High Agency: The Podcast for AI Builders

In this episode of High Agency, former OpenAI researcher Stan Polu shares his journey from AI research to founding Dust, an enterprise AI platform. Stan offers a contrarian view on the future of AI, suggesting we may be hitting a plateau in model capabilities since GPT-4. He discusses why startups should focus on product-market fit before investing in GPUs, shares practical lessons for building AI products, and predicts increased competition between AI labs and API developers.  Chapters: 00:00 - Introducing Dust: an enterprise AI platform 06:07 - From Stripe to OpenAI: Stan's journey 10:29 - Why research wasn't enough: building Dust 15:10 -  Best practices for building an AI product 20:50 - Is prompt engineering here to stay 23:40 - Understanding language models and their limitations 32:56 - Predictions for AI in 2025 39:53 - Measuring progress toward AGI 42:26 - The true value of AI technology -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanloop is the LLM evals platform for enterprises. We give you the tools that top teams use to ship and scale AI with confidence. To find out more go to humanloop.com

In this episode, we explore how Replicate is breaking down barriers in AI development through its open-source platform. CEO Ben Firshman shares how Replicate enables developers without machine learning expertise to run AI models in the cloud. 00:00 Introduction  00:29 Overview of Replicate  03:13 Replicate's user base  05:45 Enterprise use cases and lowering the AI barrier  07:45 The complexity of traditional AI deployment  10:24 Simplifying AI with Replicate's API  13:50 ControlNets and the challenges of image models  19:42 Fragmentation in AI models: images vs. language  25:05 Customization and multi-model pipelines in production  26:33 Learning by doing: skills for AI engineers  28:44 Applying AI in governments  31:12 Iterative development and co-evolution of AI specs  33:13 Final reflections on AI hype  35:18 Conclusion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanloop is an Integrated Development Environment for Large Language Models. It enables product teams to develop LLM-based applications that are reliable and scalable. To find out more go to humanloop.com

How do you build AI tools that actually meet users’ needs? In this episode of High Agency, Raza speaks with Lorilyn McCue, the driving force behind Superhuman’s AI-powered features. Lorilyn lays out the principles that guide her team’s work, from continuous learning to prioritizing user feedback. Learn how Superhuman’s "learning-first" approach allows them to fine-tune features like Ask AI and AI-driven summaries, creating practical solutions for today’s professionals.  00:00 - Introduction 04:20 - Overview of the Superhuman 06:50 - Instant Reply and Ask AI 10:00 - Building On-Demand vs. Always-On AI Features 13:45 - Prompt Engineering for Effective Summarization 22:35 - The Importance of Seamless AI Integration in User Workflows 25:10 - Developing Advanced Email Search with Contextual Reasoning 29:45 - Leveraging User Feedback 32:15 - Balancing Customization and Scalability in AI-Generated Emails 36:05 - Approach to Prioritization 39:30 - Real-World Use Cases: The Versatility of Current AI Capabilities 43:15 - Learning and Staying Updated in the Rapidly Evolving AI Field 46:00 - Is AI Overhyped or Underhyped? 49:20 - Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanloop is an Integrated Development Environment for Large Language Models. It enables product teams to develop LLM-based applications that are reliable and scalable. To find out more go to humanloop.com

This week on High Agency, Raza Habib is joined by Chroma founder Jeff Huber. They cover the evolution of vector databases in AI engineering, challenge common assumptions about RAG and share insights from Chroma's journey. Jeff shares insights from Chroma's development, including their focus on developer experience and observations about real-world usage patterns. They also get into whether or not we can expect a super AI any time soon and what is over and under hyped in the industry today.  00:00 - Introduction 02:30 - Why vector databases matter for AI 06:00 - Understanding embeddings and similarity search 12:00 - Chroma early days 15:45 - Problems with existing vector database solutions 19:30 - Workload patterns in AI applications 23:40 - Real-world use cases and search applications 27:15 - The problem with RAG terminology 31:45 - Dynamic retrieval and model interactions 35:30 - Email processing and instruction management 39:15 - Context windows vs vector databases 42:30 - Enterprise adoption and production systems 45:45 - The journey from GPT-3 to production AI 48:15 - Internal vs customer-facing applications 51:00 - Advice for AI engineers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanloop is an Integrated Development Environment for Large Language Models. It enables product teams to develop LLM-based applications that are reliable and scalable. To find out more go to humanloop.com

In this episode of High Agency podcast, Peter Gostev shares his experiences implementing LLMs at NatWest and Moonpig. He discusses creating an AI strategy, talks about challenges in deploying LLMs in large organizations, and shares thoughts on underappreciated AI developments. 00:00 - Introduction 00:44 - OpenAI dev day reactions   03:47 - Using AI to automate customer service   10:43 - Impact of AI products 13:41 - Who are the users of LLMs 14:47 - Challenges building with AI in a large enterprise   21:22 - AI use cases at Moonpig 24:34 - How to create an AI strategy 28:10 - Underappreciated AI developments -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Humanloop is an LLM evals platform for enterprises. It enables product teams to develop LLM-based applications that are reliable and scalable. To find out more go to humanloop.com