The M&A markets are in a tough situation. Transactions are harder to get done and exits just not happening. To sort out where this is all going, Scott Denne and Brenon Daly return to the podcast with host Eric Hanselman. Investors across technology have portfolios that are getting long in the tooth. They need exits to return value to their funds, but there are limited options. The IPO market is tentative, at best. 

At the same time, strategic investors are stepping back as they spend on AI. Capital expenditures continue to grow, with hyperscalers shelling out billions to expand their own infrastructure, as well as investing in AI startups. Google’s acquisition of Wiz is a massive transaction, but it is dwarfed by the ongoing internal investments. How far does this go and what will be the return on these investments?

More S&P Global Content:

• Tech M&A Outlook Survey: A historic bust-to-boom reversal in 2024?

For S&P Global Subscribers:

• Shifting AI exits
• The public-private divide
• If not Wiz, who?
• Tech leads the way up and down on Wall Street

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Brenon Daly, Scott Denne
• Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

The arrival of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite capabilities is changing broadband market dynamics as it increases capacity and improves performance. Mau Rodriguez joins host Eric Hanselman to discuss where displacement is taking place and the potential for new market entrants. The Geosynchronous satellite services that had been the backbone of remote connectivity have capacity, but come along with relatively high latency in data delivery. They’re orbiting at tens of thousands of miles, which is very long signal path, when compared to LEO satellites at around 500 miles. 

The broadband market is dominated by terrestrial technologies, with cable leading the installed base and fiber growing rapidly. The subscriber cost for satellite is far higher, but the deployment cost can be much lower than that required for remote locations. While Starlink dominates this market, AWS aims to compete with its Project Kuiper plans. It just needs to get a lot of satellites launched, first.

More S&P Global Content:

• The State of US Fiber Broadband
• China launches another satellite megaconstellation
• Survey Data Hub - VoCUL: Mobile, TV & Streaming Video Trends Q1 2025

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guest: Mau Rodriguez
• Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

The demand for power driven by datacenter expansion is a global challenge and European markets are responding with some interesting aspects. With there has been a strong renewable component to energy supply, the complexity of the energy grid has meant that unified approaches were elusive. At the same time energy markets have faced three crises – demand reduction from the COVID pandemic, strong renewable investment and market disruption from the Russian-Ukraine war. Into this congested environment, Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) offer a way to channel investment in new generation capacity. The EU has just announced guarantees for non-investment grade PPA’s, creating the possibility for expanded markets and extending the ability to treat them as an addition to commodity markets for energy. 

Energy generation projects have become increasingly hybrid, bringing together multiple renewable sources with energy storage. Smoothing out renewable peaks can help it better address base load demand. Nuclear remains an expensive option, with approaches like Small Modular Reactors (SMR) still being a long ways off. There is the potential to have AI improve grid efficiency, by balancing demand and generation, an almost circular relationship, given that it is driving so much of demand. That will require more decentralization of the grid to increase flexibility and the acceptance of cryptographic protections for data sovereignty could allow workload placement near sources of power generation. There is a lot of potential for what has become an urgent issue.

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• What is an 'AI datacenter'?
• Platts London Energy Forum 2025
• AI, datacenters and power: The European landscape heading into 2025
• The role of nuclear in AI's future
• Datacenters and energy 101 — Powering through renewable intermittency
• 2025 US datacenters and nuclear energy report

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Ayça Taşlı, Pedro Schweizer
• Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

So much of the world around us is sensing and controlling with data, but it’s not often coordinated. Smart spaces technologies put that data to work and integrate capabilities and Zoë Roth returns to the podcast to dig into the potential of these systems with host Eric Hanselman. Smart spaces have grown out of the sensing roots in technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and shares a key element – the need to link operational technology (OT) with information technology (IT). Things like building environmental systems have historically been separated from the technology stack supporting the people that work in the building. Integration of these systems has the potential for a wide range of benefits, including improving working conditions, enhancing physical and logical security and reducing energy use. Stadiums and public venues are putting smart spaces technology to work to improve fan experience and improve safety.

Extending to the macro scale, when smart spaces integrate at a city level, there’s greater efficiency and effectiveness across transportation systems, electric grids and governmental systems. Making this all work requires extending across information and functional silos. It’s a similar set of challenges that exist in digitization efforts in areas like retail, manufacturing and energy. As capabilities like digital twins and expanded support in edge computing mature, they hold promise to make smart spaces even more capable.

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• Smart Cities Connect 2024 Examining AI readiness and conducting a reality check
• What EU funding means for the next generation of European smart cities
• Unlocking value in smart spaces with location data
• Data Insight: Redefining retail — generative AI and automation

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Zoë Roth
• Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

Mobile World Congress, the annual gathering of telecom industry players, has expanded to embrace a broad range of technology and this year’s event will bring together a broad range of vendors, telecom operators and industry leaders. The theme of convergence has seen real world impacts and Raul Castañon, Mohammed Hamza and Lynnette Luna return to discuss what they’re expecting to see with host Eric Hanselman. The rise of network API’s for security and location services looks to open the door to greater application integration. It’s something operators have been hoping for, but there are questions about how they’ll monetize it. 

Many of the technologies that previewed in previous years are gaining traction. Open RAN technologies have matured and the ecosystem supporting them has expanded. There are still questions lingering about deployment timelines, but that seems to be shifting to a matter of when, rather than if. And, of course, AI is playing a role in much of what’s taking place in the exhibition halls.

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• MediaTalk | Season 2:  EP 20 - Wireless Outlook for 2024 as Carriers
• Next in Tech | Ep. 181: Lighting up Fiber
• Ericsson partners with global telecom operators to launch new network API venture
• Ericsson-led API joint venture gets its first CEO

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman  
• Guests: Raul Castañon-Martinez, Mohammed Hamza, Lynnette Luna
• Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

Of the many companies that are part of the AI wave, NVIDIA has been at the core of AI infrastructure and a darling of the markets. Their performance in the market is driven in part by consistency in their performance and Melissa Otto, head of TMT Research for Visible Alpha, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, joins host Eric Hanselman to look at the sentiment around the upcoming earnings. The enthusiasm for AI has driven expectations higher and higher and the company has delivered. 

The rampant enthusiasm for AI’s future hasn’t been without some cautious moments. In January, the announcement of the DeepSeek model roiled markets with the prospect of lower compute consumption for model training. The concern was that demand for all things AI, GPU’s included, might wane. It might also have been a reason for a jumpy market to take a step back. If you dust off your economics textbooks, Jevon’s Paradox has been cited by many as an indication that consumption could accelerate. Time will tell!

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• Assessing the Factors Driving Technology Investments
• Big Picture for Generative AI in 2025: From Hype to Value
• Webinar: The Big Picture on GenAI and Market Impacts
• NVIDIA takes commanding revenue lead in semiconductor space
• Intelligent and agentic process automation and integration platforms: 2025 research agenda
• GPU as a Service Market Monitor & Forecast
• 2025 Trends in Data, AI & Analytics

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Melissa Otto
• Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

The next phase of the AI wave is the arrival of agentic AI – where agents can take action on a user’s behalf. That’s enough of a big deal, but when the head of a tech giant says agentic is going to replace most SaaS applications, something different might be afoot. Analysts Sheryl Kingstone and Chris Marsh return to the podcast to look at the realities of this suggestion with host Eric Hanselman. Agents could become the new user interface for enterprise data, but there are a set of challenges in making this work. On the one hand, one of the largest issues with autonomous action, accountability for actions taken, is far from settled in both regulatory and legal frameworks. On the other, much of enterprise information is still held in systems where it may be difficult for an agent to reach. 

Agentic AI could provide a gateway to the myriad of systems that run the modern business. Opening access to data and the ability to aggregate across an organization could be tremendously powerful. Capturing the business logic that is often embedded in SaaS systems is difficult, but the shift to decoupling through API’s and the expansion of systems of delivery could open the door to agentic progress. 

More S&P Global Content:

• Big Picture for Generative AI in 2025: From Hype to Value
• Webinar: The Big Picture on GenAI and Market Impacts

For S&P Subscribers:

• 2025 Trends in Data, AI & Analytics 

 Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Chris Marsh, Sheryl Kingstone
• Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

Ethical concerns about the use of AI have to start with training data. Too often, the primary concern is simply generating sufficient data, rather than understanding its nature. Emily Jasper and Abby Simmons are back to continue the conversation started in episode 198 with host Eric Hanselman. With generative AI, the data is the application in its most formative sense. Unlike traditional application development, where the expectation is that functionality will be expanded in later releases, GenAI applications require careful design of training data before training takes place. The perspectives contained in data age rapidly and model training doesn’t differentiate between outdated and current indications. Old data can effectively poison model outputs. Businesses risk alienating customers with models that are trained with data that don’t properly represent them. This is particularly true with marginalized communities, where language and context can change over shorter time frames.

While there is research work on model retraining, work in AI today has to focus on effective data quality management. DeepSeek is causing a significant rethinking. Human data cleansing can be effective, but can’t scale to AI demands. Data workbench tools and synthetic data approaches can help, but better automation is needed to ensure that data sets are truly representative. Data collection and data sourcing need much greater attention to ensure that model results can engage the target audience and not be a liability. It’s a fundamental question of accountability that requires thinking in ways that are different than legacy development processes.

Mentioned in this episode:

• https://transtechtent.com
• https://kevinguyan.com/queer-data/ 

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• 2025 Trends in Data, AI & Analytics
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• Compliance automation, Part 1: Governance, risk and compliance, or something new?

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Emily Jasper, Abby Simmons
• Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

The National Retail Federation conference (NRF) launches just as retailers are cleaning up from the holiday shopping season. This year there was a focus on how technology can empower employees while reducing customer friction. Sheryl Kingstone, Rich Karpinski and Jordan McKee return to the podcast to share their insights on the conference with host Eric Hanselman. Traditional in-store retail concerns are a big part of NRF and innovation in Point of Sale (PoS) technologies, like softPoS and the integration of biometrics were on display. For the latter, there’s still the issue of consumer trust, as well as onboarding requirements. The show also saw an issuing bank debut its own PoS offering.

The promise and the challenges of AI were a large part of the conference. Delivering on AI will take infrastructure upgrades and retailers are looking at building ecosystems across technology vendors to share cost and risk. Digitization is going forward as logistics look to move from picking products to smart warehouses that can sense products. AI mastery can create a competitive advantage, but it requires the integration of a lot of moving parts.

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• Next in Tech | Ep. 184: Dreamforce Preview
• Payments modernization on full display at NRF 2025
• Going beyond last year's AI, NRF looks to revitalize the modern commerce experience

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Sheryl Kingstone, Rich Karpinski, Jordan McKee
• Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith

The annual technology fest that kicks off of the year, the CES conference (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show), showcased the latest consumer technology, from smart glasses to smart homes. Neil Barbour and Stefan Modrich join host Eric Hanselman to explore what made an impact and what’s happened to technology debuts from previous years. The metaverse headlines of a couple of years ago have transformed into augmented reality. ChatGPT hasn’t been integrated into any cars, yet, but agentic AI is being rolled out.

Much of what’s on display at CES is a vision of the future. The transparent TV’s last year were early prototypes and this year they’re on the market, albeit with a hefty price tag. There is more that’s taking place behind the scenes in consumer interactions. Advertising is becoming more digital and smart devices are the new frontier in engagement. Media purveyors are looking to link consumer experiences across devices. The omnichannel strategies of the past have been realized in multi-screen engagement today. They are becoming the next retail channel in new and different ways that create opportunities, as long as businesses can master the technologies required to capitalize on them.

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• Next in Tech | Ep. 185: Consumer Tech Evolution
• Incoming Trump administration's expected tech policy shifts
• Robot visions
• LG Electronics elucidates smart home strategy
• Gen Z presents opportunities and challenges for video entertainment providers – Highlights from VoCUL: Mobile, TV & Streaming Video Services Trends
• 2025 Trends in Customer Experience & Commerce

Credits:

• Host/Author: Eric Hanselman
• Guests: Neil Barbour, Stefan Modrich
• Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan
• Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith