Pioneers of AI

Latest Episodes:

Reid Hoffman and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar on where AI goes from here Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

Few companies have as much influence over AI’s trajectory as OpenAI. Reid Hoffman sits down with CFO Sarah Friar to understand the precipice of the moment we are in and the decisions that could shape what comes next for each of us.

This conversation was recorded live as part of Masters of Scale Summit on October 21, 2026, at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco.

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Replay: What my kids taught me about the AI divide Oct 21, 2026

Show notes

It often feels like the world is divided when it comes to AI — do you lean in, or opt out?

But what if that tension exists within your own household? This week, we're reprising a candid conversation between host Rana el Kaliouby and her two kids. Her son Adam is an AI enthusiast and her daughter Jana is an AI skeptic, a dynamic she wrote about in a recent essay, "I'm an AI Scientist, My Daughter Refuses to Use AI, and I'm Okay with It." She asks them both to explain their different perspectives on AI, how they've embraced it and how they haven't — prompting Rana to reflect on her role as a mother and an AI leader raising both of them.

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Is AGI already here? w/ Kevin Roose Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

Journalist Kevin Roose has closely watched and written about the AI race for about a decade, and his new book “The AGI Chronicles” documents the handful of driven people at the center of OpenAI, Google Deepmind, and Anthropic – along with their messy relationships, rivalries, decisions, and breakthroughs on the quest to create artificial superintelligence. Kevin recently left his role as a New York Times tech columnist and co-host of the podcast Hard Fork to start a new show, Machine Gods.

Host Rana el Kaliouby sits down with Kevin to explore what his books reveals about the AI headlines we’re all obsessing over, his concerns around AI safety, and whether AGI is already here.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

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OpenAI’s Tibo Sottiaux doesn’t want humans to be an ‘afterthought’ Oct 07, 2026

Show notes

Thibault “Tibo” Sottiaux is OpenAI’s head of Product & Platform, making him responsible for the AI tools used by more than a billion users worldwide. Host Rana el Kaliouby spoke with Tibo about why he’s “proud” OpenAI delayed its latest Astra model over safety concerns, the new suite of agentic products released at DevDay, and what it’s like to lead inside a frontier AI company in this extraordinary moment in history.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

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Possible: Training robots for a world they've never seen Sep 30, 2026

Show notes

On this week’s episode we’re excited to share an episode from our sister podcast Possible, a podcast that sketches out the brightest vision of the future.

Useful robots won’t be programmed one task at a time; they’ll need to adapt to unfamiliar objects, environments, and robot bodies. Physical Intelligence cofounder Chelsea Finn (named last month to the TIME100 AI list for 2026) joins Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger to explain how general-purpose robot models learn to act in the messy physical world. She explores why lower-quality training data can strengthen a model, what months of failed laundry-folding attempts revealed, and how the same system can work across different robot platforms. A robot mistaking an oven for a drawer becomes a lesson in the strange line between useful generalization and obvious error. They also examine why robot demos can mislead, how hardware reliability can stall progress, and what it will take to move AI off the screen and into the world.

Congratulations to Chelsea, recently named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI:

https://time.com/collection/time100-ai/2026/chelsea-finn/

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/

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The slippery slope of artificial intimacy Sep 23, 2026

Show notes

For the past four decades Sherry Turkle has studied the social and psychological implications of AI. She’s the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT, founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and author of the upcoming book Artificial Intimacy: Who Do We Become When We Talk to Machines? Sherry sits down with Rana to deliver a warning about the slippery slope we’re all stepping on to with our use of AI.

Sherry is direct and unfiltered in explaining why artificial intimacy is an oxymoron, what happens when humans become emotionally attached to AI, and why replacing human relationships with AI means we’ve basically given up on each other. But don't you worry, she leaves us with a strong message of agency and hope.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

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The ROI on AI is obvious in these industries Sep 16, 2026

Show notes

Rudina Seseri is the Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures, recently named one of America’s Top Venture Capital Firms of 2026 by TIME and Statista. With a focus on early-stage AI-powered companies, Rudina has been investing in AI since 2016 and has always been ahead of the curve. Host Rana el Kaliouby talks to Rudina about the shifting AI investing landscape, where she sees the real value in AI, and what she looks for in a founder before she writes her first check.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

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Rapid Response: When AI agents do your shopping, everything changes, with Shopify’s Jess Hertz Sep 14, 2026

Show notes

For decades, e-commerce rewarded the biggest brands that could buy their way to the top of search results. AI is changing that. Shopify COO Jess Hertz joins Rapid Response to share what Shopify's data reveals about the agentic shopping revolution in real time, and how the company is building the infrastructure layer that makes products discoverable and purchasable by AI. Plus, why Shopify's engineers can spend freely on AI tokens while the rest of the business world agonizes over ROI, and what it looks like when a company powering over 14% of online shopping decides to win the future or die trying.

Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.com/

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Zapier wants to be the AI hub where all your agents connect Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

Fifteen years ago Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier, co-founded the software company with a simple idea: link thousands of apps that were never designed to talk to each other, so people could work seamlessly between them. Now, he's turning Zapier into the go-to connector for companies and their AI agents. Host Rana El Kaliouby sits down with Wade to talk about the day he paused the entire company to call a "code red," how he's scaling AI from individual employees to the whole organization, and how Zapier has redesigned its product from the ground up as AI has transformed the way people work.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Axios’ Ina Fried reads the AI fine print, so you don’t have to Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

In the world of AI, data is king. And in reporting on tech for nearly 30 years, Axios’ Chief Technology Correspondent Ina Fried has extensively covered concerns around consumer data, privacy, and Big Tech. In the latest edition of her long-running series “What They Know About You,” Ina dives into the privacy and data sharing policies of AI consumer products from OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, and more. She tells host Rana el Kaliouby why data is key to AI companies’ business models, how they’re getting more of it, and how that could impact everyday users.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: http://pioneersof.ai/

Follow Pioneers of AI on all channels: https://linktr.ee/pioneersofai

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.