Techzine TV podcast

Techzine Talks on Tour is back after the holidays with a new episode. This one is about how to make sure data centers in the AI age. We attended the Vertiv: Driving Innovation event recently and talked about the implications of AI workloads on how to power data centers. 

Data centers play a vital role in the development and the deployment of AI. Most discussions about this topic focus on the IT side of things, but there's also a different side to this story. How do you make sure AI gets the power it wants and needs? We sat down with Arturo de Filippi, Offering Director Global Large Power at Vertiv to talk about all things power and AI. 

This latest episode of Techzine Talks on Tour focuses on the evolving demands of powering data centers in the age of AI. We talk about the need for dynamic power solutions with De Filippi, but also about the changing role of UPS systems in data centers. They have become much more than just a fallback when something goes wrong. 

We touch on other subjects too, like the integration of renewable energy sources into future infrastructure. Another topic we discuss is the densification of power systems, that has to keep up with the densification of IT systems. 

All in all, there's a lot more to powering data centers in the age of AI than you might think at first. Listen to this conversation to learn more about that.

In this episode, we explore the role of AI agents and their transformative potential in customer service and sales. At the AgentForce World Tour in Amsterdam, we spoke with Susan Emerson, Senior Vice President of AI at Salesforce. She shared insights on how AI agents can enhance customer service operations while also helping sales teams improve their skills and performance.

Learn how global leaders, such as Wiley, are leveraging AI agents to turn routine customer interactions into seamless, personalized experiences. Discover the cutting-edge integration of voice AI technology, set to launch early next year, which promises to elevate digital interactions by enabling voice-activated services. Voice technology can also be a powerful tool for training and refining the skills of sales teams, helping them communicate more effectively and close deals faster. Additionally, AI agents can initiate sales conversations with cold leads, nurturing them into hot prospects before seamlessly handing them off to human sales representatives.

AI is paving the way for a more personalized, proactive, and efficient approach to customer engagement and sales strategies. Beyond enhancing day-to-day operations, AI offers advanced capabilities such as predictive analytics and competitive intelligence, empowering sales teams to make smarter decisions and close deals more effectively. AI can also automate and optimize key tasks traditionally handled by sales managers, resulting in better team performance and deeper insights into areas for improvement.

It is important to recognize that AI agents are not replacements for people. Instead, they serve as powerful assistants that help salespeople and customer service representatives perform their roles more efficiently and effectively.

We recently attended the Ubuntu Summit, where Canonical showcased all of the innovation and other developments around Ubuntu. Open source in general and Ubuntu in particular have played and continue to play a vital role in the development of AI and ML. Learn all about this relationship in the latest episode of Techzine Talks on Tour.

We sit down during the Ubuntu Summit with Andreea Munteanu, AI/ML & MLOps Product Manager at Canonical. She has a data science background, which gives her a different perspective on AI than more technology oriented people. During her time as a data scientist, she "spent more time on tinkering with the tooling rather than building models". That's not what you want as a data scientist, but it is something that needs to be solved at least partly at the product level. That's why she got into product marketing at Canonical. 

With this background and objective in mind, we have a very broad ranging conversation with Munteanu. Obviously, part of it is on Canonical's role in all of this, its 20-year history and its relevance for AI and ML development. Ubuntu plays a foundational role in various environments (desktop, server, edge), which makes its impact on AI (and the other way around) quite significant. 

Besides diving into Ubuntu's role in the AI discussion, both in the past, present and the future, we also talk about the importance of optimizing existing infrastructure for AI projects. Especially MLOps has Munteanu's full attention. In addition, we discuss the security concerns associated with AI and data management, and the future of the relationship between AI and open source. 
 
In our opinion, the conversation we had with Munteanu reflects the comprehensive discussion around AI, ML in general, with a specific focus on the role of open source, Ubuntu and Canonical in these fields. We hope you agree. Listen to the new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour now!

Sovereign clouds have been all the rage over the past years, especially in Europe. Public cloud providers and vendors focusing on private clouds alike talk about it a lot. One of the major players when it comes to private clouds, VMware also chimes in. During VMware Explore Europe we sat down with Rajeev Bhardwaj, who heads VMware's CSP business, to hear more about it. What makes it different and interesting for companies to go for this VCF-based sovereign cloud option? 
 
When it comes to sovereign clouds, it can get quite confusing very quickly. If all kinds of players on the market claim to have the perfect solution, this raises several questions. One fundamental question is what a sovereign cloud actually is. There are no real standards for it, but there are some general tenets. Think of things like local data residency, jurisdictional control, and local ownership. These form the backbone of sovereign clouds. We dive into the complexities of jurisdictional nuances. We also discuss whether we need standardized guidelines from entities like the European Commission.

From a VMware perspective, VMware Cloud Foundation plays an important role in the sovereign cloud discussion. The idea behind this cloud stack is that everything that has to do with sovereign clouds can be integrated into it from the ground up. Rajeev and with him VMware see the company playing a pivotal role in the sovereign cloud discussion. 

Whether VMware will be and remain a major driver of the sovereign cloud remains to be seen of course. That depends on many factors. However, the concept of sovereign cloud does match Broadcom CEO Hock Tan's often-quoted statement that the future of cloud is private very well. Sovereign clouds and private clouds will share many characteristics. Especially when you add Private AI into the mix (another key target for VMware), it could very well be a big part of VMware's future.  

For this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we sat down with Patrick Smith, Field CTO EMEA at Pure Storage. Storage continues to evolve in a world where AI is the talk of the town. What exactly is the role of storage in the modern tech landscape? And how does Pure want to contribute to this? Find out now and listen to this brand new episode.

Storage may not be as important for AI workloads as compute or networking is, calling it a commodity doesn't do it justice either. Patrick sheds some light on this misconception that people may still have. He draws on insights from his discussions with customers, and explains why storage plays a crucial role for enterprises. Not only when it comes to AI, but also for building cyber resilience against threats like ransomware. 

The biggest part of the discussion is dedicated to the role storage plays in AI. From this perspective, Patrick dives into how solutions like Evergreen One for AI offer scalable and flexible storage-as-a-service options that streamline operations and break down infrastructure silos. We further explore how organizations can strategically manage hot, cold, and archived data to ensure optimal performance in AI projects. Additionally, we delve into the importance of vector databases and advanced data reduction algorithms, discussing the implications of data gravity challenges when balancing cloud and on-prem solutions. 

Salesforce is one of the fastest innovators in the SaaS AI space. They started with a prompt builder early in 2024. During Dreamforce they launched Agentforce to build your own automated AI Agents.  In February of 2025 major expansions are planned, adding voice capabilities to agents, coaching your sales team with an agent and the expansion to many more countries. How can Salesforce move so fast and make sure its AI doesn't hallucinate?

For this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour, we talk to Adam Evans, SVP of Product for the Salesforce AI Platform. Salesforce combines many data sources with the Salesforce Data Cloud. He explains how the data is being used and how the reasoning engine loops through the data and AI queries to ensure the best consistent outcome is served to the end-user. 

Salesforce has built a reasoning engine that handles data and AI queries. When a query is sent to an AI modal, it doesn't always give back the right answer. Sometimes, it needs more information. The reasoning engine acts like a human to catch that. It will then search for more relevant information and feed it to the AI model. When you ask a question to a Salesforce AI Agent it may go back and forth several times to an AI model before you get an answer. Just to make sure you get the best possible answer.

Salesforce creates prompts on the fly and uses RAG to feed the most relevant information to the AI models. The reasoning engine works together with the AI Trust Layer to stay compliant and mask customer data. The reasoning engine keeps the AI on a leash. 

The reasoning engine and the AI Trust Layer are all agnostic. With new AI models being released daily and the LLMs making giant steps forward every few months, it's hard to tell which AI model will dominate the industry in 12 or 24 months. Salesforce is taking that into account with how it has built its AI framework; they can switch to different LLMs very easily. 

Evans also addresses critical issues in AI data privacy, emphasizing the importance of data residency and localized computing to comply with international regulations. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to understand the future of AI technology in SaaS and how it can improve your business.

NetApp is all in on what it calls its Intelligent Data Infrastructure. More than just a fancy sounding name, it includes various fundamental components that are necessary to have to support the latest AI workloads and to combat the data silos that continue to plague organizations. Creating a robust platform approach is the way forward for all data and storage vendors. What makes NetApp's platform special? And why should NetApp be in a good position to be successful in this market? Hear all about it in this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour.

For this episode, we sit down with Krish Vitaldevara. Krish is the SVP and GM for Platform at NetApp. The concept of the platform plays a crucial role in NetApp's approach to data and storage infrastructure. Without it, much of what is needed to stay relevant as a storage vendor is simply impossible. On top of that, NetApp also recently announced that its architecture will become fully disaggregated. That is a major and fundamental change for the company that also impacts its platform story. 

Besides the changes in the architecture, AI also has a big effect on data management and storage. Especially when it comes to vectorizing data and the database bloat that comes with it, organizations can run into some issues. It is up to vendors like NetApp to figure out how to help companies limit vectorized data growth as much as possible. 

All in all, there is enough to talk about with Krish, that is for sure. Together with his team, he is responsible for the development of the platform at NetApp, and the platform is where virtually all innovations converge. Listen to the conversation we had with him during the most recent edition of NetApp Insight now.

AI is rapidly transforming SaaS solutions. We talked to Brian Chess, the AI lead at NetSuite, about leveraging AI technology to improve the NetSuite platform. We discussed creating models, using RAG, prompting and the challenges of using AI models. We talk about the AI features they have developed and the challenges they encoured.

In this episode of Techzine Talks on Tour we talk to Brian Chess, SVP Technology and AI at Oracle NetSuite, who went through a remarkable journey from a software developer in 1999 to leading AI initiatives today. Brian shares his firsthand experiences and insights into the advancements in AI and how NetSuite is developing AI features for its customers. He talks about multilingual capabilities, customer-specific models, Math in AI and much more. This episode promises to uncover the intricate challenges and incredible opportunities of integrating AI into financial products, making it a must-listen for AI enthusiasts and developers alike.

We explore NetSuite's current AI projects, including text, image, and chart generation, as well as anomaly detection in financial reports. Exciting developments in agentic AI, Prompt Studio, and SuiteScript AI are also on the horizon. Plus, discover how NetSuite's platform, powered by a diverse customer base of 40,000, fosters unprecedented creativity and innovation. This episode is packed with valuable insights that you won't want to miss!

During this year's edition of .conf, Splunk's annual conference, we sat down with James Hodge, Chief Strategic Advisor for #Splunk EMEA. One of the main themes of #splunkconf24 was 'The SOC of the future'. That message shone through in many topics of conversation during the show. So we thought it would be interesting to have a conversation with James about this, to try and get beyond the slick marketing messages and get some insights into what this SOC of the future actually is, and what that means for organizations.

In our chat, we talk about a variety of themes associated with the SOC of the future. Do we need to redefine the concept of a SOC? What are the technical prerequisites to move towards a new, more modern SOC. How should organizations prepare themselves for it? 

One of the key tenets in what James tells us is that a data-informed approach is the way forward. Without it, mitigating #risks and streamlining #compliance is and will always be a pipe dream. That in itself isn't very shocking, basically everybody says that nowadays. Splunk (and Cisco) claim they can actually deliver on that too. Obviously AI plays a part in this, but also the integrations between the two players. Integrating IT operations with security also bolsters digital resilience.

A SOC of the future enables #cybersecurity to transition from an insurance policy to a key business enabler. James shares his vision of how organizations can leverage data-driven strategies to not only enhance security but also drive innovation and maintain robust governance. We delve into practical ways CISOs can meet dual expectations and the significance of shared KPIs to measure the ROI of security investments, promoting a collaborative and flexible approach across all organizational levels.

Listen to this new episode of Techzine Talks on Tour to learn more about the SOC of the future, and the role it plays in innovation and security operations. Don't miss this insightful conversation on shaping the future of cybersecurity and operational resilience.

Both junior and senior security analysts encounter frustrating challenges with threat hunting, making it hard to really make it an integral part of daily SOC operations. How can we make things easier and less ad hoc for them? We sit down with Albert Caballero and Adriana Corona from SentinelOne to discuss this in depth.

At its recent OneConnect event in the Benelux, representatives from #SentinelOne gave keynotes on different topics that relate to each other in different ways. On the one hand there was a keynote from Albert Caballero, Field CISO at SentinelOne, about #threathunting. On the other, there was a keynote about (among other things) Purple AI, by Adriana Corona, Director of Products for AI at the same company. As it turns out, AI can and will have fundamental implications for threat hunting, and for #cybersecurity as a whole. 
 
Besides the somewhat conceptual impact of AI on threat hunting, Adriana and Albert delve into the emerging use of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). It's not only AI that helps humans, but also the other way around. Expert-created threat intelligence enhances AI effectiveness and accuracy. 

Another big topic in the conversation is the pivotal importance of #transparency and #trust in #AI systems. We contrast the contextual precision of specialized AI with more generic platforms. Transparency of how AI works is absolutely vital for cybersecurity purposes. That's the only way to reach reliable decision-making in cybersecurity. There are challenges too, for sure, so we also talk about how to tackle those.

All in all this is another must-listen for people and organizations looking to optimize their #security posture and stack, by using AI or in other ways. And let's be honest, who isn't in 2024.