Smart Talks with IBM
Watch the latest episodes from Season 5
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In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, join Malcolm Gladwell and Ric Lewis, IBM’s Senior Vice President of Infrastructure, as they explore how infrastructure is powering AI. Learn how hardware capability has enabled the matrix math required to run large language models. Furthermore, discover some creative examples of how to put AI to work: from your bank to your local coffee shop. Hear Ric underscore the importance of infrastructure in unlocking the potential of AI, helping businesses harness their data to drive transformative outcomes.
In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Malcolm Gladwell speaks with Jason Kelley, GM, Strategic Partners and Ecosystems at IBM, and Kristy Friedrichs, SVP and Chief Partnership Officer at Palo Alto Networks. They discuss the challenges and opportunities that the rapid development of AI brings to the cybersecurity space. Jason and Kristy also underscore how implementing a zero trust strategy can help enterprises enhance cyber resiliency and simplify operations. Together, IBM and Palo Alto Networks are delivering fully integrated, open, end-to-end security solutions to enterprises.
In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Jacob Goldstein speaks with Rebecca Finlay, CEO of Partnership on AI, about the importance of advancing AI innovation with openness and ethics at the forefront. Rebecca discusses how guardrails — such as risk management — can advance efficiency in AI development. They explore the AI Alliance’s focus on open data and technology, and the importance of collaboration. Rebecca also underscores how diverse perspectives and open-mindedness can drive AI progress responsibly.
Jacob Goldstein and Maryam Ashoori, the Director of Product Management and Head of Product for IBM’s watsonx.ai, discuss how IBM’s Granite models help enhance transparency in AI and explore the shift from large general-purpose AI models to smaller, customizable models tailored to specific needs.
Justina Nixon-Saintil, VP and Chief Impact Officer, IBM Corporate Social Responsibility, and April Dawson, Associate Dean of Technology and Innovation at North Carolina Central University School of Law, discuss the importance of lifelong learning, upskilling, and the ethical implications of AI in education.
Malcolm Gladwell and Mo Duffy, Software Engineering Manager at Red Hat, discuss InstructLab and the benefits of open-source technology.
Jacob Goldstein, host of Pushkin’s own What’s Your Problem?, sat down with Brian Ryerson, Senior Director of Digital Strategy at the US Tennis Association. They discuss the impact of data on the fan experience, the role that storytelling plays in sports, and how AI has unlocked innovative features.
Malcolm Gladwell and Rob Thomas, SVP Software and Chief Commercial Officer at IBM, discuss AI and the productivity paradox.
As artificial intelligence progresses, healthcare providers are exploring how the technology can be used to offer personalized care at scale. In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Dr. Laurie Santos sits down with Alice Crisci, co-founder and CEO of fertility-care provider Ovum Health.
Malcolm Gladwell and Laurie Santos discuss AI accountability with Christina Montgomery, Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM. They chat about AI regulation, what compliance means in the AI age, and why transparent AI governance is good for business.
Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford discuss the open-source AI community with Jeff Boudier, Head of Product and Growth at Hugging Face. They chat about the history and future of open-source AI, its critical importance to AI progress, the IBM watsonx partnership with Hugging Face, and how businesses can leverage open-source AI for their specific needs.
Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Goldstein explore the conceptual underpinnings of modern AI with Dr. David Cox, VP of AI Models at IBM Research. They talk foundation models, self-supervised machine learning, and the practical applications of AI portfolios such as watsonx in business and technology.
Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Goldstein explore the future of AI for business with Kareem Yusuf, SVP of product management and growth for IBM software. They discuss the advent of foundation models, how AI can transform data storage and decision-making, and how next-generation AI portfolios such as watsonx can empower businesses to use AI at scale.
Let’s bust some early myths about DeepSeek! In episode 40 of Mixture of Experts, the panel tackles DeepSeek R1 misconceptions, explains model distillation and dissects the open-source competition landscape.
What does the future hold for DeepSeek? In episode 39 of Mixture of Experts, our panel talks about DeepSeek-R1, Mistrals IPO indication, the FrontierMath controversy and the IDC gen AI code assistants report.
What would you do with USD 2 billion? In episode 38 of Mixture of Experts, we discuss the Anthropic valuation rumors, CoreAI, NotebookLM upgrades and AI agents within the financial services industry.
What’s the most exciting CES AI announcement? In episode 37 of Mixture of Experts, we discuss CES 2025, NVIDIA DIGITS, Apple Intelligence fails, Sam Altman’s reflection blog and the challenges facing enterprise AI developers.
Is deep learning hitting a wall? It’s 2025 and the Mixture of Experts is back and better than ever. In episode 36, host Tim Hwang is joined by Chris Hay, Kate Soule and Kush Varshney to discuss OpenAI o3, DeepSeek-V3 and the Brundage/Marcus AI bet.
Will 2025 be the year of AI agents? In episode 35 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by some show veterans to debrief 2024 in AI and make predictions for 2025.
Is pretraining a thing of the past? In episode 34 of Mixture of Experts, we cover IBM® Granite™ 3.1, NVIDIA Jetson, stealing AI models and more! Tune in to this episode to hear the latest AI news.
Is o1 Pro worth the cost? In episode 33 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by Marina Danilevsky, Kate Soule and Vyoma Gajjar. In this episode, we cover 12 Days of Open AI, NeurIPS, ARC Prize and Meta’s Llama 3.3 70B release!
What’s the mystery behind the name that ChatGPT refuses to discuss? In episode 32 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang joins Aaron Baughman, Vagner Figueredo de Santana and Shobhit Varshney to chat about AWS re:Invent 2024, LLM Flowbreaking and David Mayer, a name that breaks ChatGPT.
How much future learning will be done with an AI assistant? In episode 31 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by Phaedra Boinodiris, Marina Danilevsky and Skyler Speakman for the AI-in-education special episode!
Should your AI assistant remember everything about you? In episode 30 of Mixture of Experts, we cover “near-infinite memory,” Microsoft Ignite, FrontierMath and AlphaFold3
Is 2024 the year scaling AI officially breaks? In episode 29 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by Anthony Annunziata, Kate Soule and Naveen Rao. The experts chat about scaling AI, agents and the race to AGI.
Could AI wipe out software engineers? In episode 28 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by Chris Hay, Kaoutar El Maghraoui and Shobhit Varshney to discuss updates from the GitHub Octoverse, SearchGPT and Big Sleep!
Agents, agents, and more agents! In episode 27 of Mixture of Experts, host Tim Hwang is joined by Volkmar Uhlig and Vyoma Gajjar to discuss Google’s AI-generated text watermarks. They also discuss AI energy consumption, Anthropic’s release of computer use and the future of AI agents.
Join Malcolm Gladwell, author and host of Revisionist History, and hosts from your favorite Pushkin Industries podcasts, as they talk to visionaries who are creatively applying technology in business to drive change, and transforming their industries.
This season, we’re diving back into the world of artificial intelligence, but with a focus on the powerful concept of ‘open’ - its possibilities, implications, and misconceptions. We'll look at openness from a variety of angles and explore how the concept is already reshaping industries, ways of doing business, and our very notion of what's possible.
Can't get enough of Smart Talks? Explore Seasons 2-4 below.
Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Goldstein explore the future of AI for business with Kareem Yusuf, SVP of product management and growth for IBM software. They discuss the advent of foundation models, how AI can transform data storage and decision-making, and how next-generation AI portfolios such as watsonx can empower businesses to use AI at scale.
Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Goldstein explore the conceptual underpinnings of modern AI with Dr. David Cox, VP of AI Models at IBM Research. They talk foundation models, self-supervised machine learning, and the practical applications of AI portfolios such as watsonx in business and technology.
Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford discuss the open-source AI community with Jeff Boudier, Head of Product and Growth at Hugging Face. They chat about the history and future of open-source AI, its critical importance to AI progress, the IBM watsonx partnership with Hugging Face, and how businesses can leverage open-source AI for their specific needs.
Malcolm Gladwell and Laurie Santos discuss AI accountability with Christina Montgomery, Chief Privacy and Trust Officer at IBM. They chat about AI regulation, what compliance means in the AI age, and why transparent AI governance is good for business.
Malcolm Gladwell is joined onstage at iHeartMedia’s studio by Dr. Darío Gil, Senior Vice President and Director of Research at IBM. They chat about the evolution of AI, give examples of practical uses, and discuss how businesses can create value through cutting-edge technology.
Jacob Goldstein sits down with Susan Emerson, Senior Vice President of Product: AI, Analytics & Data at Salesforce, and Matthew Candy, Global Managing Partner of Generative AI at IBM Consulting.
As artificial intelligence progresses, healthcare providers are exploring how the technology can be used to offer personalized care at scale. In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Dr. Laurie Santos sits down with Alice Crisci, co-founder and CEO of fertility-care provider Ovum Health.
Malcolm chats with Jacob Goldstein, host of What’s Your Problem, and Bryan Young and Steven Better, the co-founders of Home Lending Pal, about using IBM technology like AI, blockchain and cloud to create a home loan process that’s more transparent, secure and equitable.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Dr. Laurie Santos, host of The Happiness Lab, and Phaedra Boinodiris, Trust in AI Practice Leader within IBM Consulting about how Phaedra’s team is creatively tackling the global need to build trustworthy AI by approaching the challenge holistically.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, and Stephanie “Snow” Carruthers, Chief People Hacker for X-Force, IBM about how Snow and her team are finding creative solutions to test clients’ security, including hacking into their systems before criminal hackers do.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Lauren Ober, host of The Loudest Girl in the World, and guests Brett Phaneuf and Don Scott, the engineers behind the Mayflower Autonomous Ship project. The two explain how automation and AI allowed them to reimagine the design and use of a ship at sea and the implications of these technologies beyond maritime navigation.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, and guest Sheri Hinish, IBM’s Global Sustainability Services Leader and Offering Leader for Sustainable Supply Chain, known as the “supply-chain queen.” They discuss the supply-chain crisis and why transparent, responsible supply chains are imperative for our future.
Malcolm Gladwell chats about hiring bias with Jacob Goldstein, host of What’s Your Problem, and guest Angela Hood, founder and CEO of ThisWay Global. They discuss how intelligent automation can enable inclusive hiring practices, why machines can mitigate bias but not remove it, and why diverse companies are more competitive.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Ronald Young Jr., host of Solvable, and guest Nicholas Renotte, Data Science and AI Technical Specialist at IBM. They discuss how data literacy can help make a business more efficient, the fundamentals of data management, and why data is step one to AI solutions.
Malcolm Gladwell chats with Jacob Goldstein, host of What’s Your Problem?, and guest Phil Weinmeister, Head of Product, Salesforce Americas, at IBM. They discuss human-centric design, the low-code/no-code approach, and how IBM Consulting powers digital transformations with the Salesforce platform.
After a historic 355 days in orbit, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on March 30, 2022, breaking the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American. In this episode of Smart Talks with IBM, Malcolm Gladwell and Mark Vande Hei discuss conducting experiments in space, the impact of extended spaceflight on humans, and the spiciness of space chili peppers.
Malcolm Gladwell and Dr. Laurie Santos take on tech education at HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) with Dr. Derrick Warren, Dean of the College of Business at Grambling State University (former Associate Dean at the Southern University College of Business). They talk about the partnership between IBM SkillsBuild and Southern University to co-create a cybersecurity leadership center for HBCU students and discuss how exposure to first-experiences inspires creativity.
With hybrid cloud and AI, businesses can challenge the limits of how they put their data to work across the organization. Rob Thomas, SVP Cloud and Data Platform at IBM, discusses the possibilities and the steps businesses can take to access more of their data to help them make better informed decisions.
In this episode, Carla Piñeyro Sublett, IBM’s new SVP & CMO, and Chimka Munkhbayar, co-founder of Agrolly — an organization that helps rural household farmers tackle the hardships of climate change — discuss their challenges, achievements, and the steps they’re taking to create a more inclusive tech world.
Malcolm talks to Anil Bhatt, Senior Vice President and CTO of Anthem, and Glenn Finch, Managing Partner of Global Business Services at IBM, about how AI is helping people interact with healthcare in a whole new way.
In this special episode of Smart Talks, recorded at IBM’s Think® conference, Malcolm spars with his longtime friend Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School, about what we’ve learned through remote working and how businesses can approach a hybrid model. Can we, and should we, return to “normal”?
In this episode of Smart Talks, Malcolm talks to Jim Whitehurst, senior advisor at IBM and an expert in open source software and innovation, about how embracing moments that initially feel like chaos can ultimately lead to more open organizations and broader access to new ideas.
Malcolm Gladwell shares an interview from the Smart Talks archives. Jonathan Strickland speaks with Jason Kelley, a senior leader at IBM, about what blockchain is, how it’s transforming global supply chains with respect to the pandemic, and the broader implications for these trusted transactions.
Malcolm Gladwell talks to David Shacochis, Vice President for Enterprise Technology and Field CTO at Lumen, and Howard Boville, Head of IBM Cloud Platform, about how hybrid cloud is serving as a catalyst for innovation in a world where computing can and must happen everywhere: private clouds, public clouds, the edge of the network.
Over the next decade, quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize the way we work and live. In this episode of Smart Talks, Malcolm talks to Dr. Darío Gil, Senior Vice President and Director of IBM Research, about quantum computing and its potential to accelerate discovery and development.
Malcolm talks to Christina Montgomery, IBM’s Chief Privacy Officer and AI Ethics Board Co-Chair, and Dr. Seth Dobrin, Global Chief AI Officer, about IBM’s approach to AI and how it’s helping businesses transform the way they work with AI systems that are fair and address bias so AI can benefit everyone, not just a few.
Malcolm talks to Marc Rolfe, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategic Partners Ecosystem Success at SAP, and Jason Kelley, General Manager, IBM Strategic Partners, about how strategic partnerships between companies can create a larger industry shift toward sustainability.
Malcolm talks to Jonathan Wright, Global Managing Partner for Supply Chain Consulting at IBM, about demand forecasting and other technologies that manufacturers and vendors are using to make their supply chains more resilient.
Hear insightful discussions on the latest AI trends, innovations, and their impact on business. Hosted by Tim Hwang, the podcast offers a balanced blend of expertise and analysis on everything from breakthrough research to practical applications.
There's a lot of hype about what AI can do, but how do we actually use AI to build experiences? In this series, our host Albert Lawrence together with business leaders and IBM technologists bypass the theoretical and show you how to put AI into practice.
Watch AI Academy, a new flagship AI for business educational experience. Gain insights from top IBM thought leaders on effectively prioritizing the AI investments that can drive growth, through a course designed for business leaders like you.
Weekly insights, research and expert views on AI, security, cloud and more in the Think Newsletter.