — Intro & guest: Prakhar Mehrotra, PayPal

1:46 — Galaxy Quest, aliens & how LLMs “learn”

3:46 — When AI gets a wallet: true agency begins

6:42 — Marketing to humans vs marketing to AIs

8:19 — From the information age to the intelligence age

10:25 — Decision hierarchies: bots, assistants & concierge agents

13:05 — Hyper-personalized pricing in the LLM era

17:20 — Merchants vs consumers: who wins when agents decide

19:09 — Human vs tech today, AI vs AI tomorrow (electricity wars)

25:11 — Marketplaces where agents set prices (the PayPal angle)

51:41 — Identity, fraud & trust: why payments need a gatekeeper

54:27 — Micropayments & sub-penny agent-to-agent economies

1:02:04 — PayPal as the “clearing house” of agentic commerce

1:17:16 — Closing thoughts & outro

#InvisibleMachines

#Podcast

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#AI

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#DigitalTransformation

#AIFirst

#AIAdoption

#TechLeadership

#Commerce

#PayPal

#Innovation

Cassie Kozyrkov returns for a deep dive into the decision science behind a truly AI-first approach to technology adoption. Cassie was Google’s first Chief Decision Scientist and currently advises world leaders and executives on how to optimize their most critical decisions. In this episode she explains why AI is now our memory prosthesis and offers sage guidance on how individuals and organizations can become AI-first. This includes an urgent warning to business leaders to avoid the low-hanging fruit of using AI to automate processes there are already clear instructions for. Instead, Cassie explains how to begin looking in the attic and targeting the stuff that always seemed impossible to automate.

Introduction to neural networks and deep learning (by Cassie) -  https://bit.ly/mfml_113

Cassie also offers courses on Maven, including one with Pascal BORNET and Brian Evergreen (Agentic Artificial Intelligence for Leaders) - the next cohort is Sept 8-19, 2025: https://maven.com/the-future-solving-company/agentic-intelligence-for-leaders

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported through partnership with OneReach.ai. Experience the runtime for AI agents — a turnkey private architecture and tools for building enterprise-grade agentic solutions. 

• Use any AI models
• Create guardrails for organizational alignment
• Equipped with enterprise grade security 
• Avoid vendor lock-in

OneReach.ai’s award-winning AI agent orchestration platform meets the many requirements for seizing powerful new technologies in this pivotal moment.

Interested in implementing an Agent Platform for your organization? Book a Demo:

https://onereach.ai/book-a-demo/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_s6e4&utm_content=1 

--------------------> The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about successful adoption of AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available anywhere you buy your books:

Amazon — https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

#InvisibleMachines 

#Podcast 

#TechPodcast

#AI 

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#DigitalTransformation

#DecisionScience

#AIFirst

#AIAdoption

#TechLeadership

#FutureofWork

#EnterpriseAI

#AIAgents

#TechTrends

#google

Bryan Catanzaro was instrumental in the adoption of GPUs for powering machine learning, which has effectively turned NVIDIA from a graphics processing hardware company into a $4T AI powerhouse. Bryan joins Robb and Josh to talk about his journey in AI and how the unique psychology and power structures at NVIDIA enables the company to continually meet the moment in surprising ways. They also discuss the impact of Bryan’s plea for help in categorizing data for emerging language models at a 2019 keynote he delivered to librarians at Stanford. Perhaps most importantly, Bryan shares thoughts on how hair was the first technology. 

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported through partnership with OneReach.ai. Experience the runtime for AI agents — a turnkey private architecture and tools for building enterprise-grade agentic solutions. 

• Use any AI models
• Create guardrails for organizational alignment
• Equipped with enterprise grade security 
• Avoid vendor lock-in

OneReach.ai’s award-winning AI agent orchestration platform meets the many requirements for seizing powerful new technologies in this pivotal moment.

Interested in implementing an Agent Platform for your organization? Book a Demo: https://onereach.ai/book-a-demo/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=s6e3&utm_content=1

------------------ The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about successful adoption of AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available anywhere you buy your books: Amazon - https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

#InvisibleMachines 

#Podcast 

#TechPodcast

#AI 

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#DigitalTransformation 

#Coding

#TechTrends

#EnterpriseAI

#GPUs

#NVIDIA

#AIInnovation

#DataScience

#LanguageModels

#TechLeadership

#CUDA

In her instant New York Times bestseller, Empire of AI, journalist Karen Hao distills more than a decade of in-depth research into a detailed account of OpenAI’s rise to power and why leadership at the company abandoned their promise to keep their research open. 

Karen joins Robb and Josh for a deep dive into murkiness surrounding what artificial general intelligence (AGI) actually represents and why AI colonialism and biased systems undercut efforts to create superintelligence that represents the vastness of human learning and experience. 

Drawing on the work of a nonprofit in New Zealand to preserve the Māori language, the trio also discuss why smaller, focused implementations that use better curated data might be more valuable to businesses trying to integrate AI into their operations.

Buy Karen Hao’s book “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI”: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/743569/empire-of-ai-by-karen-hao/

Learn more about Karen and here work: https://karendhao.com/

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported through partnership with OneReach.ai. 

Experience the runtime for AI agents — a turnkey private architecture and tools for building enterprise AI agents with guardrails. 

• Use any AI models
• With enterprise grade security 
• And avoid vendor lock-in.

OneReach.ai’s award-winning AI agent orchestration platform meets the many requirements for seizing powerful new technologies in this pivotal moment.

Learn more at onereach.ai/ai-agents.

—---------

The revised and second edition of our bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines, is available now on Amazon! https://a.co/d/axLFOhX 

Episode Credits:

Robb Wilson — Resident expert

Josh Tyson — Co-host

Vishal Menon — Producer

Mykhailo Lytvynov — Audio/Video Editor & Sound Engineer

Daryna Moskovchuk — Graphic Design

Alla Slesarenko — Copy 

Vira Prykhodko — Web Development 

Elias Parker — Executive Producer

#InvisibleMachines

#Podcast

#TechPodcast

#AI

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#KarenHao

#OpenAI

#AGI

#OAGI

#EmpireOfAI

#AIColonialism

#Anthropomorphism

#FutureOfAI

Award-winning journalist Stephen Witt sits down with Josh and Robb to share insights from his latest book, The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip. There’s a deep connection between Nvidia’s GPU chips and the neural networks powering the LLMs at the center of agentic AI. Witt’s book provides a captivating biography of Huang that details his radical approach to business and innovation, which has made Nvidia the most valuable company in the world (recently reaching a record-breaking market cap of $4 trillion). This episode explores this history of AI as well as the coming Omniverse and what the power of simulation will mean to businesses.

Buy Stephen Witt’s book! The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the World's Most Coveted Microchip

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported through partnership with OneReach.ai

Experience the runtime for AI agents - a turnkey private architecture and tools for building enterprise AI agents with guardrails. 

• Use any AI models
• With enterprise grade security 
• And avoid vendor lock-in.

OneReach.ai’s award-winning AI agent orchestration platform meets the many requirements for seizing powerful new technologies in this pivotal moment.

Learn more at onereach.ai/ai-agents.

------------------------------------------------------------

The revised and second edition of our bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines, is available now wherever you buy books! Amazon: https://a.co/d/axLFOhX

Episode Credits

Robb Wilson

Josh Tyson

Vishal Menon - Producer

Mykhailo Lytvynov - Audio/Video Editor & Sound Engineer

Daryna Moskovchuk - Graphic Design

Alla Slesarenko - Copy 

Vira Prykhodko - Web Development 

Elias Parker - Executive Producer

#InvisibleMachines

#Podcast

#TechPodcast

#AI

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#Nvidia

#TechTrends

#EnterpriseAI

#TheThinkingMachine

#FutureofWork

#TechBooks

#Business

#Innovation

#simulation

#omniverse

#jensenhuang

Product design sage Tim Wood returns to the podcast for a conversation about the deepening integrations between experience design and AI, including a dissection of the trending term “vibe coding.” Currently a design lead at Meta, Tim has hands-on experience leading AI-first design and this episode explores what that means on a tactical level. Having been the Principal Product Designer for AI Platforms at AWS, and Head of Design for Amazon Q Developer, Tim shares hot takes with Robb and Josh on what automated mainframe migration means for SaaS providers as well as the broader business community, which leads to the real-time birth of another new term: “placebo swipes.”  

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is brought to you in partnership with OneReach.ai — offering turnkey private architecture for building and orchestrating your team’s AI agents with guardrails.

Use any AI models

Trusted enterprise-grade security

No vendor lock-in

Discover more about the power of orchestrating agentic AI: https://bit.ly/4jBfVRt

--------------------- Our new book is out NOW! 

The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about how teams can successfully orchestrate AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available everywhere! https://a.co/d/im5rb8F

#InvisibleMachines

#Podcast

#TechPodcast

#AI

#AgenticAI

#AIPodcast

#UXDesign

#ExperienceDesign

#AIDesign

#UserExperience

#AIAntegration

#SaaS

#DigitalTransformation

#Coding

#VibeCoding

#TechTrends

#EnterpriseAI

#aiagents

#aibooks

#bestsellingbooks

#aws

#meta

What is the explosion of AI solutions in the marketplace doing to pillars of experience design? On this Ask Us Anything episode of Invisible Machines, Robb and Josh respond to a question from Dr. Irina Wagner,  listener who works as a generative AI UX researcher at a massive US healthcare company. The answer to her question has connections to Robb’s time working in the sound department at Warner Bros., on films ranging from Galaxy Quest to The Thin Red Line. 

At its core, success in UX comes down to storytelling. People love stories—give them a compelling one, and they will follow you. As adoption increases, AI is likely to expose bad design by putting a premium on effective storytelling and good taste. This episode takes a deeper look at these elements, offering a fresh perspective and some hard truths about technology and design.

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is brought to you in partnership with OneReach.ai—offering turnkey private architecture for building your team’s AI agents with guardrails.

• Use any AI models
• Trusted enterprise-grade security
• No vendor lock-in

Discover more about AI agents and how your team can build and scale them: https://bit.ly/3DCxgu8

--------------------- Our new book is on it's way! 

The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about successful adoption of AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available for preorder on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

#InvisibleMachines

#Podcast

#TechPodcast

#AI

#AIPodcast

#UXDesign

#ExperienceDesign

#Storytelling

#AIDesign

#UserExperience

#HumanCenteredDesign

#TechInnovation

#DesignThinking

#DigitalTransformation

#FutureOfAI

#MachineLearning

#ProductDesign

#CreativeTechnology

As NASA’s longest-running Chief Administrator, Dan Goldin ushered in an era of “faster, better, cheaper” that prioritized safety while pushing the organization forward. He joins Robb and Josh to discuss his approach to innovation and kick some holes in fallacies like the iron triangle, which he calls “horsepuckey.” Goldin was at the helm of major projects, including a redesign of the International Space Station, and various Mars exploration programs.

Robb and Josh dig into his profound 50/50 rule for finding team members who can move the needle on innovation without holding an organization back, which has a surprising connection to the work of Michaelangelo. 

In this episode:

• The 2nd edition of Robb and Josh’s bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines: A Guide to Orchestrating AI Agents and Making Organizations More Self-Driving: http://bit.ly/4b7Rx7d 
• Michelangelo’s sculptures: https://www.michelangelo.net/sculptures/ 
• Ben R. Rich's book, Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed: https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
• Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG): https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/big-hairy-audacious-goal-bhag.asp 
• The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
• World Trade Organization: https://www.wto.org/
• Czinger, an American automobile manufacturer of hybrid sports cars: https://www.czinger.com/
• BRIDGE Bike Works, a full cycle manufacturer of carbon fiber bicycles, designed and manufactured entirely in Toronto, Canada: https://www.bridgebikeworks.com/
• The Invisible Machines episode, "S4E9 Digital Twins in an Agentic World” with Dr. Michael Grieves: https://youtu.be/KsL3w2bVjmw?si=KtKRxw9d_ofszFRs 

Learn more about Dan Goldin, his initiatives, blog and speaking engagements - and do follow him on Linkedin - he’s got a lot of wisdom as is great at sharing it:

https://www.danielsgoldin.com/

The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available for preorder on Amazon: https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5 

Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is brought to you in partnership with OneReach.ai—offering turnkey private architecture for building your team’s AI agents with guardrails.

• Any AI models
• Enterprise-grade security
• No vendor lock-in

Discover more about the power of agentic AI:

https://onereach.ai/ai-agents/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_episode_with_dan_goldin&utm_content=1

#TechPodcast

#NASA

#DanGoldin

#Innovation

#Leadership 

#SpaceExploration

#Aerospace

#TechLeadership

#TalentStrategy

#STEM

#AIPodcast

#TechPodcast

#InvisibleMachines

#ArtificialIntelligence

#AIAgents

#AgenticAI

#TechInnovation

Did the US Copyright office just declare that AI is the artist, not the tool?

Does their new report raise more questions than it answers? Robb and Josh welcome back Ed Klaris, Managing Partner at Klaris Law and Columbia Law professor, for part two of their discussion on the office’s ongoing Copyright and Artificial Intelligence report, focusing on copyrightability.

Klaris returns with critical insights into what these updates to copyright law mean with more and more people now using generative AI as part of their creative process. The report sets some useful guidelines for which aspects of AI-assisted creative projects are copyrightable, yet it also sparks new questions about the boundaries between human and machine-generated output.

Find out more about Ed Klaris and his work here: https://www.klarislaw.com

The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book, Age of Invisible Machines, is now available for preorder on Amazon! https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

In this episode, we mention:

• US Copyright Office’s report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence (Part 1: Digital Replicas and Part 2: Copyrightability): https://www.copyright.gov/ai/
• An AI-Generated Picture Won an Art Prize: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/02/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-artists.html
• DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence software company: https://www.deepseek.com/
• What Air Canada Lost In ‘Remarkable’ Lying AI Chatbot Case: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marisagarcia/2024/02/19/what-air-canada-lost-in-remarkable-lying-ai-chatbot-case/
• Cursor, an AI code editor: https://www.cursor.com/
• The Invisible Machines episode, "S4E13 Are generative AI tools unlawful to use?”: S4E13 Are generative AI tools unlawful to use? 

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is brought to you in partnership with OneReach.ai—offering turnkey private architecture for building your team’s AI agents with guardrails.

• Any AI models
• Enterprise-grade security
• No vendor lock-in

Learn about creating and orchestrating AI agents for your team:

https://onereach.ai/ai-agents/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_episode_with_ed_klaris_2&utm_content=1

#AI

#AIPodcast

#TechPodcast

#InvisibleMachines

#ArtificialIntelligence

#AIAgents

#AgenticAI

#TechInnovation

#GenerativeAI

#CopyrightLaw 

#AILaw

#IntellectualProperty

#AICopyright

#LegalTech

#DigitalRights

#TechLaw

Blaise Agüera y Arcas, author and CTO of Technology & Society at Google, returns to the podcast to talk about his new work, What is Life?. This limited-edition, pocket-sized book is the first part of a larger print project with MIT Press and Antikythera titled What Is Intelligence?. What is Life? draws fascinating parallels between the life-building chemical reactions taking place in natural chimneys deep in our oceans and the work of Alan Turing and John von Neumann in the mid-twentieth century. Blaise joins Robb and Josh to explore how self-reproduction—and thus life—is inherently computational. This conversation delves into the nested nature of life on Earth and how technology is an extension of our evolution.

You can buy Blaise’s books from Hat & Beard Press:

• Who Are We Now? https://hatandbeard.com/products/who-are-we-now-by-blaise-aguera-y-arcas 
• Ubi Sunt https://hatandbeard.com/products/ubi-sunt-by-blaise-aguera-y-arcas 

In this episode, we mention:

• Blaise Agüera y Arcas’s work, “What is Life” — read for free online: https://whatisintelligence.antikythera.org
• Lynn Margulis’s books: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Lynn-Margulis/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ALynn%2BMargulis
• Conventional evolutionary theory (Neo-Darwinism): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Darwinism
• Stephen Jay Gould’s books: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Stephen-Jay-Gould/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AStephen%2BJay%2BGould 
• W. Brian Arthur’s book, “The Nature of Technology: What It Is and How It Evolves”: https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Technology-What-How-Evolves/dp/1416544062
• The Invisible Machines episode, "Radically Honest AI with Dr. Anna Lembke": S5E01 Radically Honest AI with Dr. Anna Lembke
• Anna Lemble’s book, “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence”: https://www.amazon.com/Dopamine-Nation-Finding-Balance-Indulgence/dp/152474672X
• Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto's book, "Reinforcement Learning: second edition: An Introduction (Adaptive Computation and Machine Learning series)" (about temporal difference learning): https://www.amazon.com/Reinforcement-Learning-Introduction-Adaptive-Computation/dp/0262039249/ref=dp_ob_title_bk
• Wolfram Schultz’s work, “Responses of monkey dopamine neurons to reward and conditioned stimuli during successive steps of learning a delayed response task”: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8441015/
• The direction of time and Boltzmann’s time hypothesis: http://staff.mechmining.uq.edu.au/klimenko/pub/pdf/Phys_Scr_2019.pdf
• Ray Kurzweil's book, "The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology": https://www.amazon.com/Singularity-Near-Humans-Transcend-Biology/dp/0670033847 
• The story of the Luddites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
• The Invisible Machines episode, “The Intelligence All Around Us” with James Bridle: S4E4 The Intelligence All Around Us
• James Bridle’s' book, “Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence”: https://www.amazon.com/Ways-Being-Machines-Planetary-Intelligence/dp/0374601119 
• Disney Pixar’s movie, “WALL·E”: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/
• Joseph Henrich's book, "The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter": https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691166854 
• Ethan Mollick's book, "Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI": https://www.amazon.com/Co-Intelligence-Living-Working-Ethan-Mollick/dp/059371671X 

Learn about creating and orchestrating AI agents for your team:

https://onereach.ai/ai-agents/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_episode_with_blaise_aguera_y_arcas&utm_content=1

#AI

#AIPodcast

#TechPodcast

#InvisibleMachines

#ArtificialIntelligence

#AIAgents

#AgenticAI

#TechInnovation

#WhatIsLife

#AIandLife

#AIResearch

#Intelligence

#EvolutionAndTechnology

#LifeOnEarth

#TechAndSociety