⚡February was all about AI in the real world: what happens when AI becomes your coworker, your compliance risk, and your leadership challenge — all at once? Missed something? Here’s your February catch-up 🧵👇

We are thrilled that @fastcompany.com listed Practical AI as one of the top 5 AI podcasts! fastcompany.co.za/tech/2026-02...

Episode 347: Cognitive Synthesis and Neural Athletes --- AI isn’t just changing systems, it’s changing leadership. Deloitte’s CIO Deborah Golden shares how AI is reshaping leadership, why empathy and vulnerability matter, and why anti-fragility defines the future of work. #AI practicalai.fm/347

Episode 346: AI incidents, audits, and the limits of benchmarks --- AI is no longer experimental, it’s operational. And when it fails, it matters. Sean McGregor joins us on AI safety, verification, auditing, weak benchmarks, and lessons from hacking AI at DEF CON. #AI practicalai.fm/346

Episode 345: Inside an AI-Run Company --- “What if I built a real startup… but my coworkers were AI?” Journalist Evan Ratliff, host of Shell Game, joins us to discuss his experiment running a startup with #AIagents. How do AI coworkers behave and where ethics break down? #AI practicalai.fm/345

Episode 344: How is AI shaping democracy? --- We talk with Bruce Schneier about how AI is reshaping #democracy, governance, and citizenship, from elections and legislation to courts and public AI models. A grounded, global look at AI’s real societal impact. #AI practicalai.fm/344

Episode 343: Controlling AI Models from the Inside --- "Today, we provide an input to the model, get an output and we have no idea of what’s going on inside." Alizishaan Khatri of Wrynx explains why AI safety must move beyond black-box defenses, and into the model itself. #AI practicalai.fm/343

Episode 342: 2025 was the year of agents, what's coming in 2026? --- As we kick off 2026, we reflect on what really mattered in AI in 2025 and what’s coming next: rise of agents and reasoning models, infrastructure and energy constraints + grounded 2026 predictions. #AI practicalai.fm/342

Practical AI Podcast - Episode 340: The AI engineer skills gap --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/340

Practical AI Podcast - Episode 338: Chris on AI, autonomous swarming, home automation and Rust! --- One of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/338

Practical AI Podcast - Episode 336: Autonomous Vehicle Research at Waymo --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/336

Practical AI Podcast - Episode 335: Are we in an AI bubble? --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/335

Practical AI Podcast Episode 334: While loops with tool calls --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/334

Inside America's AI Action Plan --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/326

Agentic AI for Drone & Robotic Swarming --- The Practical AI Podcast is one of the world’s most popular and longest running podcasts on artificial intelligence. We make artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. #AI practicalai.fm/321

Practical AI cohost @chrisbenson.bsky.social was recently interviewed on a joint @changelog.com / Practical AI episode about fully-autonomous swarming and other topics.

There is crazy hype and confusion related to DeepSeek R1. The apps provided by DeepSeek has exploded in popularity. Chris and Daniel cut through the hype to talk about the model, privacy, running DeepSeek models securely, and what this signals for open models in 2025. changelog.com/practicalai/...

As cohost of @practicalai.bsky.social, I had long since abandoned X as a source for AI news, seeking items of interest from various other social media sources. Now I find myself coming to Bluesky first, so I hope a robust AI community springs up here. I like the good vibe and sense of acceptance.

Bluesky's firehose is a treasure trove of public data for researchers and developers, and it's completely free. Check out our developer docs: docs.bsky.app

The Practical AI podcast is now on Bluesky! We will start off by announcing our upcoming episodes here, and see where the conversations lead us...