Next in Tech
Define your digital roadmap. Weekly podcasts featuring specialists from across the S&P Global Market Intelligence research team offer deep insights into what’s new and what’s next in technology, industries and companies as they design and implement digital infrastructure. To learn more, visit: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/topics/tmt-news-insights
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Kagan Media and Telecom Summit
07/15/2025
Kagan Media and Telecom Summit
The annual Kagan Media and Telecom Summit in New York is in the books and it not only covered a lot of market activity, but it was also surrounded by a number of media and sports rights headlines. Justin Nielson, Eric Keith, Scott Robson and Seth Shafer joined host Eric Hanselman to look at what was covered in the expansive event and the time around it. There were big shifts in media rights and a couple of sports team sales that led to lively discussions. Networks are balking at some of the lofty prices for sports media rights in the face of streaming services’ higher demand. The realignment of regional sports coverage is still shaking out, as well. Media consolidation keeps hovering, but will it always be next year’s prospect? Macroeconomic uncertainty seems to be playing a role and the pendulum on cord cutting seems to be swinging back around. In broadband, the reset of the BEAD program has states scrambling to reapply under the new, much tighter deadline. Will this drive fixed wireless access (FWA)? Satellite is still a possibility in remote regions, but costs may hold it back. Private equity activity in fiber networks could be reaching a tipping point, as their investments mature and operators’ partners shift strategies. There was a lot in store and much more to come. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Security for MCP
07/08/2025
Security for MCP
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) specification has helped to accelerate access to a wide range of data sources for AI applications. But there are questions about the security and trust implications around a protocol that is still in its infancy. Scott Crawford and Justin Lam return to the podcast to examine the concerns that have been raised and changes that are underway in the specification with host Eric Hanselman. The previous episode introduced MCP and some of the market forces that are in play. Security considerations didn’t appear to be fully sorted out in the first version of the specification, but more work is being done to move beyond the OAuth-based approach. Automating the data access process can be powerful, but also fraught with the potential for abuse. The larger questions in MCP revolve around understanding risk and establishing trust. Data exposure has been a constant concern in AI, but the more complex issues exist in the integrity of the data that’s being used. AI technology is moving forward rapidly and adversaries that are looking to compromise it and moving right along with these advances. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Context Around MCP
07/01/2025
Context Around MCP
Linking generative AI models to the agents that are going to use them now has a standard for queries, the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Suddenly all sorts of things are vying to be your data source of choice. What could go wrong? Analysts Jean Atelsek, James Curtis and Henry Baltazar join host Eric Hanselman to provide an introduction to what MCP is, what all the fuss is about and where this is headed. Since Anthropic released the standard in November of 2024, there has been significant progress in expanding and clarifying it, but it is still very much a work in progress. Database providers and storage vendors have been the obvious participants and many others are joining in. The larger questions are around ensuring trust and transparency in this market. Basic authentication has been worked out, but more sophisticated authorization mechanisms need to be defined. The mad dash is already leading to M&A activity, with storage vendors looking to expand their opportunities and maintain their relevance. Microsoft has released its MCP definition and Google has created an agent-to-agent (A2A) protocol for direct agent interactions. There are many pieces that are coming together to enable fully agentic operations and there is still a lot of work to be done. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Developer Experience and Automation
06/24/2025
Developer Experience and Automation
Developer experience is one of the areas where AI applications are showing significant return on investment, but there are significant hurdles to overcome in both changing established development patterns, as well as integrating AI tooling. Analyst Jean Atelsek and AWS vice president for developer experience Deepak Singh join host Eric Hanselman to explore the current state of AI code assistance and look at where it’s headed. Auto-complete, where the next bit of a line of code is filled in for a programmer, has been evolving over a number of years, but the arrival of agents to augment code generation and task automation is being to revolutionize software development. Changing development patterns is hard, but the benefits offer strong incentives to change habits. Where early uses had AI engines generate smaller code snippets that developers integrated, that’s changing to having AI tackle full functions that are then reviewed and corrected. Tooling around AI implementations are tailoring they way in which they interact with individual developers, enhancing their experience. Application modernization is an area where AI can shine, as it can assess a massive codebase whose authors are no longer available and provide not only documentation, but also prioritize recoding efforts. It’s a task where the hours required for manual assessment can be daunting and error prone. Leveraging AI code generation securely requires that organizations have sufficiently secure development pipelines. Mitigating risks from confabulation and errors in AI generated code is the same process as ought to be in place for human coders, an area where some less mature organizations may have some catching up to do. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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FinOps – Managing Cloud and AI Costs
06/17/2025
FinOps – Managing Cloud and AI Costs
Managing IT costs has always been challenging and the FinOps movement is working to tackle this problem. Analysts Jean Atelsek and Melanie Posey return to the podcast to discuss their research and what they saw at the FinOps X conference with host Eric Hanselman. Cost angst has been exacerbated by the move to cloud. The shift from capital expense to operational expense has been a complicated transition for many. The infrastructure spending growth that being driven by AI initiatives has only just begun, but is already concerning. As cloud costs have become material expenses, more focus has been put on managing them. There are a host of startups that are looking to provide tools and cloud providers all have some form of cost management tooling. The shift to virtualization opened the door to optimization, but was one that only few walked through. Efforts at charge-back and show-back accounting created better visibility, but FinOps is looking to take things a step further by identifying costs early in the development cycle. Putting the vast quantities of operational data that cloud throws off to work requires a new focus. It’s another area where AI can help businesses work their way out of the looming costs that AI applications create. It requires bringing together lines of business, development teams and IT operations, but the benefits could be significant. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Datacenter Slowdown?
06/10/2025
Datacenter Slowdown?
A set of questions are being asked about whether the velocity of datacenter build outs is wavering. Analyst Dan Thompson returns to the podcast to explore the realities of the market with host Eric Hanselman. There are some facts that raised the questions, including Microsoft demurring on some datacenter projects, and they have fueled concerns that the heady pace might slacken. The DeepSeek model’s debut with claims of lower training requirements spooked the tech markets in January. There have been layoffs. Are these harbingers of AI doom? In the same way that DeepSeek signaled the next phase of optimization in AI models, datacenter markets can be expected to adjust over time. The difference is that the time scales for the two areas are vastly different. With AI ecosystems seemingly cycling daily, the multiyear scheduling of datacenters might appear glacial by comparison. But it’s a market influenced by many factors, including a complex supply chain. Capital spending across hyperscale cloud providers remains healthy and maintains an eye on a future with much greater density of AI functionality. We’re still a long way from a correction. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Personal Data
06/03/2025
Personal Data
In the rush to build out AI applications, a full understanding of the dynamics of personal data management can be difficult to achieve. As we kick off Pride Month, the complexities of personal data handling deserve more attention and Emily Jasper and Alan Moore join host Eric Hanselman to discuss the concerns and approaches to address privacy issues. Enterprises accumulate both operational and self-reported personal data, some with regulatory requirements for collection and reporting and some in support of employee development. Is that data the new oil that can fuel their efforts, the new water that can leak or the new plutonium that can be powerful, but also dangerous? With many systems accumulating data, it can be difficult to ensure that right data is in the right places. Data migration is hard, but can be necessary in technology transitions. Data is the raw material that builds AI value, but personal data increases the risks of not only expose, but of creating presumptions by AI models of association and affiliation. There are additional risks in inadequate datasets for training. As we’ve pointed out in previous episodes, organizations need to be aware of how well their training data reflects the populations they intend to serve. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Risk to Resilience
05/27/2025
Risk to Resilience
Around the globe, municipalities are facing a set of challenges managing the impacts of more extreme weather, while addressing aging infrastructure and more chronic issues, such as rising heat and sea levels. There are a set of technologies that can help them to both be aware of the risks and improve planning to work on mitigating them. The Internet of Things (IoT) can play a role in sensing and advances in digital twins can aid in simulating climate-driven events. It’s a set of tools that, when applied well, can help to better build resilience. At the same time, the resilience of utility systems are being challenged by tech advances. Power consumption by datacenters is impacting the load on electricity grids. The transition to greater use of renewables is changing grid dynamics and investment is needed to maintain stability. Climate impacts can have differing impacts across society and efforts manage equity are critical. The upcoming webinar will dig into all of this in more detail – join us to continue the conversation! Join the webinar: More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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AI and Storage
05/20/2025
AI and Storage
With all of the drama associated with AI, it’s easy to miss the need to understand the foundations that deliver the data that is the raw element from which AI value is built. Databases and storage infrastructure are critical components that have to work in concert with AI plans and returning guests Henry Baltazar and James Curtis join host Eric Hanselman to discuss what’s been happening and what enterprises need to know about the future. Databases and storage management systems have been intertwined for a long time and AI pressures are tightening that connection. Storage systems perform analytics on the data they store to optimize its handling, tracking use and characteristics. The same insights that aid in compression and tiering are also useful in classifying data for AI. Data classification has always been a challenge for enterprises, as storage systems are typically disconnected from the data owners and applications that use them. Intelligent storage systems have been able to intuit the nature of content, including mapping databases and virtual machines. Databases have been able to leverage storage capabilities like snapshotting for resilience. Into this mix a new set of AI focused storage and database offerings arrive that target AI uses. The question is whether the native database and storage systems can do enough of what’s needed. They already store key data and have valuable insights and classification capabilities. Some vendors are attaching GPU clusters to storage systems to provide high performance AI model training functionality. The major issue for most, is the matter of data placement. Shifting petabytes of data is no small task and concerns about data security and the costs involved now loom much larger. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Technology at the NAB Show
05/13/2025
Technology at the NAB Show
The annual NAB Show delivered a more fully digital ecosystem when it convened in Las Vegas this year. While traditional broadcast technologies are still the focus, hyperscale cloud providers, digital media platforms and no shortage of AI were all on display. Returning guests Justin Neilson and Peter Leitzinger join host Eric Hanselman to discuss what they saw at broadcasting’s big event and the impacts of various technologies on the media landscape. The digital television evolution is continuing apace. The ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV standard has been rolling out across the globe, albeit a bit more slowly in the U.S.. The higher resolution, more interactive capability is available to over three quarters of the market. Multi-screening functionality is interesting, but digital advertisers are looking to the direct access to consumers as a better path to monetizing viewers and delivering a direct path to content creators. The smart TV market is also hopeful, driving the uptake of new chipsets and televisions. The show also revealed the greater participation of the hyperscale cloud providers in broadcast media. Greater volumes of digital content are depending on cloud scale in ever greater measure. The creeping incrementalism of AI in media production still has to overcome some fundamental objections from studios and some content creators, but it is working its way into many parts of the industry. It seems like its convenience and velocity may be too much to resist. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Rugby Season and Media Rights
05/06/2025
Rugby Season and Media Rights
The game of Rugby is having a moment on the global stage. It’s attracting investment and growing its fan base and audiences. The Six Nations competition has just finished, with France triumphing over Scotland and the Women’s World Cup is on the horizon. With dedicated fans and upmarket advertisers, the media rights are garnering significant interest. An old saying contrasted soccer (football to most of the world) with rugby by saying that football was a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, while rugby was a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen. And today, both the women’s and men’s games are gaining prominence. Unlike soccer (football), the world governing body for rugby spans both leagues and has strong female representation on its board. With high value advertisers driving revenue and both country competitions and national leagues creating a rich game schedule, media valuations are continuing to grow. From its origins as an amateur league, it’s become much more. There’s a nascent shift from free-to-air broadcast to paid media and streaming. It’s quite a scrum! More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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RSA Conference Preview
04/28/2025
RSA Conference Preview
The annual RSA Conference on information security is coming up and it arrives during a very active security market. Analysts Garrett Bekker, Dan Kennedy and research director Scott Crawford return to the podcast to discuss what they expect to see in San Franscisco with host Eric Hanselman. The largest transaction ever in the information security world, Google’s acquisition of cloud security unicorn Wiz, has been echoing across capital and technology markets. It’s reinforced the importance of cloud security and its nature as a distinct technology segment. Enterprises have become fully hybrid in their infrastructure mix and they’re struggling to mitigate cloud risks. Part of the struggle is leading to tool consolidation and platform approaches to security management. It’s a situation that’s led by the fact that the average enterprise already reports spending a third of their security budgets on a single security operations vendor. Of course, AI will be front and center and this year agentic AI is being examined as a way to scale up security capabilities. AI capabilities have been part of security tools for many years and the challenge has always been building trust in automated actions. It will be some time before autonomous actions are turned on. There’s a long history of keeping human review in place as trust is built. It’s not that different from previous technology automation transitions, but with security, there’s a greater imperative. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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KubeCon and Cloud Native
04/22/2025
KubeCon and Cloud Native
Cloud native patterns and open source developments were on display at the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe conference. The biannual gathering was showing how the container ecosystem continues to mature and analysts Jean Atelsek and William Fellows join host Eric Hanselman to explore their insights. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), part of the Linux Foundation, continues to expand the event and advance the maturity of the open source projects that are part of its purview. Day 2 operations have been gaining focus and the pre-conference FinOps X event was an indication of the emphasis on operational controls as it digs into infrastructure cost management. The opening “Day 0” events at KubeCon, which have been the forum for specialized project meetings, have become a key part of the conference, with over 6,000 attendees, almost half of the reported 13,000 total. The Kubernetes container management project is now over ten years old and one of the other signs of technology evolution was the integration of the OpenInfra Foundation, which managed the OpenStack project and other infrastructure elements, into the Linux Foundation. Open source projects are gaining wider adoption and one of the messages from projects and vendors at KubeCon, was the hope that it could offer alternatives to enterprise infrastructure stalwart, VMware. The CNCF is expanding its investments in improving security across the projects under its umbrella. There was also continued development of platform engineering initiatives. Bounding the expanding world of open source projects to create consistent development and operational tool chains for enterprise is one more sign of maturity in the container world. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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AI and Privacy
04/15/2025
AI and Privacy
The many impacts of AI extend across business and consumer interests and issues around privacy are some of the broadest. Analyst Paige Bartley returns to the podcast to discuss the results of two recent studies on enterprise and consumer perspectives on AI and privacy with host Eric Hanselman. Enterprise privacy concerns are shifting from regulatory to operational and reputational, as the awareness of the importance of data privacy grows. The landmark UK GDPR legislation was announced in 2016 and most early efforts focused on compliance. That’s shifted to building privacy functionality into the foundations of the way businesses operate. PrivacyOps approaches are growing rapidly as organizations come to realize that customer trust has to both be established and maintained in ways that are meaningful to customers. The opportunity for businesses is to move from treating privacy as overhead to making part of supporting business interests. It comes full circle by helping to enable better data use for AI. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guest: Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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NVIDIA GTC Bursts at the Seams
04/08/2025
NVIDIA GTC Bursts at the Seams
It’s come a long way from its game developer roots and the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2025 edition was so well attended, it was straining the capacity of the San Jose Convention Center, its long-term home. John Abbott returns to discuss what debuted and the implications with host Eric Hanselman. NVIDIA has taken a starring role in AI and this year’s GTC had all of the glitz of a Hollywood production – CEO’s of major tech partners delivered a video tribute and Disney-designed robots cavorted on stage with CEO Jensen Huang. The event reinforced the extent to which NVIDIA has become a systems and software company, rather than simply a supplier of high performance silicon. The event highlighted not only new GPU’s and rack-scale compute systems, but also countered the concerns around declines in GPU demand raised by the release of the DeepSeek AI models. The shift to reasoning models for AI is expected to drive further demand. The impacts on energy consumption and associated pressure on energy transition plans weren’t mentioned, but are a large part of the larger discussion around AI. More S&P Global Content: For S&P subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guest: Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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M&A in 2025
04/01/2025
M&A in 2025
The M&A markets are in a tough situation. Transactions are harder to get done and exits just not happening. To sort out where this is all going, Scott Denne and Brenon Daly return to the podcast with host Eric Hanselman. Investors across technology have portfolios that are getting long in the tooth. They need exits to return value to their funds, but there are limited options. The IPO market is tentative, at best. At the same time, strategic investors are stepping back as they spend on AI. Capital expenditures continue to grow, with hyperscalers shelling out billions to expand their own infrastructure, as well as investing in AI startups. Google’s acquisition of Wiz is a massive transaction, but it is dwarfed by the ongoing internal investments. How far does this go and what will be the return on these investments? More S&P Global Content: For S&P Global Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Adam Kovalsky Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Satellite Market Perspectives
03/25/2025
Satellite Market Perspectives
The arrival of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite capabilities is changing broadband market dynamics as it increases capacity and improves performance. Mau Rodriguez joins host Eric Hanselman to discuss where displacement is taking place and the potential for new market entrants. The Geosynchronous satellite services that had been the backbone of remote connectivity have capacity, but come along with relatively high latency in data delivery. They’re orbiting at tens of thousands of miles, which is very long signal path, when compared to LEO satellites at around 500 miles. The broadband market is dominated by terrestrial technologies, with cable leading the installed base and fiber growing rapidly. The subscriber cost for satellite is far higher, but the deployment cost can be much lower than that required for remote locations. While Starlink dominates this market, AWS aims to compete with its Project Kuiper plans. It just needs to get a lot of satellites launched, first. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guest: Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Datacenters and Energy Markets in Europe
03/18/2025
Datacenters and Energy Markets in Europe
The demand for power driven by datacenter expansion is a global challenge and European markets are responding with some interesting aspects. With there has been a strong renewable component to energy supply, the complexity of the energy grid has meant that unified approaches were elusive. At the same time energy markets have faced three crises – demand reduction from the COVID pandemic, strong renewable investment and market disruption from the Russian-Ukraine war. Into this congested environment, Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) offer a way to channel investment in new generation capacity. The EU has just announced guarantees for non-investment grade PPA’s, creating the possibility for expanded markets and extending the ability to treat them as an addition to commodity markets for energy. Energy generation projects have become increasingly hybrid, bringing together multiple renewable sources with energy storage. Smoothing out renewable peaks can help it better address base load demand. Nuclear remains an expensive option, with approaches like Small Modular Reactors (SMR) still being a long ways off. There is the potential to have AI improve grid efficiency, by balancing demand and generation, an almost circular relationship, given that it is driving so much of demand. That will require more decentralization of the grid to increase flexibility and the acceptance of cryptographic protections for data sovereignty could allow workload placement near sources of power generation. There is a lot of potential for what has become an urgent issue. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Smart Spaces
03/11/2025
Smart Spaces
So much of the world around us is sensing and controlling with data, but it’s not often coordinated. Smart spaces technologies put that data to work and integrate capabilities and Zoë Roth returns to the podcast to dig into the potential of these systems with host Eric Hanselman. Smart spaces have grown out of the sensing roots in technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and shares a key element – the need to link operational technology (OT) with information technology (IT). Things like building environmental systems have historically been separated from the technology stack supporting the people that work in the building. Integration of these systems has the potential for a wide range of benefits, including improving working conditions, enhancing physical and logical security and reducing energy use. Stadiums and public venues are putting smart spaces technology to work to improve fan experience and improve safety. Extending to the macro scale, when smart spaces integrate at a city level, there’s greater efficiency and effectiveness across transportation systems, electric grids and governmental systems. Making this all work requires extending across information and functional silos. It’s a similar set of challenges that exist in digitization efforts in areas like retail, manufacturing and energy. As capabilities like digital twins and expanded support in edge computing mature, they hold promise to make smart spaces even more capable. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar, Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Mobile World Congress preview
03/04/2025
Mobile World Congress preview
Mobile World Congress, the annual gathering of telecom industry players, has expanded to embrace a broad range of technology and this year’s event will bring together a broad range of vendors, telecom operators and industry leaders. The theme of convergence has seen real world impacts and Raul Castañon, Mohammed Hamza and Lynnette Luna return to discuss what they’re expecting to see with host Eric Hanselman. The rise of network API’s for security and location services looks to open the door to greater application integration. It’s something operators have been hoping for, but there are questions about how they’ll monetize it. Many of the technologies that previewed in previous years are gaining traction. Open RAN technologies have matured and the ecosystem supporting them has expanded. There are still questions lingering about deployment timelines, but that seems to be shifting to a matter of when, rather than if. And, of course, AI is playing a role in much of what’s taking place in the exhibition halls. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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NVIDIA quarterly earnings
02/25/2025
NVIDIA quarterly earnings
Of the many companies that are part of the AI wave, NVIDIA has been at the core of AI infrastructure and a darling of the markets. Their performance in the market is driven in part by consistency in their performance and Melissa Otto, head of TMT Research for Visible Alpha, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, joins host Eric Hanselman to look at the sentiment around the upcoming earnings. The enthusiasm for AI has driven expectations higher and higher and the company has delivered. The rampant enthusiasm for AI’s future hasn’t been without some cautious moments. In January, the announcement of the DeepSeek model roiled markets with the prospect of lower compute consumption for model training. The concern was that demand for all things AI, GPU’s included, might wane. It might also have been a reason for a jumpy market to take a step back. If you dust off your economics textbooks, Jevon’s Paradox has been cited by many as an indication that consumption could accelerate. Time will tell! More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Amaan Zafar and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Agentic AI Impacts
02/18/2025
Agentic AI Impacts
The next phase of the AI wave is the arrival of agentic AI – where agents can take action on a user’s behalf. That’s enough of a big deal, but when the head of a tech giant says agentic is going to replace most SaaS applications, something different might be afoot. Analysts Sheryl Kingstone and Chris Marsh return to the podcast to look at the realities of this suggestion with host Eric Hanselman. Agents could become the new user interface for enterprise data, but there are a set of challenges in making this work. On the one hand, one of the largest issues with autonomous action, accountability for actions taken, is far from settled in both regulatory and legal frameworks. On the other, much of enterprise information is still held in systems where it may be difficult for an agent to reach. Agentic AI could provide a gateway to the myriad of systems that run the modern business. Opening access to data and the ability to aggregate across an organization could be tremendously powerful. Capturing the business logic that is often embedded in SaaS systems is difficult, but the shift to decoupling through API’s and the expansion of systems of delivery could open the door to agentic progress. More S&P Global Content: For S&P Subscribers: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Ethical AI Data
02/11/2025
Ethical AI Data
Ethical concerns about the use of AI have to start with training data. Too often, the primary concern is simply generating sufficient data, rather than understanding its nature. Emily Jasper and Abby Simmons are back to continue the conversation started in episode 198 with host Eric Hanselman. With generative AI, the data is the application in its most formative sense. Unlike traditional application development, where the expectation is that functionality will be expanded in later releases, GenAI applications require careful design of training data before training takes place. The perspectives contained in data age rapidly and model training doesn’t differentiate between outdated and current indications. Old data can effectively poison model outputs. Businesses risk alienating customers with models that are trained with data that don’t properly represent them. This is particularly true with marginalized communities, where language and context can change over shorter time frames. While there is research work on model retraining, work in AI today has to focus on effective data quality management. DeepSeek is causing a significant rethinking. Human data cleansing can be effective, but can’t scale to AI demands. Data workbench tools and synthetic data approaches can help, but better automation is needed to ensure that data sets are truly representative. Data collection and data sourcing need much greater attention to ensure that model results can engage the target audience and not be a liability. It’s a fundamental question of accountability that requires thinking in ways that are different than legacy development processes. Mentioned in this episode: More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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NRF conference shows AI challenges and rewards
02/04/2025
NRF conference shows AI challenges and rewards
The National Retail Federation conference (NRF) launches just as retailers are cleaning up from the holiday shopping season. This year there was a focus on how technology can empower employees while reducing customer friction. Sheryl Kingstone, Rich Karpinski and Jordan McKee return to the podcast to share their insights on the conference with host Eric Hanselman. Traditional in-store retail concerns are a big part of NRF and innovation in Point of Sale (PoS) technologies, like softPoS and the integration of biometrics were on display. For the latter, there’s still the issue of consumer trust, as well as onboarding requirements. The show also saw an issuing bank debut its own PoS offering. The promise and the challenges of AI were a large part of the conference. Delivering on AI will take infrastructure upgrades and retailers are looking at building ecosystems across technology vendors to share cost and risk. Digitization is going forward as logistics look to move from picking products to smart warehouses that can sense products. AI mastery can create a competitive advantage, but it requires the integration of a lot of moving parts. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Consumer Electronics at CES
01/28/2025
Consumer Electronics at CES
The annual technology fest that kicks off of the year, the CES conference (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show), showcased the latest consumer technology, from smart glasses to smart homes. Neil Barbour and Stefan Modrich join host Eric Hanselman to explore what made an impact and what’s happened to technology debuts from previous years. The metaverse headlines of a couple of years ago have transformed into augmented reality. ChatGPT hasn’t been integrated into any cars, yet, but agentic AI is being rolled out. Much of what’s on display at CES is a vision of the future. The transparent TV’s last year were early prototypes and this year they’re on the market, albeit with a hefty price tag. There is more that’s taking place behind the scenes in consumer interactions. Advertising is becoming more digital and smart devices are the new frontier in engagement. Media purveyors are looking to link consumer experiences across devices. The omnichannel strategies of the past have been realized in multi-screen engagement today. They are becoming the next retail channel in new and different ways that create opportunities, as long as businesses can master the technologies required to capitalize on them. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Women's Sports and Media Rights
01/21/2025
Women's Sports and Media Rights
Sports media are in the middle of a significant transition, as streaming media companies compete with traditional linear broadcasters. The Netflix deal for the U.S. rights to the Women’s World Cup is only the latest and Richard Berndes returns to look at how the shift is shaking out with host Eric Hanselman. Women’s sports have seen a dramatic rise in viewership and represent a new and unique audience for media providers. They’re also a fanbase that’s particularly dedicated and committed. That’s translated into increasing rights valuations, with Netflix being only the latest to strike a notable deal. This comes as advertising dollars are shifting to more digital spending and streaming providers are expanding their monetization of sport to more documentary-style programming. As the value of sports rights increases, there is more pressure on pay TV providers, as they look to hang on to subscribers. Sporting events have the unique characteristic of a viewing imperative. Most audiences won’t watch, if the know the outcome. Early attempts by streamers were marked by some missteps, but they’ve upped their game and are taking a strong position in sports media. Consumer cord-cutting is continuing in a trend that favors streaming outlets and sport is a big part of where they see growth. How much sporting activity can linear channels afford to lose? More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Darren Rose and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Tech Futures in the New Year
01/14/2025
Tech Futures in the New Year
As the old Danish proverb goes, it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, but we’re going to kick off the New Year with an exploration of where technology is headed a little further out in the future. While there have been headline-grabbing projections about AI and other buzzy topics, there are underlying connections across the technology landscape that are weaving the progress of the disparate branches of technology together. Research leaders Sheryl Kingstone, Justin Nielson, and Rich Karpinski join host Eric Hanselman to explore these changes and take on the difficult task of sorting out future possibilities. The opportunities to create additional revenue are large – many billions are lost to problems in customer transactions that better technology implementations could address. Macroeconomic pressures have a significant impact and will affect the speed of technology deployments and refresh cycles. Improvements in technology infrastructure are a critical part of being able to generate better outcomes. The world of sensors and IoT has made it into sports in increasing player performance and enhancing viewer experience with more detailed statistics, but stadiums have to be equipped with the technology and connectivity to make it possible. Advertising spending is becoming increasingly digital, but advertisers want greater breadth that connected devices like smart TV’s can provide. Those digital pathways can become new retail channels, but, once again, the infrastructure has to be in place to make it happen. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , , Producer/Editor: Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Drones Everywhere
12/31/2024
Drones Everywhere
Mysterious lights are seen in the sky above New Jersey, throwing many into a panic. Is this the current concern about drones or the War of the Worlds radio broadcast 86 years ago? There are interesting similarities and analyst Johan Vermij returns to the podcast to kick off the New Year discussing aliens, drones and the more recent furor in the Garden State. Various forms of drones, in the air, in the seas and on land are becoming a ubiquitous resource. Costs have come down and they’ve become much more capable. But they’re still not well understood by society at large. The New Jersey sightings are still being investigated, but many seem attributable to more conventional aviation activities. That’s not to say that these sightings can be disregarded. There are many documented cases of geopolitically driven military surveillance, with arrests of drone pilots with apparently nefarious intent around the globe. This is one more factor in play in the very complex world of drones today. It’s all too easy to deflect the conversation around drones from the many practical uses in which they’re put to work today. Drones are being used to aid first responders, with drone-in-a-box (DiaB) technologies available to be first on the scene to enhance situational awareness in critical situations. They’re surveying crops to increase yields while reducing pesticide use, finding methane leaks to reduce gas emissions and improving maintenance of cell towers and power transmission lines. And they’ve revolutionized the battlefield, creating an asymmetric advantage and driving a rapid evolution of technologies in a conflict-driven proving ground. We won’t see the replacement of jets and howitzers, but drone’s impacts have already been far reaching. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guest: Producer/Editor: Kyle Cangialosi and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith
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Ethical AI
12/17/2024
Ethical AI
In the rush to deliver data to AI projects, it’s all to easy for teams to pull data that’s most easily accessible, without given consideration to its nature and scope. Emily Jasper and Abby Simmons return to discuss ethical concerns about the data that feeds AI projects with host Eric Hanselman. AI implementations place a much greater burden on data quality than traditional IT projects. When data becomes the product, development practices, such as minimum viable product (MVP) releases, require that data be held to a much higher quality standard to address ethical concerns about its suitability. If a dataset contains bias or lacks representation for the community it serves, it will not only fall short in function, but can reinforce the bias and errors in the data. In effect, it becomes its own data poisoning attack, one of the key security concerns in AI applications. Ethical approaches to AI applications have to focus on ensuring that outputs reflect the diverse nature of society and move beyond a narrow, middle of the road, average. They have to integrate perspectives and feedback from the full spectrum of the society they claim to represent. It involves additional work to achieve this and it can pay off in the expanded market it gives access to. At the same time, organizations need to put their capabilities to work to serve those parts of their community that don’t have access to AI’s benefits. This can help to keep marginalized segments of society from being left behind, in what is becoming the next chasm in the digital divide. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: , Producer/Editor: Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith Other Resources:
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Data pipelines for AI
12/10/2024
Data pipelines for AI
Enterprises are wrestling with delivering data to fuel their AI efforts, hitting roadblocks around data security and privacy concerns and sifting through use cases and models to put it to work. Too many are making high-stake gambles feeding vast quantities of data into massive models. Jesse Robbins, one of the founders of Chef, a progenitor of the DevOps movement, a builder of the early Internet infrastructure and now partner at Heavybit, joins host Eric Hanselman to look at alternatives to the path that many are taking in pursuit of successful AI projects. In much the same way that DevOps patterns look to shift application development to more smaller, incremental changes with a pipeline that drives continuous improvement, AI projects can work with smaller models and localized datasets to manage risk and iterate faster. It’s a pattern that avoids concerns of pushing sensitive data to cloud-based offerings by working locally. Using smaller models reduces infrastructure costs and the need for vast quantities of GPU’s. Larger models sizes and data sets create two problems – more computational power and supporting infrastructure is required and more data complicates data provenance, security and ownership issues. Starting smaller and expecting to iterate on the results locally can have multiple benefits. If the data being used never leaves the local confines, security concerns are constrained to local environments. Tools like the open source project Ollama can deliver a choice of models to fit a variety of use cases and infrastructure capacities. Just like DevOps patterns, starting small and iterating quickly can get further faster and with lower risk. More S&P Global Content: Credits: Host/Author: Guests: Producer/Editor: Donovan Menard and Odesha Chan Published With Assistance From: Sophie Carr, Feranmi Adeoshun, Kyra Smith Other Resources:
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