Provoke.fm Media

What happens when the software you use starts acting independently? Harry Glorikian calls this the invisible interface, and in this episode he unpacks the implications of unseen agency and autonomy in the future workforce. Topics: the personal interface layer;  the memory war;  who owns the context that makes a personal interface valuable; proofseconds;  the four trust signals that determine whether human users are willing to delegate to machines; how occupational dimensionality determines whether an employer will automate an entire job or just parts of it. 

Financial institutions (FIs) are currently navigating a “perfect storm” of technological, market, and consumer shifts. They face a multi-front war: constant economic and regulatory pressure, soaring consumer expectations for 24/7 personalization, and the existential threat of megabanks with massive tech budgets.

To survive and thrive, FIs must move beyond “pilot purgatory”—where 95% of generic AI pilots fail—and adopt a banking-specific AI workforce,an AI-powered intelligence layer for modern banking.

In this episode of Breaking Banks host Jason Henrichs is joined by Dan Michaeli, CEO & Co-Founder of Glia, a digital customer service and banking AI platform serving over 700 FIs, and Madeline Fredin, SVP of Growth & AI Transformation at Alloy Labs to explore how a self-learning institutional brain unifies data across the organization. By starting with the contact center—the richest source of unstructured interaction data—banks can build a foundation that shifts their entire operation from reactive service to proactive growth and agentic workflows.

This week when two Australian futurists walk into a pub in London…well, almost!

This week host Brett King and fellow Aussie futurist Andrew Grill sit down for a discussion on what the future means. This is a mashup of The Futurists and the Digitally Curious podcast which Andrew hosts. The discussion that ensues is a wide-ranging debate on the future, how quickly and impactful AI will hit, and how we will adapt to rapid, unrelenting change.

In this episode, Paolo Sironi speaks with Selim Yazıci and Michael Salmony, authors of “Tokenization of Money; from fiat currencies to stable coins”. They deliver a comprehensive, multi-perspective analysis of tokenised money by assembling leading insights from central banks, commercial banks, fintechs, academics, regulators, platform builders and service providers across all major geographies in a rare combination of academic rigour and highly practical, immediately applicable guidance for financial professionals. Selim and Michael explore why a new form of money is needed and examines the economics of tokenisation from tokenised deposits and securities to both liquid and illiquid instruments, transforming not only payments but the broader asset economy. In the conversaton, they provide a precise comparison of the different types of tokenised money: CBDCs in all their forms, commercial bank deposit tokens, and stablecoins, together with their implications for monetary stability. Will  tokenised money displace traditional financial infrastructure? What are the geopolitical risks of digital monetary fragmentation? Have stablecoins strayed from their original decentralised principles? All key questions are discussed as wholesale tokenised corridors take shape, corporate treasurers adopt stablecoins for liquidity, and regulatory frameworks crystallise around the word.

In a media partnership with the 3i Africa Summit, and supported by CXO Conversations, Breaking Banks Africa brings you a special live episode from the heart of Accra. Host Matteo Rizzi sits down with two leading voices shaping Africa’s talent and innovation future: Adewale Yusuf of AltSchool Africa, and Rosy Fynn of the Mastercard Foundation.

Together, they explore how AI is reshaping education, why Africa must leapfrog traditional systems, and how skills development and entrepreneurship can unlock large-scale youth employment. From digital learning to scalable work opportunities, this episode unpacks the systems needed to turn Africa’s demographic potential into real economic power.

In this episode, Madeline Fredin, Vice President of Partnership Strategy for Alloy Labs, explores how product-led growth is transforming community banking and fintech, and why delivering exceptional customer experiences has become a critical competitive advantage. The conversation dives into how AI is reshaping productivity, operational scale, and innovation across financial services. From emerging fintech strategies to the future of community banking, this episode offers an insightful look at how financial institutions can adapt, grow, and stay relevant in an increasingly AI-driven world.

Wayfound.AI is one of the most exciting new ventures in Silicon Valley. CEO Tatyana Mamut joins the Futurists to share her vision of the agentic company of the future, where AI agents supervise a swarm of  workforce comprised of subordinate agents, on behalf of human managers who cannot work 24×7. As a startup venture, Wayfound is a novel experiment in running a business almost entirely with an agentic workforce and just a handful of human employees. It’s the ultimate “eat your own dog food” approach to building a product. Matmut brings a unique perspective to software product leadership as an economic anthropologist. She shares those views here. Anyone curious about the workforce of the future will find this episode fascinating. 

Kiah Haslett walked into our Hot Takes session at the Alloy Labs annual member meeting with a thesis she’d been sitting on, and it’s a good one: in a lighter-touch regulatory environment, the prisoner’s dilemma rewards whoever moves first. The strategically correct move, she argues, might also be the morally bankrupt one. And she’s not sure that changes the math.

Dara Tarkowski — who sees the grand jury subpoenas before anyone else does — pushed back. Not on the logic, but on the premise. The statutes didn’t go anywhere. The switch can still be flipped.

And underneath both arguments is the question we’d been wrestling with the day before: if most banks only have a debt mindset — protect the downside, don’t lose, get your principal back — what are they leaving on the table? And what does it actually cost them to keep waiting for clarity that isn’t coming?

Joining Jason Henrichs are Kiah Haslett (Fintech Takes Banking), Dara Tarkowski (Much Shelist, P.C.), and Rick Geloff (Bank of North Dakota).

This week Captain Scott Kelly returns to the podcast with Brett King to talk Artemis II and NASA’s announcement of its intention to put a permanent base on the moon. Capt Kelly piloted and commanded shuttle missions before spending an entire year as commander of the International Space Station. We delve into the challenges for a lunar base, the similarities between the ISS and a base on the moon, and how the Orion capsule and lunar hardware differ from the shuttle and other spacecraft that Kelly piloted. The race is on between China and the US to set foot back on the moon.

This week the three hosts Rob, Ross and Brett are back in the studio debating the likely turning point in Geopolitical history from the Iran War, the resultant energy crisis, combined with the emerging demand for energy and compute based on AI. The world is irreversibally changing and The Futurists bring their unique insights and grasp on superforecasting to the momentum for what is coming.