/the uncomfortable middle: ai without the layoffs

/the uncomfortable middle: ai without the layoffs

What if AI adoption didn't have to mean layoffs? Diane Weaver, co-founder and COO of Baryons, joins James to explore the "uncomfortable middle" of enterprise AI — the gap where jobs are being reshaped but new ones haven't arrived yet. They dig into why top-down AI mandates breed shadow work and sabotage, how IKEA turned 8,000 at-risk support reps into a $1.5B new revenue line, and why the organizations that win will rethink workflows — and the human role — instead of just cutting headcount.

/ready, fire, aim: the AI tool trap

Most companies are buying AI tools before they've decided what they're for. James Carman, Callibrity CTO, and Jason Swafford, founder of Drag6, make the straight-talking case for the other way around. From there they cover why "failing" at AI is often just R&D in disguise, how to reframe shadow IT as innovation instead of a threat, why governance should feel like a head start rather than a tax, where vibe coding helps versus where it leaves a mess to clean up, and whether the Chief AI Officer role is here to stay.

/wave, not bubble: cutting through the ai noise

Bubble about to burst, or a wave you can't sit out? In Part 2, James and Sid Dutta go from technical to strategic: why AI is a wave, not a bubble; the "harvest now, decrypt later" threat and what's just hype; the "Kardashian effect" drowning real expertise on LinkedIn; and why you won't compete with AI — you'll compete with peers who use it better. Perfect for the leaders who'd rather learn from operators than influencers.

/compliant isn't secure: data protection in the age of ai agents

Your AI agent inherits your permissions. It doesn't inherit your intent — and that's the gap nobody's watching. James sits down with Sid Dutta — founder of Privaclave and a 24-year data protection executive (Amex, Worldpay, Microsoft Gaming) — for a two-part series on why being compliant doesn't equal secure, the single prompt that exposes data across silos, and the shift from static inventories to runtime enforcement.

/pilot purgatory: why your ai initiative isn't showing roi

Leadership mandated AI. Now they want the return — and your pilots have nothing to show for it. James sits down with Bob White, a 20-year ed-tech and SaaS operator (Cengage, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, VPG) who now advises companies on AI adoption, for an honest teardown of why most enterprise AI never pays off: escaping "pilot purgatory" with a problem-first funnel, why nobody being on the hook is the real reason ROI never lands, the financial giant forcing employees to hit AI-usage quotas (and why it backfires), and why bolting AI onto a broken process just makes it faster and more expensive.