The AI Report Podcast

By Liam LawsonBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

The AI Report Podcast episodes

May 12Pentagon's AI List + Elon Musk Rents His Data Center to Anthropic | AI News in 5
The Pentagon just signed eight AI deals and left Anthropic out. Wall Street is helping both Claude and ChatGPT move deeper into companies. And Elon Musk went from calling Anthropic evil to powering it with his own data center.
This week, the Pentagon clears eight major tech companies for classified military AI while Anthropic fights back in court, Anthropic and OpenAI both launch enterprise AI services businesses backed by Wall Street giants, GPT-5.5 Instant becomes ChatGPT's default model with significantly fewer hallucinations, Greg Brockman takes the witness stand in Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI, and Anthropic signs a deal with SpaceX to use the Colossus 1 data center that Musk built for his own AI company.
If you are a founder, operator or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly news briefing every Tuesday.
Stories Covered This Week:
The Pentagon signs AI agreements with Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, AWS, SpaceX, Oracle and Reflection while Anthropic fights to stay on the list

Anthropic launches a $1.5B enterprise AI services company with Blackstone and Goldman Sachs while OpenAI finalizes a $10B joint venture called The Deployment Co

GPT-5.5 Instant is now ChatGPT's default model, making 52.5% fewer errors on high stakes questions

Greg Brockman testifies in Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit, revealing tense scenes from the company's early days

Anthropic signs a deal with SpaceX to use Colossus 1, the data center Musk built for xAI, with talks of orbital AI infrastructure to follow
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:20 Pentagon signs eight AI deals, Anthropic left out
01:53 Anthropic and OpenAI launch enterprise AI services businesses
03:30 GPT-5.5 Instant becomes ChatGPT's default model
04:53 Greg Brockman testifies in Elon Musk's OpenAI lawsuit
06:23 Elon Musk goes from calling Anthropic evil to powering Claude
08:10: Outro
Partner Links:
Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
9 min
May 07The Exact Formula Charlie Hills Uses to Go Viral on Any Platform | LinkedIn, Instagram and AI Content Strategy
22,000 LinkedIn followers to over 210,000 in just over a year. Charlie Hills did not get there by luck. He got there by reverse engineering what already works, posting with intention every single day, and building systems with AI that most people have not even heard of yet.
In this second appearance on The AI Why, Liam Lawson sits down with Charlie Hills to break down exactly how he goes viral across LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, what his full content creation process looks like with Claude, and why he just launched a SaaS tool built entirely from his own workflows inside Claude Code.
Stories Covered This Week:
The pre-validated content strategy that got Charlie 11 million views on his first Instagram reel

The CHEF framework for creating content that does not sound like AI wrote it

How Charlie uses Appify, Claude Code and Gemini together to reverse engineer viral content

Why organic reach on LinkedIn is dying and what to do about it

Claude Code for infographics, carousels, and eventually video editing from the terminal

Vislo, the branded infographic SaaS tool Charlie just launched in public beta

Pattern interrupts, B-roll clarity and what actually stops the scroll on Instagram

Going from 9 to 5 employee to full time creator in nine months
Episode timestamps:
00:00 Intro and follower count update
01:03 How Charlie goes viral on any platform
04:01 Steal Like an Artist and pre-validated content
04:53 What structure works on Instagram reels
07:36 Speaking coach, scripting and sounding human
09:06 The full LinkedIn content creation process
10:03 Posting cadence and why twice a day backfired
12:19 The CHEF framework explained
15:07 Appify, Claude Code and scraping for content research
17:04 Claude Co-Work scheduled tasks and workflows
20:22 Going deep into Claude Code for infographics
22:06 How Claude Code memory and the MD file works
24:41 Combining Gemini API inside Claude Code for Instagram scripts
26:53 Where AI ends and humans begin in the content process
30:36 Remotion and the future of AI video editing
33:33 Over-engineering with AI and why it is addictive
35:02 The story behind Vislo, the branded infographic SaaS
40:22 Beta feedback and pricing
42:01 Done For You vs SaaS customers
43:57 Expanding beyond LinkedIn to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
47:12 What the ideal future of work looks like for Charlie
49:12 The Mexico LinkedIn creator house with Mischa and Corey
53:03 University, failed business and the nine month grind
01:00:01 Did not leave the nine to five to earn more, but to live more
01:00:55 Why do you do what you do?
Partner Links
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 8 min
May 05Anthropic Beats OpenAI + Google's $40B Bet | AI News in 5
Anthropic just passed OpenAI in revenue for the first time ever. Google signed a classified Pentagon deal and then invested $40 billion in the company it competes with. And OpenAI just put an expiry date on every custom GPT.
This week, Google locks in a classified defense agreement as Anthropic gets cut out, Google commits $40 billion to its biggest AI rival, Meta posts its fastest growth since 2021 but still watches its stock fall, OpenAI shuts down custom GPTs in favour of autonomous Workspace Agents, and Anthropic overtakes OpenAI in annualized revenue at $30 billion.
If you are a founder, operator or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly five-minute briefing every Tuesday.
Stories Covered This Week:
Google signs a classified Pentagon agreement giving access to Gemini for sensitive defense work as Anthropic gets cut out

Google announces plans to invest up to $40 billion in Anthropic despite competing directly with Claude

Meta reports $56.3 billion in Q1 revenue, up 33% year over year, but stock falls 7% on AI spending concerns

OpenAI introduces Workspace Agents and deprecates custom GPTs for business accounts by August 2026

Anthropic's annualized revenue hits $30 billion, passing OpenAI for the first time
Episode timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:20 Google signs classified Pentagon deal
01:10 Google invests $40 billion in Anthropic
02:00 Meta beats earnings but stock falls
02:50 OpenAI replaces custom GPTs with Workspace Agents
03:40 Anthropic passes OpenAI in revenue
04:30 Outro
Partner Links
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
7 min
April 30Monday.com Co-Founder: "We Changed the Vision of the Company Completely" | Roy Mann on the Agent Economy
Monday.com has 225,000 customers and over 60,000 seats at some of its largest accounts. So when its co-founder says the company completely changed its vision, that is worth paying attention to.
In this episode, Liam Lawson sits down with Roy Mann, co-founder of Monday.com, to talk about the three waves of AI, why managing work is no longer the goal, and how Monday is now betting everything on agents actually doing the work instead.
Roy also breaks down Agent Talent, the marketplace where companies can hire AI agents like employees, why Monday opened its platform to agents as first class citizens, and what adaptability really means when technology is moving this fast.
Stories Covered This Week:
The three waves of AI and why wave three changes everything

Why Monday changed its core vision from managing work to doing the work

Agent Talent: hiring AI agents like employees with real job postings and qualifications

Selling to agents, not just humans, and what that marketing looks like

The SaaS apocalypse and whether the per seat model is actually dead

OpenClaw, open source AI, and why Roy thinks this is a democratic technology

The future of work, abundance vs scarcity, and why adaptability is the only skill that matters
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:45 The three waves of AI
03:42 Customer reception to agents
07:16 The developer who went from terrified to empowered
10:33 What personality traits succeed in the agent economy
12:16 Monday's internal AI infrastructure
19:44 Agent Talent and selling to agents
24:50 How to sell to an agent
27:37 Testing and qualifying agents with Sensei
30:22 Why open source matters
32:22 The future of work
36:44 Is the per seat model dead?
39:51 OpenClaw and local models
44:04 Paperclip and multi-agent orchestration
52:09 Roy's ideal future of work
56:42 Betting everything on agents with Monday stock down 76%
01:00:00 Where Monday's adaptability comes from
01:01:43 Why do you do what you do?
Partner Links
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Free AI Tool Stack: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH
Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 9 min
April 28GPT-5.5 Drops + Anthropic's Mythos Gets Breached | AI News in 5
The AI model that was too dangerous to release just got breached. Anthropic entered the design software market. And OpenAI dropped its biggest model yet, just six weeks after the last one.
This week, the NSA is using Anthropic's Mythos despite the Pentagon blacklisting the company, Claude Design takes on Figma and sends its stock down 7%, Yelp transforms into an agentic consumer app, Mythos gets accessed by an unauthorized Discord group, and OpenAI fires back with GPT-5.5.
If you are a founder, operator, or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly five-minute briefing every Tuesday.
Stories Covered This Week:
NSA uses Anthropic's Mythos Preview despite the Pentagon declaring the company a supply chain risk

Anthropic launches Claude Design, a prompt-to-prototype design tool that sent Figma stock down 7%

Yelp's upgraded AI assistant can now book restaurants, doctors, and more in one conversation

Anthropic investigates unauthorized access to Mythos through a third-party vendor environment

OpenAI releases GPT-5.5, scoring 88.7% on SWE-bench with a 60% drop in hallucinations vs GPT-5.4
Episode Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:20 NSA uses Anthropic's Mythos despite Pentagon blacklist
01:10 Anthropic launches Claude Design
02:00 Yelp's AI assistant goes full service
02:50 Anthropic investigates Mythos breach
03:40 OpenAI drops GPT-5.5
04:30 Outro
Partner Links
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5 min
April 23She Lost Her Job and Built a Business from 2 LinkedIn Posts | Mischa Collins
Two years ago, Mischa Collins was let go from her marketing manager role at a startup. After months of applying to jobs she was overqualified for and hearing nothing back, she decided to stop playing the victim and take control. She posted about her journey on LinkedIn. It went viral. Then she posted again. That went even more viral. From just two posts, she signed three clients and launched her career as a full-time LinkedIn creator.
Today, Mischa has grown to over 50K followers in just 18 months, runs a ghostwriting agency, coaches founders on personal branding, and is currently living in a "LinkedIn Influencer House" in Mexico with business partners Corey Blumenfeld and Charlie Hills. In this conversation with Liam, she breaks down exactly what's working on LinkedIn right now, why the algorithm has shifted more in the past month than in her entire time posting, and the specific content formats (infographics and cheat sheets) that are massively outperforming everything else. She also shares the real numbers behind her content: how a single post with a text overlay hit 80,000 impressions while the same post without one got just 5,000.
Key Topics Covered
How getting fired became the best thing that ever happened to her career

Going from fashion to tech sales to full-time LinkedIn creator

The 2 LinkedIn posts that went viral and signed her first 3 clients

Growing from 0 to 50K LinkedIn followers in 18 months

Why the LinkedIn algorithm has shifted more in the past month than ever before

Dwell time: the metric that matters most on LinkedIn right now

Infographics vs lifestyle images: 80K impressions vs 5K from the same creator

How to run a ghostwriting agency and what clients actually need

Brand partnerships on LinkedIn: what makes a good campaign vs a bad one

Platform dependence: why relying on one social platform is risky

The "LinkedIn Influencer House" in Mexico with Corey Blumenfeld and Charlie Hills

Building a personal brand while staying authentic

Why rock bottom is the best place to build from
Episode Timestamps
00:01 - Introduction and the LinkedIn Influencer House in Mexico
02:01 - Origin story: fashion to tech sales to LinkedIn
03:33 - How LinkedIn content landed her marketing manager role
05:02 - Getting let go and the two months of rejection
05:49 - The viral LinkedIn post that launched her solo career
08:00 - Growing to 50K followers: what worked
15:07 - What's working on LinkedIn right now (algorithm shift)
16:36 - The 80K vs 5K impressions experiment
17:41 - AI's impact on LinkedIn content creation
22:00 - Building a ghostwriting agency
27:00 - Niche vs expanding your content topics
31:55 - Platform dependence and branching to Instagram/TikTok
36:00 - The creator economy on LinkedIn
40:00 - Revenue streams: brand deals, coaching, ghostwriting, cohorts
47:03 - Breaking down her income sources
50:00 - Helping brands run better LinkedIn creator campaigns
55:00 - The future of personal branding
01:00:00 - Building a life on your own terms
01:10:34 - Why you don't need to stay in your lane
01:11:06 - Where to find Mischa
Mischa's Socials:
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mischacollins/
Instagram — @mischabuildsbrands
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training — https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter — https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Get free AI resources: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 14 min
April 21$30B Quarter + OpenAI's $852B Doubt | AI News in 5
$852 billion. That's what OpenAI is now worth, and its own investors are starting to question if that math adds up. This week, Anthropic's new model takes the coding crown from GPT-5.4, OpenAI's backers get cold feet, Snap cuts 1,000 jobs and points the finger at AI, twelve tech giants team up to secure the internet, and Nvidia writes a $5 billion check to its oldest rival.
If you're a founder, operator, or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly five-minute briefing every Tuesday.
Stories Covered This Week:
Claude Opus 4.7 hits 87.6% on SWE-bench Verified, beating GPT-5.4 and Gemini 3.1 Pro on coding

OpenAI's $852B valuation faces scrutiny as Anthropic's revenue triples to $30B in one quarter

Snap lays off 1,000 people (16% of staff), citing AI writing 65% of its code

Anthropic launches Project Glasswing with Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Nvidia and 7 others

Nvidia invests $5B in Intel, co-developing x86 chips built for its AI stack
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:31 Claude Opus 4.7 takes the coding crown
01:26 OpenAI investors get cold feet
02:18 Snap cuts 1,000 jobs, blames AI
02:56 Project Glasswing: Securing the world’s critical software
03:49 NVIDIA invests 5 billion into Intel
04:41 Outro
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training: https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Free AI Tool Stack: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
6 min
April 16$70K/Month by Selling to AI Agents Instead of Humans | Andrew Warner
In this episode, Andrew Warner, founder of Mixergy, host of over 2,500 founder interviews, and creator of The Next New Thing, reveals why the most exciting business opportunity in AI right now isn't building another chatbot or SaaS tool. It's building for AI agents as customers. Andrew shares how one founder went from $3K to $70K/month by simply pivoting his social media tool to serve AI agents instead of humans, why Jason Fried at Basecamp is now adding agent-first features, and what this means for every entrepreneur and operator watching the AI wave.
Andrew breaks down his own AI tech stack (Claude Code, VS Code, Atlas Browser, OpenClaw), why he keeps a separate laptop just for AI agent work, and the brutal honesty about how much time we're all spending "playing" with AI vs. actually building revenue-generating products. He and Liam go deep on the "SaaSpocalypse" debate, whether intelligence becoming a utility makes audience and distribution the only real moats, and why the agent-to-agent economy, where software sells to other software, might be the biggest shift since mobile.
Key Topics Covered
How Andrew built a $30M/year email newsletter business in his 20s and what he learned about monetization

The origin story of Zapier: Andrew was their first paying customer before they even had a product

Why AI's "shiny object syndrome" is the biggest trap for builders right now

Andrew's daily AI tech stack: Claude Code, VS Code, Atlas Browser, Claude Desktop, and WhisperFlow

How Postiz went from $3K to $70K/month by becoming the social media tool for AI agents

The agent-to-agent economy: why your next best customer might not be human

Is SaaS dead? Andrew's nuanced take after 2,500+ founder interviews

Why audience and platform stickiness are the only real moats when intelligence becomes a utility

Liam's Claude automation workflows: auto-generating guest research, marketing assets in 5 minutes

Vibe video editing and the future of AI-powered content production
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction and welcome
00:28 - Andrew's background: building a $30M email newsletter empire
02:00 - Selling the business in his mid-20s and traveling the world
06:19 - Starting Mixergy and doing 2,500+ founder interviews
09:39 - The founders Andrew admires most: Wade Foster and Zapier's origin story
12:07 - How solving problems for free changes your career
12:51 - AI's shiny object syndrome: building for fun vs. solving real problems
14:36 - Andrew's mission: helping AI builders find real revenue
17:45 - Andrew's AI tech stack: VS Code, Claude Code, Atlas Browser, WhisperFlow
22:32 - The ideal future of work with AI agents
24:31 - What's most impressive and most underwhelming about AI right now
25:20 - Building a social listening tool with AI
27:08 - The SaaSpocalypse debate: can you vibe-code your own tools?
36:12 - Postiz: from $3K to $70K/month by selling to AI agents
38:17 - The agent-to-agent marketplace future
40:06 - Liam's Claude automation: auto-generating guest research briefs
43:19 - Real-time AI workflows with WhisperFlow and Claude
48:02 - Why investing time in AI compounds exponentially
50:05 - Creating marketing assets in 5 minutes with Claude
51:27 - Vibe video editing: the next frontier for content creators
53:42 - Thought experiment: what's defensible when intelligence is a utility?
55:39 - The bread maker analogy: why SaaS won't actually die
58:01 - What makes software defensible: switching costs and stickiness
01:00:47 - Postiz deep-dive: the agentic social media scheduling tool
01:03:26 - Agent-first businesses: newsletters, chat apps, and tools built for agents
01:08:51 - Where to find Andrew and closing thoughts
Andrew's Socials:
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwarner/
Website — https://thenextnewthing.ai
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training — https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter — https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Get free AI resources: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 hr 4 min
April 14Meta Goes Closed-Source + $1.75T SpaceX IPO | AI News in 5
$1.75 trillion SpaceX IPO, Meta's closed-source Muse Spark, Anthropic's restricted Claude Mythos, OpenAI's four-day work week proposal, and Google's open-source Gemma 4. This week, the biggest companies in AI are making very different bets on power, access, and what happens next.
AI News in 5 is your fast, no-fluff weekly AI news roundup for founders, operators, and executives who need to stay current. Every Tuesday, in 5 minutes.
Stories Covered This Week:
Meta launches Muse Spark, its first closed-source AI model under Alexandr Wang's $14B deal

Anthropic restricts Claude Mythos to 50 partners via Project Glasswing over cybersecurity concerns

OpenAI publishes 13-page policy calling for 32-hour work weeks and a "robot tax"

SpaceX files for $1.75T IPO after $1.25T merger with xAI to build orbital data centers

Google releases Gemma 4, open-source models running on a single laptop
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:25 Meta launches Muse Spark, goes closed-source
01:15 Anthropic holds back Claude Mythos over hacking risks
02:10 OpenAI proposes four-day work week and robot tax
03:05 SpaceX files for $1.75 trillion IPO
03:55 Google releases Gemma 4 open-source
04:45 Outro
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training: https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe
Free AI Tool Stack: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
5 min
April 09Why 95% of AI Pilots Produce Zero ROI | Yasmeen Ahmad, Google Cloud
In this episode, Yasmeen Ahmad, Managing Director of Product Management for Data & AI Cloud at Google Cloud, reveals why 80–90% of enterprise data is "dark" and untouched — and how Google Cloud is building the tools to finally unlock it. Yasmeen shares how BigQuery's new Knowledge Engine captures the invisible business context that human analysts have always carried in their heads, and why this semantic layer is the real unlock for enterprise AI in 2026.
Yasmeen breaks down how enterprises are scaling from 50 to 2,000 autonomous AI agents, why continuous evaluation (not unit testing) is the only way to keep agents trustworthy, and what Google learned from seeing 50% of its own code now written by AI. She also explains why 95% of AI pilots produce zero measurable ROI — and why companies that partner with a platform like Google Cloud see dramatically different results. Plus, her contrarian take on governance: it's not the brake, it's what lets you drive 150 mph into the bend with confidence.
Key Topics Covered
Why 80–90% of enterprise data is "dark" unstructured data that GenAI can finally unlock
How BigQuery's Knowledge Engine captures the invisible business context analysts carry in their heads
The semantic layer: why the next big unlock is context, not just more powerful models
How enterprises are scaling from 50 to 2,000 autonomous AI agents
Intent-driven agentic AI: giving agents outcomes instead of step-by-step instructions
Why continuous evaluation is replacing traditional unit testing for AI agents
Google's internal AI adoption: 50% of code written by AI, 10% engineering efficiency gains
Why 95% of AI pilots produce zero ROI and what changes that outcome
AI governance as an accelerator — the "brakes that let you drive 150 mph" framework
Why culture and founder mentality matter more than technology budget for AI success
Episode Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction and welcome
00:50 - Being Scottish in Silicon Valley and the power of community
03:13 - The career thread: curiosity, pivots, and getting outside your comfort zone
06:20 - What makes data fascinating: the hidden stories inside numbers
07:48 - Why data is the lifeblood of enterprise AI
10:19 - 80–90% of enterprise data is "dark" and untouched
12:59 - What BigQuery actually does (explained simply)
14:50 - The invisible work: knowledge layers and business semantics
17:38 - The agentic AI moment: agents that think, plan, and execute
20:41 - From 50 to 2,000 autonomous agents inside enterprises
22:07 - Why you can't evaluate AI agents like traditional software
25:46 - Signals of AI readiness: Google's 50% AI-written code and Honeywell's 30% efficiency gains
30:21 - Why 95% of AI pilots produce zero ROI
35:37 - Governance as a speed accelerator, not a brake
39:53 - Who's best poised to win: culture over budget
45:59 - Why do you do what you do?
Yasmeen's Socials:
LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasmeenahmaduk/
Partner Links
Book Enterprise Training — https://www.upscaile.com/
Subscribe to our free newsletter — https://www.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
51 min

About The AI Report Podcast

From the publisher's feed

The AI Report podcast is a weekly AI podcast for business leaders that looks at artificial intelligence through a human lens. Understanding AI means understanding the people behind it: their motivations, their values, and the choices that shape how AI shows up at work.