Shift AI Podcast

The Agentic Platform Hiding in Plain Sight with Slack Senior Director of DevRel Kurtis Kemple

In this episode of the Shift AI Podcast, Kurtis Kemple, Senior Director of Developer Relations at Slack (Salesforce), joins host Boaz Ashkenazy for a wide-ranging conversation on how Slackbot is evolving into a full agentic platform for human-AI collaboration in the flow of work. Kurtis shares his extraordinary personal journey, from growing up in poverty in Northern New Jersey, dropping out of school, struggling with addiction, and spending over six years incarcerated, to teaching himself to code in prison with nothing but a textbook and a computer with no internet. From there, he built a career in tech that has taken him to one of the most prominent roles in developer relations at Salesforce. The conversation dives deep into how Slackbot is becoming far more than a simple assistant. Kurtis demonstrates how skills, canvases, and MCP connectors transform Slackbot into a powerful orchestration layer where multiple agents and humans collaborate in threads, channels, and workflows. He explains how Slack is positioning itself as the interface for agentic AI, whether that means connecting to Agentforce, GitHub, PagerDuty, or custom-built tools. Boaz and Kurtis explore the concept of bounded autonomy, the idea that agents should earn expanded capabilities through demonstrated consistency, much like onboarding a new employee. They discuss how ambient agents, gamified learning experiences, and personal productivity skills are already transforming day-to-day work for teams using Slack internally at Salesforce. This episode is essential listening for developers, team leads, and anyone building or deploying AI agents who wants to understand why the orchestration layer matters more than any single model, and how the future of work is being shaped inside the tools we already use every day. Chapters [00:00] From Poverty to Prison to Tech: Kurtis's Journey [04:28] Learning to Code Behind Bars with No Internet [06:39] Landing at Salesforce and Second Chances in Hiring [07:11] First Job: The Kemple Kids Shoveling Snow [08:48] The Role: Slackbot, DevRel, and the Agentic Platform Vision [11:35] Multi-Party Collaboration: Agents and Humans in Threads [12:43] Why Slack Is the Orchestration Layer for AI [15:25] Skills Deep Dive: Building and Using Custom Skills [18:32] Context from Conversations: Slack as a Living Repository [20:29] Canvases, Writing Styles, and Seamless Workflows [22:08] Customer Success Stories: Linear, Engine, and Design Partners [25:22] Human-Agent Orchestration vs. Agent-to-Agent Orchestration [28:45] Ambient Agents: The Tidy Skill and Chief of Staff [33:06] Building Trust Through Bounded Autonomy [34:22] Design Partners: Linear, GitHub, and Graceful Degradation [39:11] Slack Platform Power Up: Gamified Learning with Skills [42:37] The Future of Work: Boundedness and Agency [45:04] AI for Everyone: Small Models, Big Access, Edge Intelligence [47:08] What's Next: Slack Developer Day (May 20) and Beyond Connect with Kurtis Kemple LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kurtiskemple/ Email: curtiskemple@gmail.com GitHub: https://github.com/kurtiskemple Connect with Boaz Ashkenazy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boazashkenazy/ Email: info@shiftai.fm

AI Agent Deployment and Real ROI with MongoDB Field CTO Pete Johnson

In this episode of the Shift AI Podcast, Pete Johnson, Field CTO of AI at MongoDB, joins host Boaz Ashkenazy for a wide-ranging conversation on where AI agents are actually delivering ROI — and what still needs to happen before enterprises can trust them with customers. Pete shares his origin story as a self-taught programmer who got his start on a TRS-80 in 1981, traces how MongoDB was born into a world of cloud, mobile, and internet that relational databases were never designed for, and explains why vector search sits at the intersection of MongoDB's document model and modern AI use cases. The conversation digs into Pete's "Customer Agent AI World Tour," where he has met with enterprises in over a dozen cities and heard a consistent message: production-grade agents are real, ROI is measurable, but the deployments are employee-facing and human in the loop. Pete explains the three things blocking the jump to customer-facing agents at scale, governance, observability, and evaluations, and why that challenge mirrors the early days of HTTPS standards for e-commerce. Boaz and Pete also explore the growing conversation around sovereign AI and on-prem inference, why Apple's edge device ecosystem may be the quiet wildcard in the infrastructure debate, and how MongoDB's Atlas platform lets organizations deploy data across 125-plus hyperscaler data centers worldwide. The episode closes with a forward-looking discussion on the future of software engineering, Werner Vogels' five skills for tomorrow's engineer, and why Pete's two-word forecast for the future of work is "not doomsday" — backed by a compelling contrast between the bank teller and the tollbooth worker as a framework for thinking about automation and job transformation. This episode is essential listening for enterprise leaders, developers, and anyone thinking seriously about where agentic AI is today versus where it is headed. Chapters [00:00] From Intellivision to TRS-80: Pete's Tech Origin Story [03:13] What MongoDB Is and Why the Document Model Matters [06:23] Joining MongoDB and the Vector Search Opportunity [07:50] What Pete Is Hearing on His AI World Tour [09:06] Why Fortune 500s Start with Employee-Facing Agents [11:11] Security, Governance, and the Three Big Blockers to Customer-Facing AI [14:29] How Software Engineering Is the Canary in the Coal Mine [16:56] Sovereign AI, On-Prem Inference, and the Cost of Tokens [20:14] The Apple Edge Device Wildcard [21:19] How MongoDB's Atlas Platform Fits a Hybrid Cloud World [23:21] Using AI Agents Is Programming in English [25:50] Werner Vogels on the Five Skills Every Engineer Will Need [27:17] The Future in Two Words: Not Doomsday [28:08] Bank Tellers vs. Tollbooth Workers: Why Most Jobs Will Level Up Connect with Pete Johnson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petecj2/ Connect with Boaz Ashkenazy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boazashkenazy/ Email: info@shiftai.fm

The Future of Food Is Already Being Farmed filmed live in Wenatchee, WA and hosted by Washington State Academy of Sciences.

In this episode of the Shift AI Podcast, Steve Mantle, Founder and CEO of Innov8.ag, Raj Khosla, Dean of the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resources at Washington State University, and John Cox, soil scientist and fresh produce industry operator, join host Boaz Ashkenazy for a wide-ranging panel conversation on how AI and emerging technology are transforming agriculture from the ground up. Steve, Raj, and John each bring a distinct lens to the conversation — startup founder, academic dean, and hands-on operator — and together they paint a vivid picture of where precision agriculture has been and where it is going. The discussion opens with the human side of farming: the generational knowledge, seasonal intuition, and field-level pattern recognition that has defined agriculture for centuries. The panel also covers infrastructure realities, edge computing, rural connectivity gaps, ERP systems that still require on-premise servers, and the economic pressures pushing farmers to demand AI that delivers margin today, not in five years. The conversation closes with each guest sharing their two-word vision for the future of AI in agriculture: physical AI, bright and better, and hopeful foresight. This episode is essential listening for anyone who wants to understand how AI is moving beyond the office and into the fields, orchards, and packing houses that feed the world. A huge thanks to Washington State Academy of Sciences for including this event in their Deep Dive into AI in Agriculture and Washington State University’s AgAID Institute for organizing this event held at Wenatchee Valley College. This all wouldn't be possible without the support from the funding sponsors the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the USDA ARS. Chapters [00:00] Event Introduction and Background with Jordan Jobe of the AgAid Institute [03:50] Boaz Introduces Himself and the Shift AI Podcast [08:04] Podcast Recording Begins: Welcoming the Panel [08:48] Steve Mantle: From Irrigation Hand Lines to Innovate Ag [09:40] Raj: From a Radio Science Program in India to Precision Agriculture Dean [11:24] John Cox: From Furniture Assembly to Apple Orchards and Kyrgyzstan [13:22] The Human Side of Farming: Intuition, Resilience, and Generational Knowledge [15:10] How GPS Unlocked Precision Agriculture and Field-Level Heterogeneity [16:48] Multi-Generational Farm Knowledge as a Living Large Language Model [18:09] Notebook LM Meets the Farm: The Harvest Replay Concept [21:16] Batteryless Biodegradable Sensors and the Future of Field Diagnostics [24:30] Precision Irrigation Prescription Maps and Dynamic Field Management [26:18] Computer Vision in the Apple Packing House [27:58] AI as a Global Expert: Diagnosing Crop Disease in Kyrgyzstan [30:15] Constraints in Ag AI: Data Stacks, Fragmented Systems, and Cultural Resistance [33:50] Build vs. Buy and the Change Agent Problem in Agriculture [35:50] Edge Computing, On-Premise Servers, and Hybrid Infrastructure on the Farm [39:09] Rural Connectivity: Broadband Gaps and the Starlink Reality [41:54] Economics of Ag AI: Labor Costs, Tightening Margins, and ROI [44:28] Moving from Spreadsheets to Agents: Why Trust Is the Real Barrier [45:50] Future Skills: What the Next Generation of Farmers Needs to Know [48:05] FFA Ag Tech Innovation Day and Hands-On Learning for Students [50:07] Two Words for the Future: Physical AI, Bright and Better, Hopeful Foresight [54:15] How to Connect with Steve, Raj, and John Connect with the Guests Steve Mantle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevemantle/ Raj (Dean, WSU College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resources) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raj-khosla-2566a819/ John Cox LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cox-soildr/ Connect with Boaz Ashkenazy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boazashkenazy/ Email: info@shiftai.fm

Agentic AI and the Future of Revenue Teams with Outreach CEO Abhijit Mitra

In this episode of the Shift AI Podcast, Abhijit Mitra, CEO of Outreach, joins host Boaz Ashkenazy for a wide-ranging conversation on how agentic AI is fundamentally reshaping the way revenue teams operate. Abhijit shares his journey from tutoring a seventh-grade student advanced math in India to spending 30 years building enterprise systems at Oracle, SAP, and ServiceNow before joining Outreach as head of product and engineering—and eventually stepping into the CEO role. From there, the discussion dives deep into how Outreach has evolved from a sales execution platform into a full agentic AI infrastructure for go-to-market workflows. The conversation explores the critical distinction between true autonomous agents and what Abhijit calls "fancy dashboards"—how Outreach's agents autonomously research accounts, personalize outreach, prep sellers for meetings, provide real-time coaching, and even submit forecasts without human intervention. Abhijit explains why the shift from SaaS seat licenses to hiring agents with skills and capacity represents the next evolution of enterprise software, and why companies that don't adapt will not survive. Boaz and Abhijit also dig into the governance challenge at the heart of enterprise AI adoption—shadow AI, role-based access control, and how to give individual sellers the autonomy to personalize their own agents while keeping everything inside trusted organizational guardrails. The episode closes with Abhijit's vision for self-adapting AI that learns best practices from every rep and distributes them across the entire team, making every rep your best rep. This episode is essential listening for sales leaders, revenue operators, and enterprise technology buyers who want to understand how agentic AI is moving beyond individual productivity tools to unlock fundamentally new go-to-market operating models. Chapters [00:00] Introduction: Abhijit's Career from Oracle and SAP to Outreach [01:26] First Job: Teaching 12th Grade Math to a 7th Grader in India [01:58] Outreach's Evolution from Sales Execution to Revenue Orchestration [03:42] 2025 Was the Launch—2026 Is When Agents Actually Happen [04:12] What Makes a True Autonomous Agent (Not a Chatbot or Dashboard) [07:46] The New Paradigm: Hiring Agents vs. Renting Software Seats [09:43] Personal Agents and the Case for Individual Autonomy [12:06] Enterprise Governance: Why Every Rep Needs Guardrails [12:34] Shadow AI, Sovereign AI, and What CISOs Are Actually Worried About [13:34] Role-Based Access Control for Agents: Match the Person, Not the Platform [14:20] Day in the Life: What Agents Do So Sellers Don't Have To [17:06] Outreach's Own 100-Person Sales Team as a Live Testing Ground [17:34] The Numbers: 39% Productivity Increase Measured Internally [19:17] Is SaaS Dead? The Real Transformation Happening in Enterprise Software [21:50] What's Next: Self-Adapting Agents That Learn and Spread Best Practices [24:30] Two Words on the Future of Work: Unleash Your Best Performance [25:38] Closing Thoughts on Augmentation, Fear, and Human Potential Connect with Abhijit Mitra LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitrasaab/ Connect with Boaz Ashkenazy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boazashkenazy/ Email: info@shiftai.fm

How AI is Rewriting Software Engineering with Amperity CTO Derek Slager

In this episode of the Shift AI Podcast, Derek Slager, CTO and co-founder of Amperity, joins host Boaz Ashkenazy for a conversation that spans 10 years of company building, the evolution of AI-assisted software development, and what it really means to lead a technical organization through genuine disruption. Derek shares the founding story of Amperity, how he and co-founder Kabir Shahani stumbled into the customer data problem while building marketing automation at their previous company, Aperture, and how that experience became the thesis for building an entire platform around getting data right. The conversation moves into the heart of how AI has transformed Derek's work as a CTO and as an engineer. He describes the moment the shift felt real, the team dynamics of moving from individual AI exploration to a true team sport, and how Amperity is compounding the institutional knowledge locked in a decade of after-action reviews into something agents can now actually learn from. Derek addresses the "SaaS is dead" narrative head-on arguing that Amperity's data foundation is precisely the asset that makes agents genuinely useful for their customers. Boaz and Derek close with a forward-looking exchange on agentic workflows in marketing, the importance of redesigning process and what a learning mindset means for individuals and organizations navigating what comes next. This episode is essential listening for CTOs, data leaders, and operators who want to understand how the companies with the best data foundations are positioned to thrive in the agentic era. Chapters [00:00] Introduction: Derek's Path to Building Amperity [02:13] What Amperity Is and Why It Took 10 Years to Build [04:41] First Job: Early IT Work at Dad's Small Business in Monroe, WA [06:14] The Founders Club: How Amperity Went to Market in 2016 [08:20] Why They're Running a New Founders Club 10 Years Later [10:13] Both Sides of Claude Code: What Changed and When [13:30] Living Through Disruption as a CTO and Engineer [15:36] Making AI a Team Sport Instead of an Individual Pursuit [17:04] The Moment It Really Clicked: A Simple Tool That Took 5 Minutes to Build [19:09] Cultural Adoption: Skeptics to Believers Inside Amperity [21:50] Compounding Engineering: After-Action Reviews as AI Training Data [23:45] The Agent Wave Is Real: What It Means for a Customer Data Platform [25:09] Amperity's Data Foundation as the Perfect Agent Substrate [27:00] Redesigning Process, Not Just Adopting Tools [28:57] Systems Thinking and the Future of Work [30:04] Two Words: Learning Mindset [33:01] How to Connect with Derek and Amperity Connect with Derek Slager LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekslager/ Website: amperity.com Connect with Boaz Ashkenazy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boazashkenazy/ Email: info@shiftai.fm