Polaris Pathways - a Synozur podcast

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur helps organizations reimagine business through AI, aligning strategy, technology, and leadership to create lasting impact.

In this episode, Chris McNulty interviews Keith Anderson about navigating career transitions in the age of AI, emphasizing the importance of human skills, reflection, and strategic personal branding. They explore how AI is transforming work, the value of a 30-day career reboot, and practical advice for individuals and organizations.

Takeaways

• Reflect before you rush. Keith's sequence is "reflect, then project, then start" — clarity on who you are has to come before the job search, or you carry the same baggage into the next role.
• Know which of your skills AI is quietly deprioritizing — like drawing connections across large amounts of content — and which human skills are rising in value: discernment, judgment, and problem-solving when things don't go as planned.
• "Solopreneur within a company" is a mindset, not a job title. Own outcomes rather than headcount, use AI as your team, and build a routine that grounds you when the corporate scaffolding falls away.
• Analog cuts through the noise. As recruiters put up walls against AI-generated applications, a phone call, paper mail, or a real conversation can move you further than another cold LinkedIn message.
• Trust is the new currency. Instead of policing résumés against LinkedIn to catch AI use, focus on genuine person-to-person connection — the real signal of who you want to work with.
• The 30-Day Reboot is career discovery, not a 30-day job guarantee. It's built to help you understand your own map before you forge into unfamiliar terrain.
• The data is real but nuanced. The headlines say "AI cuts," yet the evidence that AI is doing the work of the people let go is thin — a gap worth understanding before you panic.

Sound bites

Keith Anderson

• "You might be a remix of what you've done before."
• "When you're a solopreneur, you are as big as you get — and you need to define what that is."
• "Are you blindly copying it and saying it's your work, or are you a collaborator with it?"
• "Recruiters are being inundated by robots — they can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not."
• "Your résumé and your LinkedIn are basically pieces of paper — one slice in time. There's so much more to who we are than that."
• "Our society says move, move, move — land the job as fast as possible. I don't recommend that. Reflect, then project, then start."

References

• Keith Anderson is the founder and CEO of Work Redesigned, and author of The 30-Day Career Reboot. He helps organizations reskill their workforce and helps individuals develop new skills, rethink their work identity, and navigate their careers as AI changes how work gets done.
• Oracle became the first company of its scale to name AI in an SEC filing as a cause of workforce reduction, with headcount falling roughly 13% — from about 162,000 to 141,000 — as reported by Crunchbase News and Tech Times, which also tracks 2026 tech layoffs surpassing 225,000.
• The claim that early-career workers are being hit hardest comes from the Stanford Digital Economy Lab's "Canaries in the Coal Mine?" study, which finds employment for 22-to-25-year-olds in AI-exposed jobs about 19% below expectation.
• A counter-view — that there is "no evidence of significant, widespread displacement" — and the figures on recent-graduate unemployment (near 5.6%) and underemployment (near 42%) are covered by Ars Technica and this IntuitionLabs analysis of the entry-level hiring data.
• Also mentioned: Chris's landscape photography business at chrismcnulty.net

Events

· North American Collaboration Summit | October 4-6 (Branson, MO) collabsummit.org

· CollabDays New England | October 16 (Burlington, MA) collabdaysne.org

· Microsoft Ignite — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) ignite.microsoft.com

· ESPC26 | November 30-December 3 ( Amsterdam ) espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI's impact on the workforce

02:23 AI named as a cause of workforce reduction in SEC filings

03:19 The shrinking entry-level job market and its implications

04:00 Meet Keith Anderson: His background and journey

05:12 Keith's perspective on the core of human identity and change

08:52 Lessons from teaching and their application in career coaching

11:22 Advice for those facing layoffs and restructuring

13:22 The influence of AI on resume and LinkedIn authenticity

16:14 How HR is using AI and the candidate experience

19:04 Strategies for standing out in a competitive job market

20:11 Realistic expectations during career transitions

24:15 The role of AI in personal productivity and human connection

31:58 The 30-day career reboot: Process and success stories

37:47 How businesses can leverage AI and workforce redesign

38:54 The value of improv and creativity in professional growth

40:28 Staying connected and the importance of human interaction

42:50 Balancing AI tools with human touch in creative work

43:23 Upcoming episodes and closing remarks

Bill Barkovic of BOC and Synozur's Michelle Boyd join Chris McNulty to explore how America's tribal nations are adopting AI on their own terms — protecting data sovereignty, preserving language and culture, and serving citizens better.

Takeaways

Three terms, three different things. Sovereignty is a nation-to-nation relationship with the US. Data sovereignty is a nation's authority over data about its citizens, lands, and culture — no matter who holds it. Digital sovereignty extends that authority to the systems the data lives in: the network, the cloud, and the model.

The policy conversation has moved down the stack. Cherokee Nation signed its first AI policy last year; in February 2026 it turned to data centers, land, and environment. Arizona's health department adopted what is believed to be the first state-level Indigenous data sovereignty policy in the country, covering all 22 federally recognized tribes in the state.

Relationships come before requirements. Bill was told not to expect a response from tribal clients for the first year — they are deciding whether you will stick around. That patience is the entry fee, and it changes how technology work gets scoped and delivered.

Sovereignty was the gate to the cloud, and it is now the gate to AI. Fewer than 40 tribal tenants were in the cloud when Bill started; roughly 18 months of work on the sovereignty question opened the gates. The same pattern is repeating with AI — curiosity paired with real concern.

Tribal AI adoption ranges widely. Some tribes are still finalizing acceptable-use policies. Others are running GitHub Copilot at scale, building agents in Agent Builder and Power Platform, and learning token economics firsthand.

The use cases are governmental, not just commercial. AI as a switchboard in Teams so citizens can request forms without driving in. Clinical support as tribes take health services back from IHS. Cultural and language preservation as elders and fluent speakers grow fewer.

Land is a technology issue. Data center water use, power, and land acquisition come up in nearly every AI conversation with tribes — and they are a cultural concern, not just an ESG line item.

Talent pipelines are fragile. When a trained tribal employee is recruited away, it can set the whole organization back. Building depth behind each role matters as much as filling it.

Sound Bites

Bill Barkovic — VP of Sales, Business Operational Concepts

"The US leaders and the federal leaders needed to look at the tribes as essentially countries within our country. And that same thought process had to be applied to them."

"Yes, this is a casino and they're generating large volumes of money, but 75 to 80 percent of that money gets redirected to the government to take care of their people."

"It's really asking questions and listening — ditching what you know in your technology background and wanting to jump to the first answer, and actually listening to what they're trying to tell you."

"There's a slow progression towards AI. There's a lot of curiosity, but there's also a lot of concern around data sovereignty."

Michelle Boyd — Executive Director, First Nations AI and Digital Futures, Synozur

"As I was growing up, what I saw was always a resistance to technology from the tribes. It was seen as something that could degrade culture, language, stories, knowledge, and that preservation."

"Digital can actually help save and preserve and share the richness of their culture. It gives them an opportunity to create longevity for the stories that are being told."

"That's a very tribal mindset — to take things that are risks or issues or threats and turn them into a power."

References Guests Bill Barkovic

LinkedIn

Bill Barkovic speaker profile: TribalHub.

Business Operational Concepts (BOC, LLC). boc.us.com · Tribal enterprise services · LinkedIn

Michelle Boyd

Synozur. synozur.com · Michelle Boyd team profile · Welcoming Michelle Boyd as Executive Director, First Nations AI & Digital Futures · Michelle Boyd on LinkedIn · TribalHub speaker profile

News & Industry

Cherokee Nation data center task force. Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. signed Executive Order 2026-02-CTH, creating the Principal Chief's Task Force to Study the Impact of Data Centers on the Economy and Natural Environment of the Cherokee Nation Reservation. Coverage: The Journal Record. Task force page: Cherokee Nation.

Arizona Indigenous data sovereignty policy. ADHS and Tribal Nations Advance Indigenous Data Sovereignty Policy, effective April 1, 2026, covering all 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona. Policy text: Arizona Department of Health Services. Analysis: Native Nations Institute and KJZZ.

Indigenous language loss. The United Nations estimates that one indigenous language dies every two weeks — UN DESA backgrounder on Indigenous Languages and OHCHR.

Michael Running Wolf and First Languages AI Reality. Northern Cheyenne AI researcher and former Amazon Alexa developer, co-founder of the First Languages AI Reality initiative. Biography · First Languages AI Reality at Mila · "Why First Languages AI Can Be a Reality" (TEDx) · LinkedIn.

Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians ransomware attack. The December 2019 Sodinokibi attack that took down tribal systems including 911 dispatch and destroyed 15 years of Cherokee-language audio and video recordings. Microsoft Source feature · Asheville Citizen-Times · "Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack," EBCI Office of Information Technology.

Pop Culture

Project Hail Mary, the Ryan Gosling film adapted from the Andy Weir novel

Lioness, season three, on Paramount+

Events

TribalNet 2026 | September 20-24 (Dallas, TX) TribalNet Conference

North American Collaboration Summit | October 4-6 (Branson, MO) collabsummit.org

CollabDays New England | October 16 (Burlington, MA) collabdaysne.org

Microsoft Ignite — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) ignite.microsoft.com

ESPC26 | November 30-December 3 ( Amsrterdam ) espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI in Tribal Communities

02:05 Understanding Sovereignty, Data, and Digital Sovereignty

04:10 Policy Developments and Data Center Impact

06:50 Language Preservation and Data Ownership

10:02 Building Relationships with Tribal Nations

12:51 Culture, Communication, and Technology

14:12 Data Sovereignty and Tribal Perspectives

15:47 Microsoft's Role and Tribal Perceptions

18:03 Local Processing and AI Opportunities

20:09 AI in Citizen Services and Healthcare

23:01 Tribal AI Adoption and Success Stories

27:14 Balancing Technology and Cultural Values

31:04 Future Opportunities and Tribal Engagement

33:55 Success Stories and Community Impact

36:57 Pop Culture and Personal Insights

38:58 Upcoming Events and Conferences

42:03 Closing Remarks and Next Steps

GROAS founder David Pourquery joins Polaris to explain how AI now plans, builds, and runs Google Ads campaigns end to end — and what that means for agencies, marketers, and the judgment calls only people can make.

Key Takeaways

• Google's automation arrives on a schedule, not on request. Starting September 1, Google begins upgrading eligible search campaigns to AI Max, migrating automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match — for many advertisers, whether they opted in or not.
• Automation is outrunning the evidence. Independent industry testing of AI Max has produced mixed results so far, with a majority of matched queries failing to convert.
• The single most important number is what a customer is worth. Before you spend a dollar, you need to know what you can afford to pay Google for each customer acquired. Most businesses cannot state that number.
• Know your words as well as your numbers. Unclear ideal customer profiles and vague value propositions sink campaigns before bidding ever becomes the problem. Messaging decides who you attract and who you repel.
• The agency model is under structural pressure. WPP, once the largest advertising group in the world, moved away from the holding company structure after a year of steep revenue declines and account losses. As David puts it, an agency has always been an arbitrage on human labor.
• The disruptor's best customers were the incumbents. GROAS set out to displace agencies; agencies are now its fastest-growing segment, because they get value from day one across an existing book of clients.
• Bootstrapping a software company got dramatically cheaper. AI-assisted development made a lean, venture-free build possible — David says deployment speed rose by 20x to 30x in nine months.
• What survives automation is judgment. Executing the plan is what is disappearing. Deciding what the plan is worth — and being willing to say no to something reasonable — is not.

Guest Quotes

David Pourquery, Founder & CEO, GROAS

• "An agency has always been an arbitrage on human labor. So if the value of human labor keeps going down because of AI, then agencies ultimately, unless they adapt pretty brutally, I think will get squeezed out."
• "I am of the firm belief that not everybody should run paid ads. It's like one of the most competitive things on earth. Because if you can get it right, it's effectively a free money printer. You put one dollar in, three dollars comes out."
• "A lot of those automations take away power and control from the advertiser. There are countless horror stories, you can go online, of people just going and applying all of Google's recommended settings and then just burning $3,000."
• "Ultimately the number is, what can you afford to pay Google for every customer? And you'd be surprised at the number of businesses who don't know what that is."
• "We were like, we're gonna displace the agencies. Now they're becoming a bigger part of our clients. What's ironic in all of this is that they are actually the best customers of GROAS, because they get value from it from day one."
• "AI will cause major, major margin compression on all forms of computer work, long term. This applies to lawyers, doctors, accountants, investment bankers."

References Guest

GROAS — groas.com. David Pourquery on LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/davidpourquery.

Industry

Google Ads AI Max migration beginning September 1, covering automatically created assets and campaign-level broad match — Search Engine Roundtable: On Sep 1 Google Ads To Migrate ACA & Campaign-Level Broad Match To AI Max.

Independent industry testing of AI Max for Search — PPC Land: Google's AI Max for Search campaigns deliver "meh" results, industry tests reveal and PPC Live: What the data actually shows in 2026.

WPP's move away from the holding company model after steep revenue declines and account losses — WPP strategy update and 2025 preliminary results and Marketing Dive: WPP abandons holding company model.

Culture

Andon Market, the San Francisco shop managed by an AI agent named Luna, run by Andon Labs. New York Times reported on the results, with additional coverage of the same experiment — NBC News: AI is the boss at this retail store, Axios San Francisco, and Forbes.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari, David's pop-culture pick — ynharari.com.

Events

TechCon365 Seattle | August 24-28 (Seattle, WA) techcon365.com/Seattle

TribalNet 2026 | September 20-24 (Dallas, TX) TribalNet Conference

North American Collaboration Summit | October 4-6 (Branson, MO) collabsummit.org

CollabDays New England | October 16 (Burlington, MA) collabdaysne.org

Microsoft Ignite — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) ignite.microsoft.com

ESPC26 | November 30-December 3 ( Amsrterdam ) espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/

Full details — synozur.com/events.

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:01 Opening

01:48 News and Data Points

03:10 David's Journey from London to Los Angeles

04:48 Transition from Private Equity to E-commerce

07:21 The Birth of GROAS and Its Purpose

09:55 Navigating Google Ads and Automation Challenges

12:40 The Evolution of GROAS: From Services to Product

15:42 Agency Relationships and Client Success

18:36 The Changing Landscape of Marketing Agencies

21:32 Understanding Client Needs and Metrics

24:17 The Role of AI in Marketing and Future Predictions

27:27 Cultural Influences and Personal Growth

29:26 Future Plans for Grow As and Closing Thoughts

31:12 Pop Culture Moment

34:08 Upcoming Events

35:39 Reflection on AI in Retail

38:21 Next Time

38:37 Thanks and Closing

Show Notes

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

In this episode, Dr. Craig Kaplan shares his insights on the evolution of AI, safety considerations, and the importance of democratic values in developing superintelligence. Discover how AI systems can be designed for safety and alignment with human values.

Key Takeaways

• What "p(doom)" means, why a recent survey of researchers put the median near 20%, and why Kaplan believes smart design can push it below one-tenth of one percent.
• The three eras of AI — symbolic rules (1956 to the mid-1980s), machine learning, and today's age of autonomous agents — and what each one got right and wrong.
• Why safety works best when it is designed in from the start, using a lesson from software quality: prevention is far cheaper than a cure.
• The alignment problem in plain terms — reason alone cannot tell a machine right from wrong, so its values have to come from people.
• Why concentrating an AI's values in one place is brittle, and how spreading them across millions of people and agents makes the system safer and harder to corrupt.
• Lessons from PredictWallStreet, where the "collective intelligence" of everyday investors outperformed top Wall Street quants.
• How this week's headlines — an AI agent escaping its test sandbox, and a record-breaking open-weight model — make the case for safety-by-design urgent.

Sound Bites - Dr. Craig Kaplan

• "P Doom is just the probability that AI kills us all."
• "I don't think it needs to be 20 or 10%. I think we can bring it way down to under 1%. And it's just a matter of designing things appropriately."
• "I actually don't think we need to slow down in order to be safer. We just need to be a little smarter about it."
• "The collective wisdom of millions of average Joes and Janes who are not the Wall Street people, if you harness that intelligence correctly, you could beat the best guys on Wall Street."
• "Do not underestimate your impact. Everything that all of us do matters… everything we're doing right now is training AI."

References Guest:

• Dr. Craig A. Kaplan — SuperIntelligence.com · iQ Company
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/craigakaplan ·
• Substack: read.superintelligence.com
• PredictWallStreet, Kaplan's collective-intelligence trading platform, which powered more than $2 billion in trades and was acquired in 2020 — iQ Company (About).

News

• Kimi K3, the 2.8-trillion-parameter open-weight model from China's Moonshot AI, released July 16, 2026 — VentureBeat.
• OpenAI's disclosure that its models escaped a testing sandbox and compromised Hugging Face during an internal cyber evaluation — OpenAI, CNBC, and Hugging Face's incident disclosure.

AI and Superintelligence

• The p(doom) figure — a 2026 survey of more than 50 researchers placing the median near 20% — researcher survey; and Nature on whether the louder AI-doom warnings are realistic.
• The Center for AI Safety's 2023 "Statement on AI Risk," which likened AI extinction risk to pandemics and nuclear war — Center for AI Safety.
• Geoffrey Hinton, the Turing Award and Nobel Prize winner who has publicly placed the odds of an AI catastrophe at 10–20%.
• Dr. Herbert A. Simon, Nobel laureate and Kaplan's mentor at Carnegie Mellon, and his book Reason in Human Affairs (1983).
• "Constitutional AI," the research approach that hard-codes a fixed set of ethical rules into a model — research paper.

Pop Culture

• Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics; the ELIZA program (Joseph Weizenbaum, 1960s); and Alan Turing and the Turing test.
• Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), referenced as an example of how values once seen as normal are later revisited.
• Friedrich Nietzsche and the idea of the "Superman" (Übermensch).
• Microsoft's early "Sydney" chatbot and the widely reported 2023 New York Times exchange in which it went off the rails.
• The 1998s New Yorker feature on Prediction Company and early black-box neural-net trading systems.

Events

• TechCon365 Seattle | August 24-28 (Seattle, WA) techcon365.com/Seattle
• TribalNet 2026 | September 20-24 (Dallas, TX) TribalNet Conference
• North American Collaboration Summit | October 4-6 (Branson, MO) collabsummit.org
• CollabDays New England | October 16 (Burlington, MA) collabdaysne.org
• Microsoft Ignite — November 17-20 (San Francisco, CA) ignite.microsoft.com
• ESPC26 | November 30-December 3 ( Amsrterdam ) espc.tech/conference/espc-2026/

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and guest introduction 01:19 Craig Kaplan's background and early interests 02:14 Academic journey and work with Nobel laureates 03:00 Transition from academia to industry and AI applications 04:19 Predict Wall Street and collective intelligence in finance 05:24 Historical perspective on trust in AI and early neural networks 06:15 The phases of AI development: symbolic AI, machine learning, and agents 09:03 Current state of AI: autonomy and swarm systems 11:14 Rapid progress and the pace of AI change 12:35 AI safety challenges and the importance of design 15:45 Understanding P Doom and existential AI risks 17:11 Alignment and values in AI systems 19:57 The role of human values and morality in AI 21:23 The risk of concentration of power and values in AI 23:16 Insuring against black swan events and AI safety measures 26:26 Designing collective intelligence systems for safety and diversity of values 30:36 The importance of democratic rule-setting for AI 44:26 Balancing religious, philosophical, and democratic values in AI 46:22 The dynamic nature of morality and AI adaptation 47:08 Upcoming Events 48:13 Thanks and Closing Credits

Show Notes

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

Mirror 360 founder Petar Kralev joins Polaris to explain why honest feedback is the most expensive thing companies fail to capture — and how a 20-second, anonymous weekly reflection finally surfaces the truth leaders need.

Takeaways

Bigger companies often get worse at honest feedback, not better. Formal reviews, large HR teams, and L&D budgets are built mostly to document and reduce legal risk — not to capture how people actually experience work.

Three things have to come together to unlock the truth: safety, ease, and a return on investment. Anonymity must be beyond doubt, input has to take seconds, and people need to see that speaking up actually matters.

One simple opening question carries most of the signal: "How is John working lately?" Mirror 360 then asks five standardized reflections — communicates well, solves problems, fits on the team, follows high standards, and takes initiative.

Anonymity is engineered, not promised. Invitations go out on a randomized weekly cycle and reflections are delivered in batches, so no one can trace a single piece of feedback back to a difficult conversation.

AI is the enabler, not the headline. It filters harmful or legally risky comments and turns raw input into a clean signal — but Mirror 360 frames itself as the infrastructure that makes AI useful for management, not "another AI company."

Remote and distributed work broke the old water-cooler signal. A teammate who sits beside you often knows more about your work than a manager who sees you once a month; Mirror 360 rebuilds that insight digitally.

The results are measurable. Roughly 90% participation at launch, about nine in ten underperformers stepping up once they see their "mirror image," and one team reaching ~92% top fulfillment after a toxic manager was replaced.

Sound bites (Petar Kralev)

"We don't really easily reveal what we honestly think about each other or about what we see around us in the work context. And that is a crazy, crazy expensive problem."

"If the system you have in place today does not provide complete anonymity beyond any doubt, you already have polluted the signal."

"It's not like a survey about your coffee… But that coworker, you're gonna work again and again and again — you actually want to nudge them to drive the right behavior."

"I'm very clear to not make Mirror 360 like another AI company. It's the infrastructure to make AI useful."

"Never does the truth do damage. It may shock you, it may hurt your ego temporarily, but you will be better for knowing it. And the world will be better for knowing it."

"It's the difference between turning on the lights or staying in the dark."

"What story do you tell yourself that you take for the truth? Because these stories really are the ceiling we impose on ourselves — and we forget that we just made them up."

References Guest Notes

Mirror 360 — company website: mirror360.org.

Mirror 360 on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/mirror-360. P

Petar Kralev on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/petarkralev; Petar also publishes longer-form writing on the workplace visibility problem on Substack at https://substack.com/@petarkralev

Industry

Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2026 — global engagement at 20%, an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, and most of the recent decline attributed to falling manager engagement: gallup.com.

U.S. engagement figures (United States and Canada at 31%, the highest-ranked region) from the same Gallup report: Gallup global data summary.

Culture

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth (the book Petar recommends; Tolle is also the author of The Power of Now): eckharttolle.com.

Startup World Cup — the global startup competition whose Grand Finale takes place in San Francisco in November 2026, which Mirror 360 is advancing to after a Bulgaria regional win: startupworldcup.io.

Events TechCon 365 Chicago — June 15–19, McCormick Place, Chicago, IL TechCon 365 Seattle — August 24–28 CollabDays New England — October 16, 2026 Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Petar Kralev and Mirror 360

01:48 The decline in employee engagement and its implications

02:45 The personal journey of Petar and the origin of Mirror 360

04:52 The iceberg of ignorance and feedback challenges

07:28 Barriers to honest feedback and how Mirror 360 addresses them

10:18 Questions to ask for effective feedback

13:11 The role of AI in filtering and analyzing feedback

15:18 Ensuring anonymity and trust in feedback systems

17:44 The impact of honest feedback on organizational performance

19:59 The future of management and AI integration

22:02 Remote work challenges and digital water cooler moments

23:48 Success stories and organizational transformations

26:50 Petar's personal story and authenticity in leadership

30:10 Book recommendation: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

31:31 How to stay connected with Petar and upcoming initiatives

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

Former Intrazone co-hosts Chris McNulty and Mark Kashman reunite on Polaris to unpack the biggest news from the Microsoft 365 Community Conference—AI skills, Copilot's evolution, SharePoint's 25th anniversary—and reflect on the enduring power of community in the modern workplace.

Takeaways

• AI adoption vs. readiness gap. Chris cites industry research showing 91% of organizations now use at least one AI technology and an average of 5.4 hours saved per employee, drawn from a study of 443 million work hours across over 1,000 companies1. Yet at the recent AIIM Summit in Baltimore, Chris polled a room of roughly 50 professionals on daily AI use—and was the only hand up2. The ActivTrak "2026 State of the Workplace" report confirms that while 80% of employees now use AI tools (up from 53% two years ago), only 3% spend the optimal 7–10% of their work hours in AI, and 57% spend less than 1%3. Leaders should focus on practical readiness—not headline adoption numbers.

• Content structure is critical for AI. Modern enterprise content management platforms now use AI for auto-classification, document summarization, and contextual Q&A4. But Mark stresses that the underlying metadata, lifecycle management, and information structure must be sound first: "If the form that nobody ever filled out gets filled out and is valid and truthful…you will have a system that works better"5. Organizations should prioritize content readiness before scaling AI.

• SharePoint Skills — no-code AI instructions. Microsoft unveiled SharePoint Skills in public preview, allowing teams to encode best practices and process rules as Markdown (.md) files stored within SharePoint sites6. These skills give Copilot and AI in SharePoint persistent context—tone guidelines, product terminology, workflow steps—so results are on-brand and site-specific without any coding7. According to the buckleyPLANET conference recap, Skills are included in existing Microsoft 365 or Microsoft Copilot licensing with no additional procurement step8.

• Copilot CoWork and Skills convergence. Chris explains that Copilot CoWork, based on Anthropic technology, lets individual users build personal AI skills stored as Markdown files in OneDrive9. Meanwhile, SharePoint Skills operate at the site/group level10. The expectation is that these two streams will converge, allowing a skill perfected by one person to be shared organization-wide11.

• Agent 365 & governance at scale. Microsoft's Agent 365 gives organizations a single pane of glass to manage AI agents—whether built in Copilot Studio, SharePoint, Visual Studio Code, or Foundry—across the entire tenant12. Mark describes agents as "kind of being a little bit more like people…an entity that you can assign things to"13. The buckleyPLANET recap notes Agent 365 went GA on May 1 at $15 per user per month, and that Microsoft internally manages over 500,000 agents across roughly 228,000 employees14.

• Purview's evolving AI oversight. Purview is consolidating classic DSPM and DSPM for AI into a unified engine that monitors how people interact with content and AI15. Chris gives a practical example: Purview can now block queries like "tell me the top 10 salaries" from reaching Copilot, even if the underlying content is unprotected16. For leaders, this signals that security, compliance, and AI governance are converging into a single policy surface.
• Community as a leadership accelerator. As SharePoint marks its 25th anniversary, both hosts reflect on the enduring importance of the Microsoft 365 community. Mark notes the product "really is stronger and more connected than ever"17, while Chris sees the community as "an opportunity to meet and reconnect with people from all over the world"18. Getting your team engaged in industry communities—whether global conferences or local CollabDays—keeps them educated, connected, and ahead of the curve

Sound Bites Mark Kashman

"Has SharePoint died? Twenty-five years later, it's stronger and more connected than ever.

"Technology at scale, especially in the enterprise, still takes a while. You've got to clean house and organize before AI can really deliver."

"Does it always need another brand name to tell you what it is? A lot of people would argue no."

"SharePoint Skills are a 'very particular set of skills' - the next level of how you make AI more usable for what you're trying to do."

References Spotlight

Mark Kashman — Sympraxis Consulting (Principal Microsoft 365 Consultant, ex-Microsoft). https://www.sympraxisconsulting.com/ | https://www.linkedin.com/in/markkashman/ | https://kashbox.substack.com/

Microsoft 365 Community Conference (Apr 21–23, 2026, Orlando, FL) — The premier community-driven Microsoft 365 event, with keynotes from Jeff Teper and Ryan Cunningham and over 200 sessions on Copilot, SharePoint, Teams, security, and agentic AI. Approximately 3,000 attendees gathered at the Loews Sapphire Falls and Royal Pacific Resorts. https://m365conf.com/ | https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoft_365blog/your-guide-to-the-microsoft-365-community-conference/4505384

AIIM AI+IM Global Summit 2026 (Apr 28–30, 2026, Baltimore, MD) — Information management conference hosted by AIIM (the Association for Intelligent Information Management), focusing on AI readiness, content governance, and digital transformation. Chris attended as a cohort team lead and shared observations about the gap between AI hype and real-world adoption. https://www.aiim.org/aiim-global-summit-2026

People

Jeff Teper — President, Microsoft 365 Collaborative Apps & Platforms, who delivered the opening conference keynote on AI skills, Copilot, and the intelligent intranet. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffteper/

Zach Rosenfield — Microsoft engineer known for SharePoint and OneDrive back-end systems, now building a growing YouTube channel with demos of SharePoint AI features including Skills. Mark notes, "His demos are not only really good, but they're in numbers and growing." https://www.youtube.com/@zrosenfield

Vlad Catrinescu — "How to Build SharePoint Skills" (Vlad Talks Tech) — Microsoft MVP Vlad Catrinescu published a comprehensive 60-minute walkthrough on SharePoint Skills, covering skill file structure, best practices, Anthropic's guidance, and live demos. Both Chris and Mark recommend it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_86-7kkpzwWatch on YouTube | https://vladtalkstech.com

Paul Thurrott — Technology journalist known for Windows commentary. Mark references Thurrott's stance on Notepad: "He always says, I just want Notepad to be dumb." Mentioned in the context of Markdown support expanding in Notepad. https://www.thurrott.com/

Joanne Klein — Microsoft governance and Purview expert. Mark credits Klein as a key source for Purview insights: "I only kind of get what I know about Purview from our friend Joanne Klein."

Media

The Intrazone Podcast — A Microsoft 365 intelligent intranet podcast (2017–2025) co-hosted by Mark Kashman and Chris McNulty during their Microsoft careers, featuring expert interviews and product news across over 220 episodes. All episodes remain available. https://intrazone.libsyn.com

"More Than Code" — SharePoint 25th Anniversary Short Film — Released April 2026, this short film celebrates 25 years of SharePoint through community voices including Mark Kashman. Available at aka.ms/SPat25/MoreThanCode. https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/birthday/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWEddU_x0zI

News and Data Points

ActivTrak "2026 State of the Workplace" Report — ActivTrak's 5th annual study analyzing behavioral data from 443 million work hours across 1,111 companies and 163,638 employees. Key findings: 80% AI tool adoption (up from 53% two years prior), 92% monthly usage retention, and a "sweet spot" of 7–10% AI time yielding the highest productivity (95%), though only 3% of employees fall in that range. https://www.activtrak.com/blog/2026-state-of-the-workplace/

AI Workplace Adoption Statistics (91%, 75%) — Chris referenced a figure of 91% of organizations using at least one AI technology. Industry compilations such as Azumo's "AI in the Workplace Statistics 2026" cite this statistic, attributing it to broad survey data. The same compilation references the World Economic Forum projection that approximately 75% of companies globally will adopt AI by 2027.

Technology

Microsoft Viva Connections → SharePoint Rebrand — Microsoft announced that Viva Connections is being rebranded as the "SharePoint" app in Teams, fully leveraging SharePoint Home Sites. Viva Amplify is also returning under the SharePoint brand. https://buckleyplanet.com/2026/05/m365-community-conference-highlights-and-copilot-updates/Conference Highlights (buckleyPLANET)

Agent 365 — Microsoft centralized agent management tool (GA May 1, 2026; $15/user/month standalone or included in M365 E7). Provides governance, registration, and policy enforcement for AI agents across first-party and third-party platforms. https://buckleyplanet.com/2026/05/m365-community-conference-highlights-and-copilot-updates/

Microsoft Purview — Microsoft's unified data governance and compliance platform. Recent updates merge classic DSPM and DSPM for AI into one engine, adding AI interaction safeguards such as blocking sensitive queries and monitoring data flows through Copilot. Roberto Yglesias delivered the Purview session at the conference.

SharePoint 25th Anniversary — SharePoint was first released in 2001. Microsoft celebrated the milestone with a live event on March 2, 2026, announcing new features and community initiatives. Chris notes, "If you go back to SharePoint 2001…you have a browser where someone can upload a document for collaboration—that's an enduring pattern." https://adoption.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/birthday/

Pop Culture

"Taken" (2008 film) — Action thriller starring Liam Neeson, famous for the "I have a very particular set of skills" monologue. Referenced by Mark when introducing SharePoint Skills: "To put the joke in there that everybody hopefully is already thinking about, these are a very particular set of skills." https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0936501/

"Project Hail Mary" — 2021 sci-fi novel by Andy Weir and 2026 film adaptation (released March 20, 2026) starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The film has grossed $641.4 million worldwide. Mark recommends both the book and the film: "Book was great. Movie was great." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Hail_Mary_(film)

"Catterslug" and Other Children's Books — Mark Kashman is a recognized children's book author. Chris introduces this during the episode: "Mark is a recognized children's book author, creating works like Catterslug and many others."

"The Wizard of Oz" Reference — Mark closes the episode with a playful allusion: "Click your heels three times and say SharePoint, SharePoint, SharePoint, and I'll be there."

Events

European Collaboration Summit (ECS 2026) — May 5–7, 2026 at Confex Cologne, Germany. Europe's largest Microsoft partner event, with approximately 3,000 attendees, three keynotes, and hundreds of speakers. Mark notes he is "literally days away from hopping on a plane." https://collabsummit.eu

TechCon 365 Chicago 2026 — June 15–19, 2026 at McCormick Place, Chicago, IL. Microsoft 365, Power Platform & AI conference with 130+ sessions. Synozur, Sympraxis, and Microsoft will attend. https://techcon365.com/

TechCon 365 Seattle 2026 — August 24–28, 2026 at the Seattle Convention Center. Co-located with PWRCON & DATACON, covering Microsoft 365, Power Platform, data, and AI topics. https://www.techcon365.com/seattle

CollabDays New England 2026 — October 16, 2026 at the Microsoft Technology Center, Burlington, MA. Community-run M365 event organized by Sympraxis Consulting, offering free sessions and networking during peak New England foliage season. https://newengland.collabdays.org/

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the Microsoft 365 Community Conference

02:38 Reflections on the Intrazone Podcast

05:53 The Rise of AI in Enterprise Content Management

08:01 AI Workplace Adoption and Its Implications

11:57 Insights from the Microsoft 365 Community Conference

18:17 Skills and AI Integration in SharePoint

21:05 Integrating Copilot and Co-work

25:02 The Evolution of SharePoint Branding

28:37 Understanding Agent 365 and Its Implications

31:26 The Role of Purview in AI Governance

35:01 Celebrating 25 Years of SharePoint and Community Engagement

38:40 Mark's Pop Culture Moment

42:08 Next on Polaris

42:35 Thanks and Closing

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

Chris McNulty and Microsoft MVP Andrew Connell explore the explosive rise of "vibe coding" — AI-assisted development from natural-language prompts — and debate the real-world risks, rewards, and strategic implications for today's business and technology leaders.

Takeaways

Vibe Coding Has Gone Mainstream. AI-assisted coding is no longer experimental. A GitHub survey found 92% of U.S. developers use AI coding tools at work, and Gartner projected that 60% of new code would be AI-generated by 2026. The global market for AI code-generation platforms has reached $4.7 billion, with projections of $12.3 billion by 2027. Collins English Dictionary cemented the trend by naming "vibe coding" its 2025 Word of the Year. [secondtalent.com] [strayspark.studio] [ndtv.com]

Speed Gains Come with a Comprehension Tax. A January 2026 Anthropic randomized controlled trial of 52 junior engineers found that developers using AI code assistants scored 17% lower on comprehension tests than those coding manually — averaging 50% versus 67% on quizzes — with the largest gap appearing in debugging questions. Productivity gains did not reach statistical significance. This confirms what Andrew warns: rapid output without understanding creates fragile systems. [infoq.com]

Microsoft's Copilot Strategy Is Fragmented. Andrew contends that Microsoft is "flailing" and "shipping the org chart," with multiple disconnected Copilot products that confuse customers. A Recon Analytics study of more than 150,000 respondents (July 2025–January 2026) found Microsoft Copilot's share as paid users' primary AI tool fell from 18.8% to 11.5% — a 39% contraction — while Google Gemini climbed from 12.8% to 15.7% and ChatGPT held roughly 55.2%. When all three platforms were available, only 8% of workers chose Copilot versus 70% for ChatGPT and 18% for Gemini.[reconanalytics.com]

"Agentic Engineering" Is the Mature Alternative to Naive Vibe Coding. Andrew initially "hated" the term vibe coding but came to distinguish between undisciplined prompt-and-ship and a professional practice he calls agentic engineering, a term he credits to technologist Simon Willison. In agentic engineering, the developer still reviews AI output, plans architectures, and catches errors — using AI as a force-multiplier for experienced judgment, not a replacement for it.

Developers Are Becoming AI Orchestrators. Chris and Andrew agree that the most effective AI-era developers act like development managers: delegating tasks to specialized AI agents (ideation, UX, debugging, documentation) and then integrating and verifying results. Andrew recommends organizations build an internal Center of Excellence — a handful of people who deeply understand AI tooling and can guide the broader team.

Entry-Level Talent Still Matters — IBM Proved It. Despite predictions that AI would replace junior roles, IBM announced in February 2026 that it is tripling its entry-level hiring, including for software developers. IBM CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux stated: "We are tripling our entry-level hiring, and yes, that is for software developers and all these jobs we're being told AI can do". IBM's rationale: cutting junior talent creates future shortages of mid-level managers and senior experts, and outside hires cost more and adapt more slowly. [finance.yahoo.com]

Quality and Security Demand "Vibe Checks." A December 2025 CodeRabbit analysis found AI co-authored code contained approximately 1.7× more bugs and issues and 1.4× more critical issues than human-written code. Meanwhile, a Fastly survey of 791 professional developers found that nearly 30% of senior developers report that editing and auditing AI output offsets most of their initial time savings. Code review must become a continuous, front-of-cycle discipline, not a final checkbox. [coderabbit.ai]

Quick Quotes

Andrew Connell — Founder, Voitanos

"I think Microsoft is flailing a good bit… They seem to be reacting to what other people are doing, and there's no real cohesive story across all of their M365 Copilot story."

"The one fear that I have with this is what is it going to do to the entry-level jobs? I have a very significant concern."

"I don't disagree too much with the statements coming out of the senior people at Anthropic that the title 'software engineer' could be gone by the end of 2026, probably by 2027. As much as I'm using it, I can see that."

"Right now the [Microsoft] plan just feels very reactionary. And that's frustrating to me."

Chris McNulty — Polaris Host

"Client after client we run into — they have a negative impression of Copilot because their belief is that the entirety of Copilot is the free little thing in the corner of the Edge browser."

"What you get is still proportional to the attention you put into it." — Chris McNulty, on AI-generated prototypes versus production-ready software

"Being successful with vibe coding or agentic AI software engineering… helps even more if you've come from a development manager background — I personally use different AI agents for different things."

References

· Andrej Karpathy's "Vibe Coding" Coinage (February 2025) — OpenAI co-founder and former head of AI at Tesla, Andrej Karpathy, tweeted about "a new way of programming where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists." This sparked a global conversation about AI-driven development. Covered in depth by https://www.coderabbit.ai/blog/a-semantic-history-how-the-term-vibe-coding-went-from-a-tweet-to-prodCodeRabbit: "A Semantic History of Vibe Coding".

· Reid Hoffman's LinkedIn Clone Experiment (April 2025) — LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman asked Replit's AI agent to "clone LinkedIn" using a single prompt. The result was a surprisingly functional prototype. Hoffman wrote: "It's a powerful reminder: with the right framing, today's AI tools can turn a single idea into working software." Reported by https://www.ndtv.com/feature/linkedin-co-founder-asked-ai-to-clone-his-company-the-result-surprised-him-8105339NDTV.

· Collins English Dictionary — "Vibe Coding" Named 2025 Word of the Year — In November 2025, Collins crowned "vibe coding" as its Word of the Year, beating "clanker," "biohacking," and "aura farming." Managing Director Alex Beecroft said the term "perfectly captures how language is evolving alongside technology." Reported by https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/collins-dictionary-picks-vibe-coding-as-word-of-the-year-2025-9585221 and https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/vibe-coding-clanker-word-of-the-year-collins-5HjdGQy_2/.

· GitHub Developer Survey — 92% of U.S. Developers Using AI Tools — A GitHub survey of 500 U.S.-based developers at companies with 1,000+ employees found 92% were using AI-powered coding tools at work. Reported by https://venturebeat.com/programming-development/92-of-us-based-developers-already-using-ai-powered-coding-tools-at-work-github/VentureBeat and aggregated in https://www.secondtalent.com/resources/vibe-coding-statistics/Second Talent's Vibe Coding Statistics 2026.

· Gartner Forecast — 60% of New Code AI-Generated by 2026 — Gartner predicted that 60% of newly created code would be AI-generated by 2026, a figure now largely confirmed through adoption data. Referenced in https://www.strayspark.studio/blog/60-percent-ai-generated-code-2026-game-development-quality.

· $4.7 Billion Vibe Coding Market — The global market for vibe coding platforms reached $4.7 billion, projected to hit $12.3 billion by 2027. 87% of Fortune 500 companies have adopted at least one vibe coding platform, and 21% of Y Combinator Winter 2025 startups had codebases that were 91% AI-generated. Source: https://www.secondtalent.com/resources/vibe-coding-statistics/.

· Anthropic Randomized Controlled Trial — AI Coding and Skill Formation (January 2026) — Anthropic published a peer-reviewed study of 52 junior engineers showing developers using AI code assistants scored 17% lower on comprehension tests (averaging 50% vs. 67% for manual coders). The AI group finished tasks approximately two minutes faster, but the difference was not statistically significant. Developers who used AI only for conceptual questions scored 65%+, while those who delegated code generation scored below 40%. Published January 29, 2026. Source: https://www.anthropic.comAnthropic; reported by https://www.infoq.com/news/2026/02/ai-coding-skill-formation/.

· Recon Analytics / Wall Street Journal — Copilot vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini Study (February 2026) — A Recon Analytics study of more than 150,000 U.S. paid AI subscribers (July 2025–January 2026) found Copilot's primary-platform share fell from 18.8% to 11.5% while Gemini rose from 12.8% to 15.7% and ChatGPT held at ~55.2%. Among workers with access to all three, only 8% chose Copilot. Covered by Wall Street Journal reporter Sebastian Herrera. Source: https://www.reconanalytics.com/ai-choice-2026-why-licenses-dont-equal-adoption/.

· IBM Triples Entry-Level Hiring (February 2026) — IBM announced it is tripling entry-level hiring in the U.S., including for software developers. CHRO Nickle LaMoreaux stated companies that "doubled down on entry-level hiring in this environment" will be the most successful in three to five years. IBM plans approximately 12,000 new entry-level positions over 12 months. Originally reported by Fortune; available via https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ibm-tripling-number-gen-z-164332214.html.

· CodeRabbit Analysis — AI vs. Human Code Quality (December 2025) — An analysis of 470 open-source GitHub pull requests found AI co-authored code contained approximately 1.7× more bugs and issues and 1.4× more critical issues than human-written code. A separate Fastly survey of 791 professional developers found nearly 30% of senior devs report editing AI output offsets most of their time savings. Source: https://www.coderabbit.ai/blog/a-semantic-history-how-the-term-vibe-coding-went-from-a-tweet-to-prodCodeRabbit Blog.

· Simon Willison and "Agentic Engineering" — British technologist Simon Willison articulated the distinction between naive vibe coding and agentic engineering, defining the latter as prompt-driven development with full human oversight, review, and testing. Referenced by Andrew Connell in the episode.

· NASA Artemis II Mission (April 2026) — NASA's Artemis II crew launched April 1, 2026, from Kennedy Space Center and splashed down April 10, 2026, completing a nearly 10-day lunar flyby — the first crewed mission to the Moon in over 50 years. The crew traveled 694,481 miles total. Andrew discussed the mission's cultural impact and the 4K Earthrise imagery that resulted. Source: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-record-setting-artemis-ii-moonfarers-back-to-earth/.

· Guest Links: https://www.voitanos.io | https://www.andrewconnell.com | https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewconnell

· Podcast: Andrew co-hosts the Code. Deploy. Go Live. podcast with fellow Microsoft MVP Julie Turner.

Events

M365 Community Conference | April 21-23 at the Loews Saphire Falls in Orlando Florida

AI+IM Summit | April 28-30 Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD

TechCon 365 Chicago | June 15-19 McCormack Place I Chicago IL

keywords

AI, vibe coding, software development, Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Claude, enterprise AI, AI tools, developer productivity, future of AI

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Andrew Connell

05:06 Andrew's Journey into SharePoint Development

06:44 Evolution of SharePoint and Microsoft Ecosystem

09:46 Microsoft's AI Challenges and Copilot Insights

19:08 Understanding Vibe Coding and Its Implications

27:00 The Importance of SEO in Content Creation

30:17 Leveraging AI for Content Optimization

35:00 Vibe Coding vs. Agentic Engineering

37:04 The Impact of AI on Software Development

41:40 Cultural Reflections and Personal Insights

44:57 Upcoming Events in 2026

45:45 Innovations in AI-Assisted Software Development

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

In this episode of Polaris, we explore Microsoft's game-changing March 2026 announcements – including the Microsoft 365 E7 "Frontier Suite," Agent 365 for AI governance, and the new Copilot Cowork capability – and unpack what these innovations mean for business and technology leaders navigating the AI-powered future.

Key Takeaways

• Microsoft 365 E7 ("Frontier Suite"): Microsoft introduced Microsoft 365 E7, the first new top-tier enterprise plan since 2015. Branded the Frontier Suite, E7 bundles all of E5 with Microsoft 365 Copilot, the new Agent 365 platform, the full Entra ID identity suite, and advanced security (Defender, Intune, Purview). This $99/user/month plan (GA May 1, 2026) signals that AI capabilities and enterprise trust are now inseparable – AI and security/governance come as one package.
• Agent 365 – Tackling "Agent Sprawl": Agent 365 is Microsoft's response to uncontrolled AI "agent sprawl," the proliferation of chatbots and Copilots across organizations. It provides a single control plane for all AI agents (including third-party bots), giving each agent a unique Entra ID and allowing IT to observe, govern, permission, audit, and if needed, shut down agents. CIOs and CISOs get the ability to say "yes" to AI innovation without losing control, as Agent 365 ensures compliance with security and data policies for every bot. Agent 365 goes generally available May 1, priced at $15/user (and is included in E7).
• Copilot "Cowork" – The Next Evolution of AI at Work: Microsoft announced Copilot Cowork, a new capability transforming Copilot from a one-off Q&A assistant into a persistent digital coworker that can engage in long-running, multi-step collaboration across documents, apps, and time. Instead of just answering a single prompt, Copilot with Cowork can carry context over multiple interactions and proactively check in as tasks progress. Copilot Cowork is in private preview (via Microsoft's Frontier program) – not broadly available yet – but it offers a glimpse into how AI will work alongside people continuously, not just reactively. Microsoft also disclosed that Copilot is now model-diverse, dynamically choosing between OpenAI's GPT and Anthropic's Claude models depending on the task, giving organizations greater resilience and flexibility.
• "Intelligence + Trust" – Microsoft's Strategy Shift: A core theme is that AI at scale demands equal investment in security, identity, and compliance. Microsoft is bundling AI innovations with governance tools by design. For example, E7's introduction pairs M365 Copilot and Agent 365 together, and new governance features are rolling out: Purview Data Loss Prevention now covers Copilot prompts and outputs, sensitivity labels apply to content generated in tools like Viva Engage, and upcoming AI security posture enhancements are in preview. Microsoft's clear message: "Security is not a luxury when it comes to AI" – future enterprise AI solutions must bake in compliance and trust from the ground up.
• Practical Updates and "Frontier" Readiness: Alongside the big announcements, Microsoft delivered smaller but significant updates to improve day-to-day productivity and readiness for this AI-driven era. Microsoft Teams Copilot's Intelligent Recap can now summarize themes across multiple meetings – threading decisions over time, not just per meeting. Copilot can also condense long Teams chat threads into tables or key insights, a boon for catching up on busy channels. Viva Engage (Yammer) received a revamped, more engaging article publishing experience, ensuring employee communications remain accessible and visually rich. On the content management side, SharePoint's 25th anniversary came with the introduction of "SharePoint skills" – essentially custom instructions or templates (written in Markdown) that organizations can use to guide Copilot on preferred styles or procedures for common tasks. This lets companies tailor AI outputs to their standards without coding. All these updates underscore the trend that AI is becoming a first-class enterprise workload, integrated deeply into how work gets done – and organizations should prepare both their tech stacks and their people for that reality.

Promotional Quotes (Chris McNulty):

• "AI capability and enterprise trust are no longer separable." – Chris emphasizes that advanced AI features must go hand-in-hand with security and governance.
• "Agent 365 gives CIOs and CISOs the ability to say yes to AI innovation without losing control." – Highlighting Microsoft's solution for managing the new "Wild West" of proliferating AI agents in the enterprise.
• "Security is not a luxury when it comes to AI." – A pointed reminder that robust security and compliance are prerequisites (not optional add-ons) to any AI deployment at scale.
• "AI is now a first-class enterprise workload." – Signaling that AI isn't experimental anymore – it's becoming as mission-critical as email or databases in modern business.

References

• OpenAI's GPT – OpenAI's groundbreaking series of large language models that sparked the generative AI revolution (e.g., https://openai.comopenai.com).
• ChatGPT – OpenAI's widely-used conversational AI assistant, which popularized AI chat for everyday tasks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT).
• Google "Gems" (AI Workspace assistants) – Google's Gemini Gems, customizable AI experts introduced into Google Workspace in 2025 (https://mashable.com/article/google-workspace-gems-ai)
• Salesforce "Agentforce" & Super Bowl Ad – Salesforce's digital agent platform Agentforce was promoted in a whimsical Super Bowl 2025 campaign featuring actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson (https://dailycommercials.com/salesforces-super-bowl-lix-2025-ad-mcconaughey-and-harrelson/DailyCommercials, Feb 10 2025).
• "Shadow IT" – Term for unauthorized or un-managed IT systems and apps used inside organizations. Agent sprawl is described as the AI equivalent of shadow IT (
• IDC AI Agent Forecast – Industry analyst IDC predicts 1.3 billion AI agents will be in circulation by 2028, reflecting the explosive growth of autonomous agents (https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/03/09/introducing-the-first-frontier-suite-built-on-intelligence-trust/ Official Blog, Mar 9 2026).
• Microsoft 365 E7 Announcement – "Frontier Suite" top-tier M365 plan announced Mar 9 2026, bundling E5 + Copilot + Agent 365 + Entra + advanced security (https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/03/09/introducing-the-first-frontier-suite-built-on-intelligence-trust/ Blog by Judson Althoff).
• Microsoft Agent 365 – New AI agent management and governance platform (announced Mar 2026, GA May 1 2026) that addresses AI oversight
• Microsoft "Copilot Cowork" Preview – The next evolution of Microsoft 365 Copilot, enabling long-running collaborative AI assistance (revealed Mar 2026 as part of "Wave 3" Copilot updates)
• SharePoint's 25th Anniversary & AI Skills – In March 2026, Microsoft celebrated 25 years of SharePoint and introduced custom "SharePoint AI skills" (markdown-based prompts to guide Copilot's behavior for org-specific tasks) (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/03/02/sharepoint-at-25-how-microsoft-is-putting-knowledge-to-work-in-the-ai-era/ 365 Blog by Jeff Teper).
• "Frontier Firm" Concept – A term from Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index, describing organizations that fully embrace AI and hybrid human–agent teams. These early Frontier Firms demonstrate significantly higher productivity and optimism.
• March Madness & Spring Training – Pop culture references to the NCAA basketball tournament and MLB baseball preseason, respectively, which were humorously noted but not the focus of this March 2026 tech episode
• M365 Community Conference 2026 – A major Microsoft 365 community event (April 21–23, 2026, Orlando, FL) mentioned during the episode's events roundup (
• AI+IM (AI & Information Management) Summit 2026 – Industry conference by AIIM (Association for Intelligent Information Management), April 28–30, 2026 in Baltimore, MD
• TechCon 365 Chicago 2026 – Microsoft 365 and Power Platform conference scheduled for June 15–19, 2026 at McCormick Place, Chicago

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Chapters

0:00 Introduction to Microsoft AI Innovations

1:37 News and Data Points

3:29 Microsoft 365 E7

11:51 Events

12:38 Personal Reflection

14:23 Next On Polaris

14:54 Closing

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

The Synozur 2026 AI Report lands with a clear verdict: the global AI market is on a path to $944 billion by 2030 — but most organizations are stuck in the middle, scoring just 260 out of 500 on AI maturity, while a small group of leaders pull decisively ahead.

Takeaways

• The AI market is enormous — and the range of estimates tells you everything. Global AI spend in 2026 is projected anywhere from $244 billion to $2 trillion, depending on what you count. Synozur's weighted average: $453 billion this year, growing to $944 billion by 2030.
• Most organizations are stuck in the middle. Across 125+ companies assessed using Synozur's AI Maturity Model, the average score is 260 out of 500 — beyond experimentation, but far from scaled. The gap between leaders and laggards spans more than 250 points.
• Small firms and professional services are winning. Agile, knowledge-centric organizations score in the 300–330 range. Mid-market companies (50–999 employees) trail at 171–225 — a "squeezed middle" that represents the biggest opportunity for intervention.
• Culture and use-case integration are the weakest links. These are the two dimensions most critical to scaling AI beyond a pilot — and they consistently score the lowest across every region and sector assessed.
• The pilot-to-production gap is real and costly. Per Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise (released at Davos), only 25% of companies have moved 40% or more of their AI pilots into production. AI maturity isn't a technology problem — it's a culture and execution problem.
• Three predictions for 2026: Microsoft launches its own first-party LLM by June; a new "Agent Boss" platform category emerges to help business users manage multiple AI agents in one place; and professional associations — not governments — set the first meaningful AI standards in the U.S.
• AI maturity is now a financial differentiator. Research from the Quantum Institute analyzed 847 publicly traded companies and found AI-mature organizations now achieve operating margins 47% higher than early-stage peers — up from 21% just 18 months ago.

Sound Bites:

"The AI market is tremendous. The gap between leaders and everyone else? Even bigger."

"A trillion dollars is coming. The question is: who's going to capture it?"

"On average, organizations score 260 out of 500. They've moved beyond experimentation — but they're nowhere near scaled. The spread is the real story."

"If 2025 was about experimentation, 2026 will be about consolidation and governance. Knowledge is power."

"Most agent management today is cut and paste. If you're jumping between Copilot, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Replit, and NotebookLM — that's a messy process. Something has to change."

"Professional associations need to fill the regulatory gap. We expect legal, accounting, and healthcare associations to lead well before Washington does."

References

Research & Reports

Deloitte AI Institute, State of AI in the Enterprise 2026: The Untapped Edge — released at Davos, January 21, 2026. Key finding: only 25% of companies have moved 40% or more of AI pilots into production; 34% report using AI to "deeply transform" their business. Read the report

McKinsey & Company, The State of AI in 2025: Agents, Innovation, and Transformation — finds nearly 88% of organizations use AI, but most remain in early scaling stages. Read the report

The Quantum Institute, The AI Maturity Gap: Why Enterprise Transformation Is Accelerating in 2026 — analysis of 847 publicly traded companies shows AI-mature organizations achieve operating margins 47% higher than peers; revenue growth 2.3x faster. Published March 17, 2026. Read the research

Synozur, 2026 AI Report: The Market Is Big, the Gap Is Bigger — the full report referenced in this episode. Synozur Insights blog

Download your copy at https://aka.synozur.com/AI26

Companies & Platforms Referenced

ClearPeople — Synozur submitted AI market predictions to ClearPeople CEO Katya Linossi, a recurring Polaris collaborator, for the 2025 Knowledge & AI Market predictions project.

Orion by Synozur — AI-powered digital maturity assessment platform; hosts the free AI Maturity Model. Take the free assessment at https://aka.synozur.com/aimm

Frameworks & Protocols

MCP (Model Control Protocol) — A unified protocol for connecting content and data sources to AI agents, cited as a 2025 Synozur prediction that came true.

A2A (Agent-to-Agent Protocol) — A protocol enabling AI agents to communicate with each other; foundation for the predicted "OmniAgent" platform category.

CMMI Framework — Capability Maturity Model Integration; the structural basis for Synozur's 100–500 point AI Maturity Model.

Events

M365 Community Conference | April 21-23 at the Loews Sapphire Falls in Orlando Florida

AI+IM Summit | April 28-30 Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD

TechCon 365 Chicago | June 15-19 McCormack Place I Chicago IL

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 The State of AI in 2026 02:19 News and Data Points 04:18 2026 AI Market 05:24 AI Maturity Research 07:03 2026 AI Predictions 12:06 Events 13:15 Next On Polaris 13:52 Closing

Polaris is a production of Synozur – the transformation company. Synozur reimagines business for our clients, navigating the complexities of transformation and strategy with ease.

Glenn Poulos, co-founder of Gap Wireless and author of Never Sit in the Lobby, shares how he built and sold multiple businesses across three decades, reveals why face-to-face relationships still matter in the AI age, and explains how mid-market companies can leverage technology without losing their human touch.

Takeaways

Fear of poverty drives action more than fear of failure – Glenn's entrepreneurial journey started when his government boss told him he'd be better in sales, and he took the leap despite uncertainty.

Every good business starts with business you didn't deserve to get – The foundation of a startup often comes from an unexpected opportunity that becomes the kernel for growth.

Timing matters, but so does preparation – Gap Wireless sold in early 2022 just before the telecom market crashed in 2023, demonstrating that "luck is the residue of design."

Small daily improvements compound over time – Showing up consistently and making incremental progress is more valuable than searching for a magic bullet.

Process comes before people in organizational structure – Define what your business needs first, then find the right people to fill those roles rather than creating roles around existing team members.

AI is a force multiplier, not a replacement for human connection – While AI can speed up proposal generation, contract evaluation, and competitive analysis, major deals still require face-to-face sales calls.

Strategy must be linked to metrics and visible accountability – Weekly check-ins with clear dashboards help teams stay aligned and make strategy actionable rather than an annual exercise.

Sound Bites

On Entrepreneurship and Risk:

"I'm more motivated by a fear of being poor than I am by a fear of failure."

On Starting a Business:

"Every good business starts with a piece of business that you didn't deserve to get. It would be the kernel of something to build upon."

On Daily Discipline:

"What really moves the needle is when you show up every day...making incremental, minute little improvements in the business, they add up over time."

On AI and Authenticity:

"When SAP wins a project, their integrators were on site. They did not do it virtually...anything beyond that, trust me, they're making a sales call."

References

Glenn Poulos

• Personal Website: https://glennpoulos.com/
• LinkedIn: Connect with Glenn Poulos on https://www.linkedin.com/in/glennpoulos
• Book: Never Sit in the Lobby: 57 Winning Sales Factors to Grow a Business and Build a Career Selling available on Amazon

Companies Mentioned

• NWS Canada (formerly Gap Wireless) – VP and General Manager
• Gap Wireless Inc. – Co-founded in 2007, acquired by Network Wireless Solutions in February 2022
• SAP – Referenced as example of in-person sales strategy
• Netsuite – Referenced for remote sales approach

Frameworks and Systems

• EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) – Older business management framework implemented at Gap Wireless in 2019
• Company Operating System (COS) – Improved management framework introduced 2023 by Synozur

Data Points

• 65% of organizations now use Gen AI in at least one critical business function, more than double from a year prior
• 98% of people have a cell phone globally
• Four out of five people in the world own a mobile phone

Music and Cultural References

• Supertramp – 1970s British progressive rock band
• The Police – Late 1970s rock band
• Balu Brigada– New Zealand alt-pop duo, song "Backseat" from debut album Portal (2025)
• Journey – Referenced as example of generational music preferences

Events

The New AI Frontier: Market Shifts, Maturity Gaps, and How to Lead with Copilot | March 17 (Teams Webinar)

AI‑Driven GTM: How to Assess, Rebuild, and Accelerate Your 2026 Plans | March 23 (Teams Webinar)

M365 Community Conference | April 21-23 at the Loews Saphire Falls in Orlando Florida

AI+IM Summit | April 28-30 Hyatt Regency Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD

Production

Polaris is produced with help from Riverside.fm. Our theme song, "Alternative Dream" is provided courtesy of Adobe. Additional music and sound provided by IndieGuy Records. Graphic design by Josh Brantley.

Polaris is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Thanks.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Glenn Poulos

01:24 News and Data Points

02:24 Glenn Poulos Interview

03:04 From Government to Entrepreneurship

07:55 Navigating Business Growth and Exits

12:34 The Launch of 'Never Sit in the Lobby'

16:55 AI as a Force Multiplier in Business

21:21 Lessons from Recent Ventures

25:28 Leadership Attributes and the EOS System

30:56 Navigating Board Dynamics

31:59 The Impact of AI on Employment

34:10 Personal Passions: DJing and Dogs

37:23 Upcoming Events in 2026

38:20 AI Insights and Predictions

38:32 Next on Polaris

38:47 Closing Thoughts and Acknowledgments