Ai-podden

In this special summer episode, we do something a bit different. Our usal host Ather Gattami steps into the guest seat and is interviewed by close friend; Joseph Michael, Venture Partnerships at Google. Ather shares his journey from PhD researcher to leading Sweden’s top AI podcast. He reflects on AI’s evolution, the shift from theory to compute-driven progress, and why reasoning and real-world learning are the next big steps. Ather urges everyone to embrace AI tools or risk falling behind and shares his excitement about trends like agentic AI - while reaffirming that his true passion lies in doing AI, not just talking about it.  Happy Summer!  

In this episode, Ather Gattami and one of our favourite guests; Anders Arpteg, Head of AI and Data at GlobalConnect, explore Meta’s shifting AI strategy, including its investment in Scale AI amid doubts about LeCun’s JEPA model and LLaMA 4 performance. They compare Tesla’s vision-based Robotaxi rollout to Waymo’s sensor-heavy approach, highlighting Tesla’s edge in scalability and real-world data. They also dive into Apple’s “Illusion of Thinking” paper, questioning whether today’s LLMs genuinely reason or simply excel at recall, and discuss the need for memory, planning, and architectural breakthroughs to push AI beyond current limits.    

In this week's episode, special guest; Eva Fors, Managing Director at Google Cloud Nordics returns to the podcast. Eva and our host, Ather Gattami look at how companies in the region are shifting from AI pilots to real deployments, with leaders like Klarna, EasyPark, and Bonnier News using generative AI in areas like customer engagement, M&A, and personalization. While adoption is growing, Eva notes traditional industries are slowed by governance and execution gaps rather than tech limitations. She emphasizes the importance of treating data as a key asset and sees major potential for AI in public sector services, finance, and backend operations - especially as agent-based systems become more common.

In this episode, Stephen Jenkins, VP of Technology Strategy at Magna Electronics, shares practical insights into how AI is reshaping the automotive industry - from cutting development timelines with synthetic data to building smarter, more efficient autonomous parking systems. He explores the challenges of trust, safety, and explainability in AI, the current state of self-driving technology, and why full autonomy may be closer than we think.      

In this week's episode, we host one of our favourite guests; Anders Arpteg, Head of AI and Data at GlobalConnect, to discuss how AI could enable “single person unicorns” by handling core business functions, based on his keynote at the Data Innovation Summit. The episode also explores leadership shifts at Meta and OpenAI, the growing divide between research and product focus, and a promising new approach to training AI without human data, inspired by AlphaZero.

In this week's episode, Ather chats with Magnus Hambleton, investor at byFounders and former data lead at Natural Cycles. Magnus has successfully applied transformers to improve fertility predictions in a medical setting. As an investor, he focuses on agentic AI and backs startups slightly ahead of what’s currently possible, betting on near-future model capabilities. He remains cautious about LLMs’ reliability and generalization, believing new architectures may be needed for AGI. While big tech is dominant, he sees room for startups in complex, workflow-driven applications. 

In this episode, Salla Franzén, Investment Manager at Navigare Ventures, returns to AI-Podden to explore how AI accelerates discovery in fields like life sciences and neuroscience. She unpacks the risks of tech hype, the need for explainable, trustworthy AI, and the importance of tools that bridge disciplinary gaps. Salla also shares insights on scientific investing, technical depth, and improving EU funding processes.  

In this week's episode we host John Lamb, Solutions Lead AI & Analytics at TietoEvry. John emphasises that while tools like LLMs are useful for automating repetitive tasks such as code generation or data prep, they fall short when it comes to reasoning and interpreting structured data. He explains that data cleaning still dominates much of a data scientist’s time and that current AI tools, though helpful, cannot yet be trusted for end-to-end analysis. John also discusses why he believes AGI is still years away, requiring a fundamental shift in technology, and shares practical advice for using AI responsibly, underscoring the importance of human judgment in any AI-driven workflow.

In this episode, we host special guest; Senior Business and Tech Correspondent at SVT and author, Alexander Norén. We discuss how AI is transforming warfare, especially through autonomous drones and decision-making systems, as explored in his documentary AI War. Alexander also reflects on AI’s impact on jobs, arguing that human-made work will gain value in the future. The conversation ends with concerns about AI-driven misinformation and the importance of trustworthy, human-centered journalism.      

In this episode we speak to Anders Indset, a philosopher, deep tech investor, and best-selling author. We discuss AI’s real-world impact, emphasizing Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) that optimize industry-specific data in fields like healthcare, finance, and logistics. Anders critiques Europe’s cautious investment culture, advocating for a bolder approach in AI-driven sectors. Inset stresses the need for balanced AI regulation to foster innovation while addressing global challenges like climate change.

In this episode we chat to Niklas Silfverström, CEO of Klang.ai, about Europe's need for AI independence. We discuss data privacy risks, the Cloud Act, and AI bias, emphasizing the need for European infrastructure and language models. Niklas highlights how relying on American AI companies threatens sovereignty, and why investing in GPUs, data centers, and energy is crucial for Europe's competitive future. He also warns that without these efforts, Europe risks becoming a mere consumer of AI rather than a leader in the field. We should note that we use Klang.ai's wonderful platform in the backend processes of AI-Podden - they make our jobs much easier.

In this episode, we host Anders Arpteg to discuss GROK 3’s rapid innovation, the competitive AI landscape, and the rise of Chinese models. We explore Elon Musk’s influence, AI power concentration, open-source challenges, and the Tesla Agile DNA. The conversation concludes with insights into AI reasoning, AGI development, and future challenges.  

In this episode, Ather speaks to Galina Esther Shubina, Senior Director of AI Strategy at King. They discuss how AI improves gameplay and development at King through AI-powered playtesting bots. Galina is excited about robotics but sees major technical challenges ahead. On AGI, she is skeptical, predicting it won’t emerge for at least 100 years due to AI’s Game on limitations in reasoning. For 2025, she expects smaller generative models and a shift toward traditional AI methods like supervised learning, which she sees as more valuable for businesses.  

In this episode, Ather speaks to Mehrdad Mamaghani, Volvo Group’s Head of Data Science. They discuss AI’s role in predictive maintenance, financial forecasting, and sustainability. Merdad critiques the hype around AGI, emphasizing transparency and practical applications, and highlights the need for AI talent and expertise in Europe. 

Merry Christmas folks! This week, guest host (Sifted's) Mimi Billing and Ather discuss December's AI news updates. Highlights included Uber's entry into AI data labeling, Google DeepMind's Genie 2 for training AI in simulated environments, and Amazon's collaboration with Anthropic to develop a mega AI supercomputer. We covered the importance of new algorithms over mere scaling and the potential of agentic AI to bring advancements toward artificial general intelligence (AGI). The year saw record AI funding rounds, with Databricks leading at $10 billion, while disappointments included unmet expectations for reasoning capabilities in AI models. Looking ahead, we anticipate innovations in AI model architectures, memory integration, and task automation tools.

This week, guest host (Sifted's) Mimi Billing and Ather discuss November's AI news updates. Topics include; OpenAI’s Slush presentation, which revealed both innovation and cultural challenges, and the diminishing returns of AI scaling laws. They explore the rise of specialized models, new players like Gemesis and Mistral, and OpenAI's ChatGPT search feature. The episode also examines AI’s growing role in medicine, highlighting its diagnostic potential alongside concerns about biases and reliability, while reflecting on the balance between rapid progress and persistent challenges in AI development.

Christian Guttmann, Executive Director of the Nordic AI Institute, discusses AI as both a philosophical aspiration and a practical tool. He highlights applications like personalized banking recommendations and data querying with large language models but notes their limitations in reasoning and understanding. Advocating for hybrid AI models and richer data, he emphasizes the need for multimodal approaches that integrate various forms of input, such as speech and gestures, to advance AI capabilities. He also warns that Europe risks falling behind in AI development without greater investment and bold innovation.  

This week we welcome back; Reggie Townsend, Vice President of Data Ethics at SAS Institute and member of President Biden's National AI Advisory Council. We discussed AI development and regulation in the US. He stressed balancing innovation incentives with government restraint and cited the CHIPS Act as key for AI infrastructure, though most investments are private. He highlighted that AI trustworthiness varies, suggesting risk-based assessments. Townsend underscored the importance of AI education and common standards. On regulation, he noted a risk-focused, citizen-protective approach with inevitable dissent. Lastly, he urged AI to remain a bipartisan issue, avoiding politicization similar to electricity, with current bipartisan support.  

This episode, recorded live, at the third installment of AI-Podden live at Epicenter, features Ingrid af Sandeberg, Strategic Advisor at Epicenter and Chairman of the board at Stockholm AI. She joins Ather & Mimi on the stage to discuss AI trends and tools, including Notebook LM, highlighting the shift toward smaller, specialized models like those on Hugging Face. She emphasizes the challenges of regulating AI in rapidly evolving fields and advocates for outcome-based regulations. Despite Sweden's strong AI expertise, she notes a slow adoption rate and calls for better collaboration between AI experts, domain professionals, and regulators.  

This episode, recorded live, is the third installment of Ather and Mimi's special news updates at Epicenter Stockholm. They discuss Elon Musk's We, Robot controversy, OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round, and AI limitations like pattern matching. They also highlighted neurosymbolic AI’s potential, Nobel winners in machine learning, and the rapid adoption of generative AI tools, and noted the unreliability of current AI agents and the promise of Google’s Notebook LM.