SHIFT

In all the noise about AI agents it’s easy to miss a fundamental change that’s taking place. For these agents to be effective, people have to feel safe delegating things to them. When we do? How we use this tech starts to feel less like a tool and more like real collaboration. 

This week, we explore agentic powered legal work in the latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:  

Thomson Reuters Chief Product Officer David Wong

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

What would you say if someone offered you a taste of a salmon filet that doesn’t contain fish?  

The protein content, carbs, and even the omega 3s are basically the same, but what it doesn’t contain are things like microplastics and mercury. 

Join us for a factory tour of a startup called New School Foods for a peek at the next-generation of plant-based foods.

We Meet:  

New School Foods CEO Chris Bryson

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

We explore how generative AI is revolutionizing game development at Roblox, in the latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:  

Kiran Bhat, Senior Director of Engineering at Roblox

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

This is the final installment of a special series documenting the race to build superintelligent AI systems. The Race to Superintelligence is a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking, mystifying and world-changing potential of the next machine age. 

Support for this program comes from The Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network, supporting and bringing together journalists reporting on AI, and with AI, globally.

Credits:

The Race to Superintelligence is created and produced by Jennifer Strong, with Emma Cillekens, Daniela Hernandez, and Meg Marco. We had additional research and production assistance from Sonya Gurwitt, Niamh McAuliffe, Anthony Green and Luke Robert Mason. The show is mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski.

The U.S. trade war is expected to add billions of dollars to things like building AI data centers, and for companies trying to figure out and manage their exposure, it’s never been a more complicated task. 

But what if we could build a map that could show us how supply chains, tariffs and trade policy are playing out in real time?

We Meet:  

Evan Smith, CEO Altana

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

Developing and scaling AI systems brings new security challenges, and companies are scrambling to figure out just how to handle some of the more pressing ones.

I was recently joined on stage by co-founders from two Canadian unicorns, Cohere and Tailscale, to dig into these challenges at Web Summit Vancouver.

We Meet:  

Avery Pennarun, Co-founder & CEO, Tailscale                 

Ivan Zhang, Co-founder, Cohere

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

What if instead of software coaching you on how to use it–what buttons to push and what file menus to open–the software could just use itself, once it knew what you wanted? 

We explore Intuit's new AI agents in the latest installment of our oral history project.

We Meet:  

Alex Balazs, CTO of Intuit

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

This is part two of a special series documenting the race to build superintelligent AI systems.

The Race to Superintelligence is a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of artificial intelligence. Join us as we explore the groundbreaking, mystifying and world-changing potential of the next machine age. 

Support for this program comes from The Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network, supporting and bringing together journalists reporting on AI, and with AI, globally.

Credits:

The Race to Superintelligence is created and produced by Jennifer Strong, with Emma Cillekens, Daniela Hernandez, and Meg Marco. We had additional research and production assistance from Sonya Gurwitt, Niamh McAuliffe, Anthony Green and Luke Robert Mason. The show is mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski.

We join the MIT community in New York for an event focused on AI, innovation, and the evolving role of tech in society. 

SandboxAQ is a Google spinout that combines AI Large Quantitative Models and deep expertise in physics, biology, and chemistry in order to work on a wide range of hard problems, such as the prototyping of new materials and chemicals for manufacturing. Andrew McLaughlin is the company’s chief operating officer. We sat down to chat after he made the case to the room that the future of AI may not be large language models, but quantitative.

We Meet:  

Andrew McLaughlin, COO of Sandbox AQ

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

Most geospatial data is gathered by satellites and cameras attached to planes, but a new decentralized network is helping amateur drone pilots capture and contribute ultra high resolution data. 

In this week's show, we go fly a drone and learn how that data is helping power next generation apps for things like disaster response.

We Meet:  

Alec Wilson, COO Spexi

Bill Lakeland, CEO Spexi

Credits:

This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.