Podcast cover
a16z · Technology

AI + a16z

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from art to enterprise IT, and a16z is watching all of it with a close eye. This podcast features discussions with leading AI engineers, founders, and experts, as well as our general partners, about where the technology and industry are heading.

Episodes

Episode cover

MCP Co-Creator on the Next Wave of LLM Innovation

02 May 2025
53m
AI processed

This episode explores the Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open protocol designed to enhance Large Language Model (LLM) applications. Against the backdrop of limitations in existing AI applications, the creators of MCP, David Soria Parra and Justin Spahr-Summers, explain its development, driven by the need for a stan...

Episode cover

What Is an AI Agent?

28 Apr 2025
36m
AI processed

This episode explores the multifaceted definition and application of AI agents, a topic marked by considerable industry disagreement. Against the backdrop of varying technical and marketing interpretations, the discussion establishes a spectrum ranging from simple prompt-based systems to those approaching Artificial G...

Episode cover

Benchmarking AI Agents on Full-Stack Coding

28 Mar 2025
33m
AI processed

This episode explores the challenges and opportunities of benchmarking AI agents on full-stack coding tasks. Against the backdrop of advancements in AI like AlphaGo, the conversation highlights the underdeveloped nature of trajectory management in AI coding. More significantly, the discussion centers on a new benchma...

Episode cover

Automating Developer Email with MCP and Al Agents

21 Mar 2025
44m
AI processed

This a16z AI podcast episode interviews Zeno Rocha, CEO of Resend, about building applications for AI agents. The discussion covers the evolving concept of "agent experience" (AX), contrasting it with developer experience (DX), and explores how to design products for seamless agent interaction. Rocha highlights the i...

Episode cover

The Future of Digital Workers

20 Mar 2025
26m
AI processed

This a16z AI podcast episode interviews Prabhav Jain, CTO of 11x, a company building autonomous digital workers for revenue teams. The discussion centers on defining "agentic" AI products, contrasting them with simple automation, and detailing 11x's approach to building AI agents that plan, reason, and adapt dynamical...

Episode cover

Building the Next Generation of Conversational AI

14 Mar 2025
1h 41m
AI processed

This a16z AI podcast episode interviews Ankit Kumar, Sesame's co-founder and CTO, about the Sesame Research Preview, a new approach to conversational AI. The conversation begins with Ankit's initial reaction to the positive reception of the preview, then delves into the development process, focusing on the challenges ...

Episode cover

Agent Experience: Building an Open Web for the AI Era

07 Mar 2025
40m
AI processed

This podcast interviews Matt Biilmann, CEO and co-founder of Netlify, about the impact of AI on web development. The conversation begins with Biilmann's background and Netlify's role in shifting web architecture towards a more modular, API-driven approach (Jamstack). The discussion then focuses on the concept of "Age...

Episode cover

What DeepSeek Means for Cybersecurity

28 Feb 2025
52m
AI processed

This a16z AI podcast episode focuses on the cybersecurity implications of DeepSeek, a new open-source reasoning model from China. The host interviews three cybersecurity founders, discussing DeepSeek's vulnerabilities to jailbreaks and prompt injections, its surprisingly strong censorship of politically sensitive topi...

Episode cover

Agents, Lawyers, and LLMs

21 Feb 2025
40m
AI processed

This podcast interviews Aatish Nayak, Head of Product at Harvey, an AI startup focusing on legal tech. The discussion covers Harvey's application of LLMs to automate legal tasks, addressing the high demand and limited supply of legal professionals. Nayak details Harvey's approach, emphasizing close customer collabora...

Episode cover

Reasoning Models Are Remaking Professional Services

14 Feb 2025
37m
AI processed

This podcast interviews George Sivulka, CEO of Hebea, about his AI-powered platform for financial services. The conversation covers Sivulka's background, his rationale for building Hebea (addressing inefficiencies in financial workflows), and a detailed explanation of Hebea's unique interface and functionality, which ...

Episode cover

Data Management for Enterprise LLMs

07 Feb 2025
38m
AI processed

This a16z AI podcast episode interviews George Fraser, Fivetran's founder and CEO, and Guido Appenzeller, an a16z partner, about the impact of LLMs on data architecture and management. The discussion covers how LLMs are changing data usage (e.g., enabling analysis of unstructured text data), the continued importance o...

Episode cover

From NLP to LLMs: The Quest for a Reliable Chatbot

10 Jan 2025
38m
AI processed

This podcast dives into the complexities and solutions surrounding the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) in enterprise-level conversational AI, particularly for customer support chatbots. It outlines the journey from rule-based systems to LLM-driven models, reflecting on the initial excitement and the eventual unders...

Episode cover

Best of the Year: Building AI Companies

27 Dec 2024
46m
AI processed

In this highlights episode of the a16z AI podcast, various founders share their insights on creating successful AI companies. The focus is on practical lessons gleaned from the journey of building AI products, rather than just theoretical innovations. Ben Firshman from Replicate advocates for a bottoms-up strategy that...

Episode cover

Can AI Agents Finally Fix Customer Support?

18 Dec 2024
44m
AI processed

In this podcast episode, Jesse Zhang, CEO of Decagon, discusses the transformation of AI agents, highlighting their journey from basic chatbots to advanced, personalized systems powered by large language models (LLMs). The conversation touches on several key points, including the importance of measurable ROI and contin...

Episode cover

REPLAY: Scoping the Enterprise LLM Market

30 Nov 2024
43m
AI processed

In this podcast episode, the hosts explore the current landscape of enterprise adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs). They highlight how advancements in hardware and software are making LLM development more accessible, even for smaller teams. While NVIDIA leads the hardware market, competition is on the rise. The co...

Episode cover

Building Developers Tools, From Docker to Diffusion Models

15 Nov 2024
41m
AI processed

In this episode of the a16z AI Podcast, Ben Firshman, CEO of Replicate, joins a16z partner Matt Bornstein to explore the convergence of developer ecosystems and generative AI. Ben reflects on his experiences at Docker, stressing the value of a grassroots approach to creating developer tools—focusing on the needs of dev...

Episode cover

The Best Way to Achieve AGI Is to Invent It

04 Nov 2024
38m
AI processed

In this episode of the A16z AI Podcast, Martin Casado speaks with Pedro Domingos, a leading figure in machine learning research. Domingos shares his perspective that while AI research is making remarkable progress, particularly in large language models and scaling laws, it is merely a "sprint to a local optimum" and fa...

Episode cover

Neural Nets and Nobel Prizes: AI's 40-Year Journey from the Lab to Ubiquity

25 Oct 2024
40m
AI processed

In this podcast episode, we explore the journey of artificial intelligence, tracing its origins from early neural network concepts to the cutting-edge generative AI we see today. The discussion focuses on key milestones, especially the period of stagnation known as the "AI autumn" and the pivotal achievement of AlexNet...

Episode cover

How GPU Access Helps AI Startups Be Agile

23 Oct 2024
39m
AI processed

In this podcast episode, we explore Oxygen, an innovative initiative by a16z aimed at tackling the critical computing challenges faced by AI startups. The conversation highlights how essential resources are in driving innovation, delving into the high costs and market dynamics surrounding GPU access, the impact of supp...

Episode cover

DisTrO and the Quest for Community-Trained AI Models

27 Sep 2024
1h 12m
AI processed

This podcast episode examines the challenges and innovative solutions in open-source AI training, featuring Nous Research and their groundbreaking algorithm, DisTrO. It highlights how DisTrO addresses the critical limitations of centralized training methodologies by enabling distributed training over standard internet ...

Page 4

Follow this podcast in Podwise

Sign in to get AI summaries, transcripts and mind maps for any episode, including new ones.

Open in Podwise