Zero Shot

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin discuss and analyse major developments related to artificial intelligence every week.

Praveen kicks off this episode with a look at Perplexity’s changes to its Pro plan’s free trial. Perplexity has changed its terms and conditions, and now requires users who signed up for a 12-month free subscription to put a credit card on file. The hosts of Zero Shot discuss why this is happening now.

Then, Rohin tells everyone about AI PCs, the spiritual successors to Chromebooks. If you’re already using cloud services every day, would you replace every function on your personal computer with AI applications? AI is truly eating everything, now including hardware—at least in the rhetoric.

Finally, Brady highlights that it’s been one year since the “Deepseek Moment”. The company dispelled the notion that Silicon Valley is charting the only way forward for creating better large language models. But Deepseek isn’t an AI company in the conventional sense. It works like a research lab funded by hedge fund profits, which shapes its R&D culture and exemplifies a different vision for bringing about AGI.

Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

Share your comments, critiques and suggestions with us at [email protected]. Or write in just to say hi. We respond to everyone who contacts us.

Additional Reading

Airtel’s free Perplexity Pro paused for Indians with no credit card, angering users
https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/airtel-s-free-perplexity-pro-paused-for-indians-with-no-credit-card-angering-users/ar-AA1U2ig0

Jeff Bezos said the quiet part out loud — hopes that you'll give up your PC to rent one from the cloud
https://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version

The numbers behind OpenAI, Gemini, and Perplexity’s deals with Phonepe, Jio, and Airtel
https://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/the-numbers-behind-openai-and-perplexitys-deals-with-jio-and-airtel/

CES 2026 – “The Future Is Here” and “Innovators Show Up”
https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/237-ces-2026-the-future-is-here-and

‘The enshittification of computer repair is happening.’
https://infosec.exchange/@sawaba/115924627821844963

DeepSeek founder Liang’s funds surge 57% as China quants boom
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-12/deepseek-founder-liang-s-funds-surge-57-as-china-quants-boom

No business model: DeepSeek's enduring advantage
https://interconnected.blog/no-business-model-deepseeks-enduring-advantage/

Lossfunk
https://lossfunk.com/

Sarvam AI’s Rs 10,000 crore pivot
https://the-ken.com/columns/zero-shot/sarvam-ais-rs-10000-crore-pivot/

“Everyone is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The truth is that the tool doesn’t matter unless the IT company adopting them cannot translate it into increased revenue or reduced cost. And that’s the problem”

That’s Sidu Ponappa, our first guest on Zero Shot. Sidu is CEO and co-founder of Realfast, a company that uses AI to accelerate Salesforce implementations.

Today’s Zero Shot episode is about a simple question – why are India’s IT majors bypassing Microsoft’s Copilot and instead adopting other tools. Infosys just announced an org wide roll-out of Devin. Cognizant has picked Lovable for its 350,000 employees, becoming their largest enterprise customer.

Where is Microsoft, which had its early advantage?

That’s the question we posed in our discussion, and well, Sidu went beyond to second and third order effects, beyond the tools themselves.

And we have something exciting – we want to hear from you about what kind of tools are used in your organisation. If you work in Indian IT (or know someone who does), let us know. Tell us. The poll is below.

Oh, also in our second segment, Brady looks at the IPOs of two “AI Tigers” in Hong Kong: Minimax and Zhipu. Often (incorrectly) labeled as China’s responses to OpenAI, these two companies’ listings inadvertently became a source of unease among some AI companies—there is a deadline for their path to public markets. If OpenAI and Anthropic gain ticker codes, these firms will be black holes for liquidity, and any other AI company that goes public after these events aren’t going to be welcomed as warmly by investors. This means AI companies need to make a choice: go public as soon as possible, or expect to stay private for a very, very long time.

Take our poll: What AI tools do you use at work?

Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

Write to us with comments, critiques, suggestions, or just to say hi: [email protected]. We respond to everyone who contacts us.

Welcome to Zero Shot, a weekly podcast by The Ken where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin ponder the latest developments in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world.

This week, Brady starts by considering how backlashes against AI—whether it stems from job displacement, data centre construction, or general unease and uncertainty—gives major tech companies the conditions to centralise the internet even more. This is particularly true in the US, in contrast to a regulatory regime in China that encourages a set of diverse players.

Praveen turns his attention to Deepinder Goyal, the outspoken CEO and co-founder of Zomato, who tweeted out a lengthy treatise in response to strikes by delivery workers. But… it turns out Goyal’s piece of text was probably generated using artificial intelligence. What prompted the change in how Goyal engages with his audience, and what does it mean if more personal messages by business leaders carry this flavour?

Finally, Rohin profiles Emergent, a vibe-coding platform that lets users deploy production-ready apps and websites. It uses a multi-agent system that is favoured by non-technical users, and was one of the most-used tools by participants in The Ken’s recent Case-Build Competition. Founded by twin brothers Mukund and Madhav Jha, Emergent has roped in $30 million in funding and hit $25 million annual recurring revenue in five months.

Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

As always, we love hearing from our listeners! Write to us with comments, critiques, suggestions, or just say hi at [email protected]. We respond to everyone who contacts us.

Additional Reading

The January Chasm
https://the-ken.com/newsletter/first-principles/the-january-chasm/

Microsoft: Out with Office, in with Copilot
https://www.office.com

Microsoft CEO begs users to stop calling it “slop”
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-satya-nadella-ai-slop

IndiaAI startups resist Centre’s plan to seek equity for support
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/indiaai-startups-resist-centres-plan-to-seek-equity-for-support/articleshow/126356889.cms

Manus gets the best of both worlds—Chinese development for a global product
https://the-ken.com/columns/zero-shot/manus-gets-the-best-of-both-worlds-chinese-development-for-a-global-product/

Mark Zuckerberg: ‘The internet needs new rules. Let’s start in these four areas’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mark-zuckerberg-the-internet-needs-new-rules-lets-start-in-these-four-areas/2019/03/29/9e6f0504-521a-11e9-a3f7-78b7525a8d5f_story.html

‘Last one on this topic, and I have been holding this in myself for a while…’
https://x.com/deepigoyal/status/2007030873711927381

Emergent
https://app.emergent.sh/landing/

It’s the end of 2025, so we don’t have a full episode of Zero Shot for you today.

This podcast launched in September, and we’ve produced 14 episodes for you so far. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, and our conversations—between Praveen, Rohin, and Brady—only work because you’re willing to sit with the complexities we wade into. 

We know artificial intelligence will move fast in 2026, so we’ll keep asking the questions that matter in this AI hype cycle. We’re glad you’re coming along with us.

So, thank you, and we’ll be back next week.

As always, if you’d like to get in touch with any or all of our hosts, please drop us a note at [email protected]. We respond to all messages.

The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast that interprets the latest big moves in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world.

This week, Praveen is on leave, but our two other co-hosts held down the fort. 

Brady took inspiration from the tagline of a game show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, to consider some of the wild claims and projections made by OpenAI. Aside from CEO Sam Altman’s public statements, he considered CFO Sarah Friar’s past professional moves, where she made similar (but not as exaggerated) claims about revenue projections when she was Nextdoor’s CEO. It’s a bit of information that retail investors could consider when OpenAI prepares to go public.

Then, Rohin described how AI products lost their novelty in 2025, entering the trough of disillusionment as described by the Gartner hype cycle. This presents an opportunity for companies that can develop products with an “anti-AI premium”, where the absence of artificial intelligence could find fans in customers. 

The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

If you have comments, critiques, or suggestions, you should share them with us! Write in at [email protected]. We respond to every listener who contacts us.

Additional Reading

Whose Line Is It Anyway?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whose_Line_Is_It_Anyway%3F_(American_TV_series)

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone
https://www.amazon.com/Impro-Improvisation-Theatre-Keith-Johnstone/dp/0878301178

Why OpenAI went into crisis PR mode (in November)
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/06/tech/openai-backtracks-government-support-chip-investments

Nextdoor secures dismissal with prejudice in securities class action
https://www.cooley.com/news/coverage/2025/2025-11-20-nextdoor-secures-dismissal-with-prejudice-in-securities-class-action

‘How to disable all the AI features in Firefox to increase performance?’
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1556081/how-to-disable-all-the-ai-features-in-firefox-to-increase-performance

The Gartner hype cycle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle

Eugen Rochko: ‘I've finally switched to the @Vivaldi browser.’
https://mas.to/@[email protected]/115737483372515885

Meta tolerates rampant ad fraud from China to safeguard billions in revenue
https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-tolerates-rampant-ad-fraud-china-safeguard-billions-revenue-2025-12-15/

LG will let TV owners delete Microsoft Copilot after customer outcry
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-18/lg-will-let-tv-owners-delete-microsoft-copilot-after-customer-complaints

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin take on the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday.

This week, Praveen looks at a new future career in India—the energy engineer. With Amazon and Microsoft committing to a combined $52.5 billion of investments in India, these tech giants’ data centres will require immense power. India currently doesn’t produce enough renewable energy to service this demand, and even if there were enough power, there are other hurdles.

Rohin considers how SaaS companies are contending with an existential crisis. If their clients can replace their software with AI agents, then what value do SaaS companies hold in the future? Some providers have opted to insert AI capabilities into their products and raise their prices, but that is not sustainable in the long run. 

Brady looked at Broadcom’s stock slump and provided another way to think about the AI investment bubble. The company designs chips for Google. Its revenue has shot up but the company is trapped in fulfilling contracts with lower margins. This all comes down to the picks-and-shovels vendors being unable to capture value in the AI supply chain. It’s another sign that the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Meta will reap the biggest benefits, no matter how the business of AI transforms in the coming years.

The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans.

We love to hear from our listeners! If you have comments, critiques, or suggestions, write to us at [email protected]. 

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Additional Reading

Tower of the Sun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_the_Sun

I’m Kenyan. I don’t write like ChatGPT. ChatGPT writes like me
https://marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-i-dont-write-like-chatgpt

The Ken’s Case-Build Competition: Disrupt the Incumbents
https://the-ken.com/case-competition-2025/submissions/ 

Microsoft and Amazon’s multibillion-dollar bets on India
https://www.ft.com/content/d564ba34-7514-43ca-90db-b4fa01737a10

India’s e-bus dream is finally coming to life. The power grid can’t keep up
https://the-ken.com/story/indias-e-bus-dream-is-finally-coming-to-life-no-one-told-the-power-grid/

AI agents are starting to eat SaaS
https://martinalderson.com/posts/ai-agents-are-starting-to-eat-saas/

Broadcom tumbles 11% despite blockbuster earnings as ‘AI angst’ weighs on Oracle, Nvidia
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/12/broadcom-tumbles-10percent-after-earnings-as-ai-trade-sells-off-.html

Global funds view Indian stocks as a top hedge against AI risks
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-14/global-funds-view-indian-stocks-as-a-top-hedge-against-ai-risks

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady deliver their takes on new developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday.

This week, Rohin considers how AI will change the way employers hire. With AI-generated responses being the norm, hiring managers see a larger variation between the quality of submitted materials and in-person interviews than ever before. Applicants might need to “show and tell” to demonstrate their expertise. The importance of strong verbal communication, quick response times, and language fluency could also matter more. 

Then, Praveen takes us through the four seasons of AI and how Deepseek acknowledged a growing gap between closed and open-source language models, which marks the difference between AI development in the US and China. Naturally, Deepseek is building new stuff: an attention mechanism that will be used in its newer models to handle long context more efficiently.

Finally, Brady maps out how mobile apps will soon become pipes that feed agents. A new ZTE phone that is steered by an AI agent developed by Bytedance offers a glimpse into the future, where screens matter less and “machine users” emerge. There will need to be new ways of thinking about the metrics that matter—daily active users and session lengths won’t tell us much—and there are other fundamental implications for UI/UX design.

Zero Shot’s cover art is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans.

Send us your ideas, critiques, and suggestions at [email protected], or drop us a note just to say hi. We love hearing from our listeners.

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Additional Reading

Worry, the explainer is dead
https://www.niemanlab.org/2025/12/sorry-the-explainer-is-dead/

Japanese game studio tasks job seekers to draw in front of them to make sure their portfolios aren't AI-made
https://80.lv/articles/japanese-game-studio-tasks-job-seekers-to-draw-in-front-of-them-to-make-sure-their-portfolios-aren-t-ai-made

Why does AI write like… that?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/magazine/chatbot-writing-style.html

What it’s like to interview a software engineer preparing with AI
https://www.kapwing.com/blog/what-its-like-to-interview-a-software-engineer-preparing-with-ai/

“There are four seasons in a year”
https://x.com/mehulmpt/status/1995474826031460466

DeepSeek-V3.2: Pushing the frontier of open large language models
https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.02556

Alibaba Cloud founder expects big AI shakeup after OpenAI hype
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0PaVrpFD14  

Demo of ByteDance’s AI agent on a ZTE phone
https://x.com/TaylorOgan/status/1996539953979785521

AI browsers aren’t smart enough yet to take over the internet
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-08/what-is-agentic-browsing-and-why-are-ai-browsers-not-replacing-chrome-yet

Woman hailed as hero for smashing man’s Meta smart glasses on subway
https://futurism.com/future-society/woman-hero-smashing-meta-smart-glasses-subway

OpenAI, ARIA, and SEO: Making the web worse
https://adrianroselli.com/2025/10/openai-aria-and-seo-making-the-web-worse.html

Trump administration moves to deny visas to factcheckers and content moderators
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/05/trump-administration-us-visa-crackdown

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin discuss the biggest moves in artificial intelligence.

This week, Brady mulls over the possibility of running a one-human unicorn—an idea whose most vocal proponent is Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO. He references the second season of Shell Game, a podcast where the host is experimenting with building a startup involving AI agent co-founders and colleagues. This brings about larger ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether humans always need to maintain a sense of community and companionship when they’re tackling big goals.

Rohin points to Suno’s $250 million fundraise and the platform’s strategy to create, engage, and monetise in the long run. Besides, when it comes to music that is generated from prompts, ownership and intellectual property remain a concern. Suno is positioned as a platform where users can visit and discover new music, which brings to mind Sora, OpenAI’s app for generating short videos. The question is whether users will see Suno as a trusted place that hosts engaging, unique music.

Finally, Praveen visits Ilya Sutskever’s appearance on Dwarkesh Podcast. Sutskever was the chief scientist and a co-founder of OpenAI, and makes the point that there is enough compute to prove out almost any idea involving artificial intelligence. This type of work doesn’t require the largest amount of compute, so “we are no longer in the age of scaling; we’re back in the age of research.”

Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.

If you have suggestions, critiques, or fresh ideas, we’d love to hear from you. Write to us at [email protected], or just drop us a note to say hi.

Additional Reading

Tega Brain’s Slop Evader
https://tegabrain.com/Slop-Evader 

Low-background steel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel 

The Plasticene era: Current uncertainties in estimates of the hazards posed by tiny plastic particles on soils and terrestrial invertebrates
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969724023957 

OpenAI takes stake in Thrive Holdings in latest circular deal
https://www.ft.com/content/53e2003e-c5c0-42a1-937a-eaea77ac4d41 

Accenture dubs 800,000 staff ‘reinventors’ amid shift to AI
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/01/accenture-rebrands-staff-reinventors-ai-artificial-intelligence 

‘Google Antigravity just deleted the contents of my whole drive’
https://old.reddit.com/r/google_antigravity/comments/1p82or6/google_antigravity_just_deleted_the_contents_of/ 

Shell Game, Season 2
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shell-game/id1753117762 

James Watson and Edward O. Wilson: An Intellectual Entente
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2009/09/james-watson-edward-o-wilson-intellectual-entente 

A.F. Steadman reads the prologue of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmzH_IcYWQY 

Suno creates an entire Spotify catalog’s worth of music every two weeks, says investor pitch deck for $250M fundraise
https://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-creates-spotify-catalog-music-two-weeks-pitch-deck/ 

Silicon Valley has more companies than ideas – Illya Sutskever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNq0PWHIgOw 

Jack Dorsey funds diVine, a Vine reboot that includes Vine's video archive | TechCrunch
https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/12/jack-dorsey-funds-divine-a-vine-reboot-that-includes-vines-video-archive/ 

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin offer their perspectives on the latest developments in artificial intelligence.

This week, Praveen describes how Perplexity aborted its Campus Partner Programme in India after allegations of fraud surfaced. In a bid to drum up usage for its Comet browser, Perplexity had rolled out a referral-for-pay system, enticing students to convince others to download the AI browser… except they may have been legions of bots. If living, breathing people can’t be convinced to use Comet, then what does that say about it as a product?

Rohin dived into the successes of Nvidia, which is the most successful “shovel seller” among companies in the AI sector. Advanced sales of its Blackwell and Rubin chips over the next 14 months, for instance, have reached $500 billion. But given how Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs) are now able to train state-of-the-art language models, the lustre around Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) has faded just a bit.

Finally, Brady unpacks the rollout of Gemini 3 by Google, which has compelled even OpenAI’s Sam Altman to pause and acknowledge that it’s a threat to everyone else. Gemini 3 excels at visual tasks, and it’s part of the architecture that makes Google’s new integrated development environment Antigravity stand out. Not only does Google have this advanced language model, but also the trust of enterprise and retail users—setting it apart from other companies such as OpenAI. 

Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.

If you have fresh ideas, critiques, or suggestions, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a note at [email protected], or just write to us to say hi.

Additional Reading

‘It’s hell for us here’: Mumbai families suffer as data centres keep the city hooked on coal
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/nov/24/mumbai-datacentres-coal-air-pollution 

‘AI eats the world’, November 2025
https://www.ben-evans.com/presentations 

Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts
https://www.ft.com/content/abfe9741-f438-4ed6-a673-075ec177dc62 

‘Perplexity cancels Campus Partner Programme in India after widespread fraud’
https://www.theleftshift.com/perplexity-cancels-campus-partner-programme-in-india-after-widespread-fraud/ 

‘Earn thousands as a Campus Partner’ of Perplexity
https://x.com/sherlock_ux/status/1980849775382786069?s=20 

‘Perplexity has cancelled its Campus Partner Programme in India following allegations of fraud tied to its referral system’
https://x.com/arsh_goyal/status/1985255590038524346?s=20 

The algorithm that detected a $610 billion fraud: How machine intelligence exposed the AI industry’s circular financing scheme
https://substack.com/home/post/p-179453867 

Nvidia’s ‘I’m not Enron’ memo has people asking a lot of questions already answered by that memo
https://www.theverge.com/business/828047/nvidia-enron-conspiracy-accounting 

‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out loud, AI in courtrooms
https://the-ken.com/podcasts/zero-shot/made-by-humans-perplexity-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-ai-in-courtrooms/ 

ChatGPT Go's free year turns Indian markets into its biggest test bed
https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/chatgpt-go-s-free-year-turns-indian-markets-into-its-biggest-test-bed-125112401042_1.html 

“Attention is all you need”
https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762 

Altman Memo Forecasts ‘Rough Vibes’ Due to Resurgent Google
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openai-ceo-braces-possible-economic-headwinds-catching-resurgent-google 

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady discover new ideas and interpretations of the latest developments in artificial intelligence.

This week, Rohin wonders what the threats are in our regular usage of AI tools and platforms. Conventional ways of safeguarding against exploits work to an extent, but new vectors are emerging for those who are criminally inclined.

Brady encounters an ad for Anthropic’s Claude in one of the least likely of places, then examines how the company is creating scarcity around its infinitely scalable product. What appears to be a play to cast Claude as a premium consumer product is an inverse of OpenAI and Perplexity’s strategies, but could also be a move to protect its enterprise margins.

Finally, Praveen looks at an OpenAI collaboration that enables Phonepe’s users to create images, seek career advice, get healthy recipes, receive astrological readings, and more. This could be a lead-in to one specific integration that matters much more to Phonepe, but it isn’t clear whether users are willing to share their financial data if it happens.

Zero Shot’s cover art is generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans.

We love hearing from our listeners! Send your critiques, suggestions, and ideas to [email protected], or write to us just to say hi.

Additional Reading:

Human behavior is an intuition-pump for AI risk
https://invertedpassion.com/human-behavior-is-an-intuition-pump-for-ai-risk/

AI and the paperclip problem
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problem

AI status symbols are popping up everywhere
https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-status-symbols-openai-anthropic-cursor-2025-10

Alexa, Siri, Netflix, Tiktok, ChatGPT, Claude—they all “feel like AI” to consumers
https://menlovc.com/perspective/2025-the-state-of-consumer-ai/

At a major AI conference, one startup got voted most likely to flop
https://www.businessinsider.com/at-an-ai-conference-attendees-were-asked-which-startup-they-would-short-2025-11 

Live skydiving with Google Glass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxmbbtuRszA 

PhonePe Announces Strategic Collaboration with OpenAI to Bring ChatGPT to Indian Users at Scale
https://www.phonepe.com/press/phonepe-announces-strategic-collaboration-with-openai-to-bring-chatgpt-to-indian-users-at-scale/