Episode guide · updated through Episode 36

The AI in NYC Showevery episode, every guest

New York’s AI economy, one conversation at a time. Founders, investors, enterprise AI leaders, and the occasional comedian — who was on, what they argued, and where to watch.

Watch on YouTube ↗Browse all 37 episodes

episodes: 37episodes
guests: 39guests
of conversation: 29 hrsof conversation
archive interviews since 2021: 51archive interviews since 2021

What the show is

Most AI coverage is written from San Francisco and is about models. The AI in NYC Show is recorded in New York and is mostly about use: the payments company turning AI principles into working governance, the founder selling into hospitals, the investor deciding which of those is a business. Most episodes pair a long interview with the hosts arguing about the week’s AI news, and end on something about the city itself.

The guest list is the point. Across Season 1 it covered an AI governance director at Mastercard, a privacy partner at Cooley, the president of SemiAnalysis, the founders of Reality Defender, Aescape, Preql, and Zo Computer, and a run of seed-stage companies most people haven’t heard of yet. Many of them appear in our NYC AI companies guide, and the ones that are hiring show up in the NYC AI Hiring Index.

This page is the full record. Every episode is here in publish order with its guests and a short summary, followed by an index of guests and the back catalogue from the two interview series that preceded the show.

The hosts

Rob May. Co-founder & CEO of Neurometric, angel investor, and author of Investing in AI.
Anna Kirk. Sales lead at Thread AI. On the show since Episode 1.
Ryan Eppley. Co-founder & CEO of Root Access. A regular host through Season 1; stepped back in August 2026.

Where to follow it

Browse by theme

Eight threads run through the season. Episodes that cover two appear under both.

All 37 episodes

Newest first. Dates and running times come from the show’s podcast feed; the summaries are ours.

Episode 36 · Sep 8, 2026 · 42:24

The Jagged Frontier of Enterprise AI: Why Adoption Is Failing

Satish Viswanathan — Author, The Weight of Intelligence

Models keep getting better and business results mostly don’t. Satish Viswanathan argues the gap is absorption, not capability: companies can’t reorganize work as fast as the models improve. The conversation covers AI ROI, AGI versus what he calls AEI, the architecture decisions that matter, the future of consulting, and what it takes to integrate AI into how a business actually works.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Enterprise AI

Audio only

Special · Aug 21, 2026 · 35:34

Season 1 Wrap-Up: Behind the Show and What’s Next

Hosts only

Rob May and Anna Kirk close the first season with producer Madi Donlan asking the questions. Ryan Eppley steps back as a regular host, the team picks its most underrated episodes, and they make the case for why New York wins at applied AI. The back half works through audience comments on politics, campaign money, and whether ethics can be taught to technologists, then previews a Season 2 with live shows and call-ins.

Listen on Apple Podcasts ↗

Culture & Society

Episode 35 · Aug 12, 2026 · 28:43

Ex-Meta Engineer Turned Founder: Inside ScaleBuild AI

Ujwal Roy — Founder & CEO, ScaleBuild AI

Ujwal Roy spent his career inside Meta, Intel, and Micron before starting ScaleBuild AI. He talks with Ryan Eppley and Anna Kirk about the move from big-company engineering to founding a startup, and how he sees AI reshaping every industry.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Founders & Startups

Episode 34 · Aug 4, 2026 · 43:28

What Real AI Transformation Looks Like Inside an Enterprise

Rahul Kanodia — CEO, Datamatics

Rahul Kanodia runs a public IT services company that has rebuilt itself around AI, and he is blunt that transformation is not a ChatGPT license. He walks through building an AI-first culture, measuring ROI, agentic AI and automation, and the biggest mistakes he sees companies make.

Watch on YouTube ↗Datamatics in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Datamatics ↗

Enterprise AI

Episode 33 · Jul 16, 2026 · 40:24

Refurbished GPUs, Real Infrastructure: Powering the AI Boom

Harris Edelman — Founder & CEO, Ombligo

Every model runs on hardware somebody has to source, and a growing share of it is second-hand. Harris Edelman takes Rob May inside the booming market for refurbished data-center equipment and AI GPUs — the hidden infrastructure layer most people never see.

Watch on YouTube ↗Ombligo in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Ombligo ↗

Infrastructure & Chips

Episode 32 · Jul 6, 2026 · 36:15

From Computational Chemistry to AI at Scale

Alexa Griffith — Senior Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat

Alexa Griffith moved from computational chemistry into software and now builds AI infrastructure at Red Hat. She covers what production AI demands that demos don’t — scale, latency, security — along with the current model race and why so many companies still stall on adoption even with good tooling.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Infrastructure & Chips
Work, Talent & Education

Audio only

Episode 31 · Jul 1, 2026 · 52:00

AI Security, Slack Agents, and the Future of Work

Boris Berenberg

Boris Berenberg on why most enterprise AI projects fail: security and compliance objections, weak implementation plans, and organizations that resist the change. He also covers AI agents, Slack-based automation, the particular demands of regulated industries, and where knowledge work goes from here.

Listen on Apple Podcasts ↗

Enterprise AI
Agents & Software

Audio only

Episode 30 · Jun 25, 2026 · 50:26

AI Agents vs. SaaS: The Future of Software

Kenneth Auchenberg — Partner, Innovation Endeavors

Will agents replace traditional software? Kenneth Auchenberg makes the investor’s case that the next decade belongs to agent-first systems. He describes the shift from developer experience to agent experience, whether traditional SaaS is at risk, the outlook for AI infrastructure investing, and how businesses can prepare.

Listen on Apple Podcasts ↗

Agents & Software
Venture & Funding

Episode 29 · Jun 17, 2026 · 34:00

Reclaiming the Internet: Personal AI and Zo Computer

Ben Guo — Co-founder & CEO, Zo Computer

Ben Guo was an early Stripe engineer and is a Brooklyn musician; Zo Computer is his bet on personal AI. He argues that a managed cloud computer plus autonomous agents can hand ordinary people back control from the platforms, calls the attention economy techno-feudal, and talks about building a company for love of the work rather than the exit.

Watch on YouTube ↗Zo Computer in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Zo Computer ↗

Agents & Software
Founders & Startups

Episode 28 · Jun 11, 2026 · 52:42

Thick Skin Required: Fundraising, Failure, and Comedy

Noah Obstfeld — Pitch Roast

Pitch Roast puts founders on stage to pitch while professional comedians take them apart. Noah Obstfeld joins Rob May and guest co-host Stephen Messer to explain why founders sign up for it, what happens when a live pitch collapses, and what the format teaches about the resilience fundraising demands.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Venture & Funding
Culture & Society

Episode 27 · Jun 8, 2026 · 46:31

The Next AI Battle Isn’t Technology — It’s Trust

Guy Mounier — CEO, Boon AI

Four-time founder Guy Mounier thinks trust becomes the scarce currency of the next decade. He discusses how AI is changing the way organizations make decisions, what it takes for people to rely on those systems, and the thinking behind his Trust Era Project.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Governance, Law & Trust
Founders & Startups

Episode 26 · May 29, 2026 · 42:29

Building the Next Generation of AI Leaders

Dr. Taniya Mishra — Founder, SureStart

Dr. Taniya Mishra went from early machine-learning research and accessibility projects to founding SureStart, which teaches AI fluency to students worldwide. The episode covers what AI is doing to entry-level jobs, why mentorship and ethics belong in technical education, and whether the race to advanced AI is leaving the human element behind.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Work, Talent & Education

Episode 25 · May 21, 2026 · 43:58

AI Storytelling, AGI Hype, and Creative Worlds

Hilary Mason — Hidden Door

Hilary Mason has watched New York AI since the early data-science era. She argues that practical product design matters more than chasing AGI, and makes the case for small language models and harness engineering over chatbot-first products. The second half is about Hidden Door: narrative engines that let people create characters and play inside evolving fictional worlds.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Founders & Startups
Culture & Society

Episode 24 · May 14, 2026 · 39:47

Cerebras IPO, the Dead Internet, and the AI Backlash

Hosts only

A hosts-only hardware episode. Rob May and Ryan Eppley break down what makes the Cerebras wafer-scale chip different — distributed SRAM, no von Neumann bottleneck, an entire wafer used as one chip — and why inference workloads are fragmenting beyond GPUs. Then the dead-internet theory and the growing public backlash against AI.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Infrastructure & Chips

Episode 23 · Apr 29, 2026 · 48:19

Your AI Is Broken Because Your Data Is

Gabi Steele — Co-founder & CEO, Preql

Gabi Steele’s diagnosis for agents that don’t work: the data foundation underneath them is broken. She traces her path from data visualization at the Washington Post to teaching at Columbia and Parsons, and the lesson her co-founder took from WeWork, where a hundred-person data engineering team still couldn’t keep up with the company’s data.

Watch on YouTube ↗Preql in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Preql ↗

Enterprise AI
Founders & Startups

Episode 22 · Apr 21, 2026 · 41:19

Edge AI, Privacy, and Japan’s Different Approach

David Justus — VP of Applied AI, Panasonic

David Justus deploys AI where the cloud is not an option: in-flight entertainment over the Atlantic, manufacturing floors, stadium video processing. He explains what edge deployment demands in practice, then contrasts how the US, China, and Japan are each approaching AI and privacy.

Watch on YouTube ↗Panasonic Well in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Panasonic Well ↗

Enterprise AI
Infrastructure & Chips

Episode 21 · Apr 15, 2026 · 33:02

Cloud Coding Agents and the Mythos Model Panic

Matthew Mirman — Founder, Chat.Dev

Matthew Mirman describes Chat.Dev as Heroku for Claude Code: spin up a cloud VM, run a coding agent unattended, manage it by text message. He tells how he got there from legal-tech tools for personal injury lawyers, and pinpoints the moment coding agents went from passable to letting non-programmers ship production applications.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Agents & Software
Founders & Startups

Episode 20 · Apr 3, 2026 · 54:18

What VCs Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded

Charlie O’Donnell — Author, Founder Unfriendly

The show’s first guest returns with a book for the founders who aren’t insiders. Charlie O’Donnell explains why the feedback a VC gives you is rarely the real reason they passed, how junior associates string founders along without meaning to, and why a fundraise starts long before the first pitch meeting.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Venture & Funding

Episode 19 · Mar 28, 2026 · 48:30

Rebuilding the Internet for the AI Era

Zachary Smith — Co-founder, Datum

Zachary Smith left a classical music career at Juilliard for Linux web hosting in 2001, built and sold companies, and saw interconnection from inside Equinix. His thesis is the splinternet: geopolitics, regulation, and AI workloads are fragmenting a once-unified network, and the internet’s foundations need rebuilding for it.

Watch on YouTube ↗Datum in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Datum ↗

Infrastructure & Chips
Founders & Startups

Episode 18 · Mar 20, 2026 · 42:05

Can AI Read Your Mind? Neurotech and Privacy

Kristen Mathews — Partner, cyber/data/privacy, Cooley LLP

Kristen Mathews has practiced privacy law for nearly thirty years and now works where it meets neurotechnology. She lays out the field from invasive implants to consumer headbands, explains how AI turned a century of brain-signal recordings into decodable information, and asks what privacy law has to say about devices that read — and write to — the brain.

Watch on YouTube ↗Cooley LLP in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Cooley LLP ↗

Governance, Law & Trust

Episode 17 · Feb 26, 2026 · 57:54

Governing AI for Real

Alayna Kennedy — Director of AI Governance, Mastercard

Alayna Kennedy built fraud-detection models at IBM before moving into governance, and she knows the distance between publishing principles and embedding them in a data pipeline. She shares her research on which companies actually practice AI ethics, how a large enterprise weighs frontier models against open source, and where internal resistance to AI really comes from.

Watch on YouTube ↗Mastercard (AI & Data) in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Mastercard (AI & Data) ↗

Governance, Law & Trust
Enterprise AI

Episode 16 · Feb 20, 2026 · 47:56

From Classroom to AI Lab

Albert Chun — Founder, AI Circle

Albert Chun keeps AI Circle small on purpose and treats turning away a thousand applicants as a feature. A former educator who started schools in the Bay Area and the South Bronx, he argues that training models is closer to teaching than to math. The hosts also cover OpenAI’s OpenClaw acquisition, security risks in open-source agents, and the Pentagon’s clash with Anthropic.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Work, Talent & Education
Agents & Software

Episode 15 · Feb 13, 2026 · 46:48

From “Her” to Reality: AI, Sex, and Dating in 2026

Hosts only

A Valentine’s week episode with no guest. Rob May and Ryan Eppley start from the statistic that a third of Gen Z has had a romantic conversation with an AI and ask whether the technology builds human connection or replaces it. Also: Anthropic’s “Keep Thinking” ad campaign, OpenAI’s move into advertising, and multi-agent development frameworks.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Culture & Society

Episode 14 · Jan 25, 2026 · 01:02:48

From x.ai to ChatGPT Ads: Scheduling, Bubbles, and Apple’s Mistake

Dennis Mortensen — Founder, x.ai; now Launch Brightly

Dennis Mortensen built x.ai, one of the first real AI agents, years before large language models existed. He tells war stories from AI scheduling — what does “soon” mean? — and explains why perceived errors were harder to fix than real ones. Then ChatGPT’s ad business, why he sold his AI stocks, and whether Apple licensing Gemini for Siri is smart or a generational fumble.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Agents & Software
Founders & Startups

Episode 13 · Jan 10, 2026 · 51:34

AI in Healthcare, Grok’s Deepfake Scandal, and LeCun Leaves Meta

Carrie Hodge — CEO & Co-founder, Dimer Health

Dimer Health covers the gap between hospital discharge and follow-up care. Carrie Hodge talks about patient trust in AI, the launch of ChatGPT Health, why AI can’t make clinical decisions yet, and what happens when malpractice law meets machine learning. News segment: Grok’s image generator, Wisconsin’s deepfake law, and Yann LeCun’s departure from Meta.

Watch on YouTube ↗Dimer Health in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Dimer Health ↗

Founders & Startups
Governance, Law & Trust

Episode 12 · Dec 29, 2025 · 40:52

Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know

Ian O’Brien — CounselPro · Alec Glassman — Silvershield · Peyman Faratin — Krnel · Sergey Litvinenko — Koop · Akash Nandi — Tendrel · Jason Patel — OpenForge

The 2025 year-end showcase: six founders, six applied-AI companies built in New York. CounselPro does forensic accounting for lawyers, Silvershield protects older adults from fraud, Krnel secures models at runtime, Koop automates compliance, Tendrel brings operations intelligence to manufacturing, and OpenForge optimizes businesses for AI search.

Watch on YouTube ↗Koop in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Koop ↗

Founders & Startups

Episode 11 · Dec 22, 2025 · 01:05:11

2025 Year-End Wrap-Up

Jason Hiner — Editor-in-Chief, The Deep View

Jason Hiner helps the hosts rank the biggest AI stories of 2025: DeepSeek’s efficiency shock in January, OpenAI’s reasoning models and the turn to inference-time compute, the hundred-million-dollar talent war, GPT-5’s reception, and Google’s comeback with Gemini 3.

Watch on YouTube ↗The Deep View in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at The Deep View ↗

Culture & Society

Episode 10 · Dec 10, 2025 · 37:40

Nvidia vs. AMD and the AI Power Crunch

Doug O’Laughlin — President, SemiAnalysis

Doug O’Laughlin on the hardware, economics, and geopolitics under the AI boom. Why Nvidia’s lead is about more than specs, the exposé that pushed AMD into a turnaround, how fragile the chip supply chain is, and the power problem coming next — alternative accelerators, US fabs, Intel’s identity crisis, and nuclear versus on-site generation.

Watch on YouTube ↗SemiAnalysis in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at SemiAnalysis ↗

Infrastructure & Chips

Episode 9 · Dec 5, 2025 · 35:57

Inside the AI Deepfake War

Ben Colman — Founder & CEO, Reality Defender

Ben Colman recounts the moment he realized deepfakes would become a world-scale problem. He explains what it takes to keep detection ahead of generation, how investor sentiment toward safety tooling has shifted, and why New York may be the best place to build applied AI.

Watch on YouTube ↗Reality Defender in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Reality Defender ↗

Governance, Law & Trust
Founders & Startups

Episode 8 · Nov 20, 2025 · 01:05:15

Why Nonprofits Need AI

Jenni Warren — Program Director, Decoded Futures · Jake Porway — Entrepreneur-in-Residence; co-founder of DataKind, Decoded Futures

Decoded Futures is a Tech:NYC Foundation initiative backed by Robin Hood and Google that helps nonprofits put AI to work. Jenni Warren and Jake Porway make the case that the social sector can’t sit this technology out, in a conversation the show itself calls wide-ranging, philosophical, and fun.

Watch on YouTube ↗DataKind in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at DataKind ↗

Work, Talent & Education
Culture & Society

Episode 7 · Nov 17, 2025 · 58:17

The Future of AI Hardware

Waleed Atallah — CEO, Makora (on air as Mako)

Waleed Atallah left Intel to start a company around a hard problem: programming GPUs well. He explains why GPUs took over AI, what makes writing fast code for them so difficult, and how his company attacks it. The conversation widens to coding agents, the async-versus-sync debate, and enterprise adoption.

Watch on YouTube ↗Makora in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Makora ↗

Infrastructure & Chips
Founders & Startups

Episode 6 · Nov 10, 2025 · 46:34

Real-World AI in Private Equity

Sam Koch — VP of AI, FeedbackNow

Sam Koch uses AI on real workflows and reports what happened. He shares automations that save hours, the ones that failed and why some aren’t worth building, the argument that hardware gives startups defensibility again, and how management culture makes or breaks an AI program inside a private-equity portfolio.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Enterprise AI

Episode 5 · Oct 27, 2025 · 54:52

Do Resumes Still Matter? AI, Job Hunting, and the Future of Work

Joe Perrotta — Founder & CEO, SimpleApply

SimpleApply automates the job hunt for thousands of applicants. Joe Perrotta and the hosts debate the doom loop that follows when candidates automate applications and employers automate screening, and whether the resume survives it.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Work, Talent & Education
Founders & Startups

Episode 4 · Oct 21, 2025 · 51:39

AI Investing, Legal Tech, and the Billable Hour

Joe Dormani — Partner, Thomson Reuters Ventures

Joe Dormani invests in AI for professional services. He covers venture strategy and defensibility, how enterprise adoption is unfolding in practice rather than in press releases, and whether the billable hour can survive AI — plus a detour into dating apps and his view that organic rizz beats synthetic rizz.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Venture & Funding
Enterprise AI

Episode 3 · Oct 3, 2025 · 58:30

Robotic Massage and New York’s Robotics Boom

Eric Litman — CEO, Aescape

Aescape builds a robotic massage table. Eric Litman describes how robotics exploded in New York over the last few years and compares it with building his first company in mobile in the mid-2000s. The hosts also take up a report that ChatGPT is wrecking marriages, and argue again about whether AI is a bubble.

Watch on YouTube ↗Aescape in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Aescape ↗

Founders & Startups

Episode 2 · Oct 1, 2025 · 53:39

Building AI in New York Before It Was Cool

Stephen Messer — Co-founder, Collective[i]

Stephen Messer is one of New York’s early tech entrepreneurs and has been building AI here since before it was fashionable. The group discusses The Atlantic’s AI-bubble piece and Jerry Neumann’s “AI Will Not Make You Rich,” and everyone contributes an overheard-in-New-York story.

Watch on YouTube ↗Collective[i] in the NYC AI companies guide Careers at Collective[i] ↗

Founders & Startups
Venture & Funding

Episode 1 · Oct 1, 2025 · 01:01:54

How New York Became an AI Hub

Charlie O’Donnell — Venture capitalist

The first episode. Charlie O’Donnell is a lifelong New Yorker and longtime venture capitalist who worked for both Josh Kopelman and Fred Wilson. He walks through what he learned from them and the catalysts that turned the city into a dominant hub for AI.

Watch on YouTube ↗

Venture & Funding

Guest index

All 39 guests, alphabetical by surname. Titles are as of the recording.

Guest	Role	Episode
Waleed Atallah	CEO, Makora (on air as Mako)	Ep 7: The Future of AI Hardware
Kenneth Auchenberg	Partner, Innovation Endeavors	Ep 30: AI Agents vs. SaaS: The Future of Software
Boris Berenberg	—	Ep 31: AI Security, Slack Agents, and the Future of Work
Albert Chun	Founder, AI Circle	Ep 16: From Classroom to AI Lab
Ben Colman	Founder & CEO, Reality Defender	Ep 9: Inside the AI Deepfake War
Joe Dormani	Partner, Thomson Reuters Ventures	Ep 4: AI Investing, Legal Tech, and the Billable Hour
Harris Edelman	Founder & CEO, Ombligo	Ep 33: Refurbished GPUs, Real Infrastructure: Powering the AI Boom
Peyman Faratin	Krnel	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Alec Glassman	Silvershield	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Alexa Griffith	Senior Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat	Ep 32: From Computational Chemistry to AI at Scale
Ben Guo	Co-founder & CEO, Zo Computer	Ep 29: Reclaiming the Internet: Personal AI and Zo Computer
Jason Hiner	Editor-in-Chief, The Deep View	Ep 11: 2025 Year-End Wrap-Up
Carrie Hodge	CEO & Co-founder, Dimer Health	Ep 13: AI in Healthcare, Grok’s Deepfake Scandal, and LeCun Leaves Meta
David Justus	VP of Applied AI, Panasonic	Ep 22: Edge AI, Privacy, and Japan’s Different Approach
Rahul Kanodia	CEO, Datamatics	Ep 34: What Real AI Transformation Looks Like Inside an Enterprise
Alayna Kennedy	Director of AI Governance, Mastercard	Ep 17: Governing AI for Real
Sam Koch	VP of AI, FeedbackNow	Ep 6: Real-World AI in Private Equity
Eric Litman	CEO, Aescape	Ep 3: Robotic Massage and New York’s Robotics Boom
Sergey Litvinenko	Koop	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Hilary Mason	Hidden Door	Ep 25: AI Storytelling, AGI Hype, and Creative Worlds
Kristen Mathews	Partner, cyber/data/privacy, Cooley LLP	Ep 18: Can AI Read Your Mind? Neurotech and Privacy
Stephen Messer	Co-founder, Collective[i]	Ep 2: Building AI in New York Before It Was Cool
Matthew Mirman	Founder, Chat.Dev	Ep 21: Cloud Coding Agents and the Mythos Model Panic
Dr. Taniya Mishra	Founder, SureStart	Ep 26: Building the Next Generation of AI Leaders
Dennis Mortensen	Founder, x.ai; now Launch Brightly	Ep 14: From x.ai to ChatGPT Ads: Scheduling, Bubbles, and Apple’s Mistake
Guy Mounier	CEO, Boon AI	Ep 27: The Next AI Battle Isn’t Technology — It’s Trust
Akash Nandi	Tendrel	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Ian O’Brien	CounselPro	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Charlie O’Donnell	Author, Founder Unfriendly	Ep 20: What VCs Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded
Charlie O’Donnell	Venture capitalist	Ep 1: How New York Became an AI Hub
Doug O’Laughlin	President, SemiAnalysis	Ep 10: Nvidia vs. AMD and the AI Power Crunch
Noah Obstfeld	Pitch Roast	Ep 28: Thick Skin Required: Fundraising, Failure, and Comedy
Jason Patel	OpenForge	Ep 12: Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know
Joe Perrotta	Founder & CEO, SimpleApply	Ep 5: Do Resumes Still Matter? AI, Job Hunting, and the Future of Work
Jake Porway	Entrepreneur-in-Residence; co-founder of DataKind, Decoded Futures	Ep 8: Why Nonprofits Need AI
Ujwal Roy	Founder & CEO, ScaleBuild AI	Ep 35: Ex-Meta Engineer Turned Founder: Inside ScaleBuild AI
Zachary Smith	Co-founder, Datum	Ep 19: Rebuilding the Internet for the AI Era
Gabi Steele	Co-founder & CEO, Preql	Ep 23: Your AI Is Broken Because Your Data Is
Satish Viswanathan	Author, The Weight of Intelligence	Ep 36: The Jagged Frontier of Enterprise AI: Why Adoption Is Failing
Jenni Warren	Program Director, Decoded Futures	Ep 8: Why Nonprofits Need AI

Before AI in NYC: the archive

The show’s podcast feed goes back to 2021. It began as Investing in AI, Rob May’s interviews with investors and researchers, and ran from 2023 to 2025 as AI Innovators, a series of short founder interviews. All 51 are still available in the podcast apps.

AI Innovators

34 episodes · 2023–2025

2025-05The Secret Sauce of Accurate AI Forecasting with Dan Schwarz of FutureSearch
2025-04AI’s Role in Building Brand Affinity and Loyalty with Noah Brier and Catherine Perloff
2025-03Lending a Hand: AI’s Impact on Credit Solutions with Scott Weller of EnFi
2025-02Breaking Down AI’s Zero-Sum Game with Karen Hao
2025-01Future-Proofing Video Editing with Joseph Jorgensen of Capsule
2024-12Predicting AI Innovations and Key Players in 2025 with Half Court Ventures Team
2024-11Finding the Next Big AI Success with Kevin Novak
2024-11Boosting Underwriter Productivity with Alex Schmelkin of Sixfold AI
2024-11Predictive Analytics and AI with Pawel Zimoch of Featrix.AI
2024-10Unlocking New Frontiers with Generative AI with Kojo Osei
2024-10Feedback Now’s Real-Time Feedback Evolution with Steve Peltzman and Sam Koch
2024-10From Email Clients to AI Agents: Insights on Building AI-Powered Sales Tools with Jason Patel of OpenForge
2024-10Overcoming Search Challenges in E-Commerce with Alex Gunnarson and Zach Hudson of Onton
2024-09Solving The Right Problems Using AI with Derek Larson
2024-09AI Startups and Enterprise Adoption: with Jaclyn Rice Nelson from Tribe AI
2024-09Breaking Down AI Myths with Arthur Tisi and Harold Goldstein from Hunova
2024-09Innovative Ways to Acquire Data for AI with Margaret Quigley
2024-08Alex Galkin from Competera
2023-10Manuel Zahariev from anyw.ai
2023-09Kayla Comalli from Lovelace Studios
2023-09Neil Serebryany from CalypsoAI
2023-08Erik Duhaime from Centaur Labs
2023-07Jeff Orkin from Central Casting AI
2023-07Eric Olson from Consensus
2023-07Parasvil Patel from Radical Ventures
2023-06Alex Wiltschko from Osmo
2023-05Susan Conover from Piction Health
2023-05Rob Shavell from Intelligent Relations
2023-04Arun Iyengar from Untether AI
2023-04Jay Newton-Small from MemoryWell
2023-04Yuval Gonczarowski from Akooda
2023-03Kwame Ferreira from Synthetic Users
2023-02Otto Hanson and Evan Harris from Termscout
2023-01Tommy Weir from Enaible

Investing in AI

17 episodes · 2021–2022

2022-10Mady Mantha from HappyPillar
2021-11Benjamin Cohen from Proton.ai
2021-10Michelle Zhou on Chatbots
2021-10Amy Webb from The Future Today Institute
2021-08Rob Aitken from ARM
2021-07Ash Fontana and The AI-First Company
2021-06Karim Lakhani on Competing in the Age of AI
2021-06Dave Girouard from Upstart
2021-06Matt Jones from Sourse AI
2021-05Rana El Kaliouby of Affectiva
2021-04Ashley Antonides of Anno.ai
2021-04Davis Sawyer from Deeplite on Edge AI
2021-04Kevin Roose from the New York Times on Jobs and Automation
2021-03Synthetic Data with Yashar Behzadi and Sergey Nikolenko
2021-03James Cham - Bloomberg Beta
2021-03Heath Terry from Goldman Sachs
2021-02Rob Toews from Highland Capital

The AI in NYC Show — common questions

What is the AI in NYC Show?

A video podcast, out roughly weekly, about artificial intelligence in New York City. Each episode pairs a long-form interview — a founder, investor, enterprise AI leader, lawyer, or researcher working in the city — with the hosts’ read on the week’s AI news. Season 1 ran from October 2025 to August 2026; 37 episodes are out so far.

Who hosts the AI in NYC Show?

Rob May (co-founder and CEO of Neurometric, and author of Investing in AI) and Anna Kirk (Thread AI). Ryan Eppley of Root Access co-hosted through Season 1 and stepped back as a regular host in August 2026. Lauren Slyman joined Rob and Anna at the hosts’ table for Episode 36.

Where can I watch or listen?

Full video episodes are on the show’s YouTube channel, and the audio version is on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music. Every episode in this guide links straight to its video where one is public; the show’s home is aiinnyc.org.

Which episode should I start with?

Pick by what you do. Running AI inside a company: Rahul Kanodia (34), Alayna Kennedy of Mastercard (17), and Gabi Steele of Preql (23). Interested in chips and compute: Doug O’Laughlin of SemiAnalysis (10) and the Cerebras episode (24). Raising money: both Charlie O’Donnell episodes (1 and 20). For a map of the local startup scene, the six-company showcase (12).

How do I get on the show or go to one of its dinners?

Both run through aiinnyc.org. Guest suggestions go through the site, and its closed-door dinner series — one table for AI founders and builders, one for enterprise AI leaders — is by application under the Chatham House Rule.

What is Neuronify’s connection to the show?

Neuronify is the show’s media partner. The show is independently produced by its hosts; we publish this guide and track the companies that appear on it in our NYC AI companies list and hiring data. Being a guest has no bearing on how a company is listed, and our lists are never pay-to-play.

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The people on the show come from the same New York community we work in. When a conversation turns into a project, we match companies with vetted AI engineers and consultancies who have shipped that kind of work.

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The AI in NYC Showevery episode, every guest

What the show is

The hosts

Where to follow it

Browse by theme

Enterprise AI (8)

Infrastructure & Chips (7)

Agents & Software (6)

Founders & Startups (15)

Venture & Funding (6)

Governance, Law & Trust (5)

Work, Talent & Education (5)

Culture & Society (6)

All 37 episodes

The Jagged Frontier of Enterprise AI: Why Adoption Is Failing

Season 1 Wrap-Up: Behind the Show and What’s Next

Ex-Meta Engineer Turned Founder: Inside ScaleBuild AI

What Real AI Transformation Looks Like Inside an Enterprise

Refurbished GPUs, Real Infrastructure: Powering the AI Boom

From Computational Chemistry to AI at Scale

AI Security, Slack Agents, and the Future of Work

AI Agents vs. SaaS: The Future of Software

Reclaiming the Internet: Personal AI and Zo Computer

Thick Skin Required: Fundraising, Failure, and Comedy

The Next AI Battle Isn’t Technology — It’s Trust

Building the Next Generation of AI Leaders

AI Storytelling, AGI Hype, and Creative Worlds

Cerebras IPO, the Dead Internet, and the AI Backlash

Your AI Is Broken Because Your Data Is

Edge AI, Privacy, and Japan’s Different Approach

Cloud Coding Agents and the Mythos Model Panic

What VCs Won’t Tell You About Getting Funded

Rebuilding the Internet for the AI Era

Can AI Read Your Mind? Neurotech and Privacy

Governing AI for Real

From Classroom to AI Lab

From “Her” to Reality: AI, Sex, and Dating in 2026

From x.ai to ChatGPT Ads: Scheduling, Bubbles, and Apple’s Mistake

AI in Healthcare, Grok’s Deepfake Scandal, and LeCun Leaves Meta

Six New York AI Startups You Need to Know

2025 Year-End Wrap-Up

Nvidia vs. AMD and the AI Power Crunch

Inside the AI Deepfake War

Why Nonprofits Need AI

The Future of AI Hardware

Real-World AI in Private Equity

Do Resumes Still Matter? AI, Job Hunting, and the Future of Work

AI Investing, Legal Tech, and the Billable Hour

Robotic Massage and New York’s Robotics Boom

Building AI in New York Before It Was Cool

How New York Became an AI Hub

Guest index

Before AI in NYC: the archive

AI Innovators

Investing in AI

The AI in NYC Show — common questions

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