The AI Why with Liam Lawson

Users are already pushing back on Google's new AI search update, DeepSeek just slashed AI model prices by up to 75 percent, and Robinhood is now testing AI agents that can trade stocks on your behalf.

This week, DuckDuckGo sees a sharp rise in installs as users look for alternatives to AI-heavy search, DeepSeek cuts prices on its V4 Pro models and escalates the AI pricing war, Apple announces a set of AI-powered accessibility features across its devices, Robinhood tests AI agents that can place trades for users, and Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 to everyone on any plan.

If you are a founder, operator or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly five-minute briefing every Tuesday.

Stories Covered This Week:

DuckDuckGo installs rise sharply as some users actively seek out AI free search experiences after Google's update

DeepSeek cuts V4 Pro model prices by up to 75 percent, intensifying the industry wide pricing battle

Apple announces AI powered accessibility features across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro including eye tracking wheelchair control

Robinhood tests AI agents that can execute trades on behalf of users with built in safeguards and oversight

Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 to all plans with improved honesty, adjustable effort settings and new dynamic workflows in Claude Code

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
00:20 Users push back on Google AI search as DuckDuckGo installs rise
01:25 DeepSeek cuts model prices by up to 75%
02:13 Apple announces AI accessibility features across its devices
03:11 Robinhood tests AI agents that trade for you
04:18 Anthropic releases Opus 4.8 to everyone

05:32 Outro

Partner Links:

Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass

Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Join the community: https://community.theaireport.ai/checkout/the-ai-report-welcome-gift?coupon_code=WRTH

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

AI traffic to retail sites is up 393% year on year. A year ago, that traffic was underperforming every other marketing channel. Now it is outperforming all of them by 48%. And most businesses have no idea how to capitalise on it.

Vivek Pandya, the Director of Adobe Digital Insights, leads the team that analyses trends across trillions of data points to help enterprises understand where the digital economy is heading. In this episode, Liam sits down with Vivek to break down the biggest shift happening in consumer behavior right now, why generative engine optimisation is the most important opportunity since social media, and what businesses need to do today to stay visible as AI changes how people search and buy.

Topics covered:

Why AI traffic to retail sites is up 393% year on year, and what drove the shift

How consumer conversion through AI channels went from underperforming by 38% to outperforming by 48% in one year

Why a third of all content on the internet is not machine readable right now and what that means for your business

What generative engine optimisation is and why it matters more than SEO right now

The difference between how San Francisco thinks about AI adoption versus the rest of the world

Why data storytelling is still the most underrated skill in business

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
00:21 What is Adobe Digital Insights and what does Vivek do
01:12 A trillion data points
02:18 How the data is processed and what enterprises are asking for
03:47 The biggest AI trends right now
06:04 What changed in consumer behaviour
07:35 How to set your business up for AI search success
10:24 What the data does not tell you
12:53 Where does Vivek's trust in AI start and finish
14:03 What speaks to Vivek about his role
15:19 How the job influences how he thinks outside of work
17:53 Living in San Francisco and what you learn being close to the technology
19:47 Why do you do what you do

Connect with Vivek on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivekmpandya/

Partner links:

Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass

Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meta is cutting 10 percent of its workforce and moving thousands of employees into AI roles. Google just announced the biggest change to Search in over 25 years. And Elon Musk has officially lost his legal battle against OpenAI.

This week, Meta lays off staff and reorganizes 7,000 employees around AI across product, infrastructure and research, Google brings AI agents directly into Search to help users complete tasks not just find information, Amazon adds a feature to Alexa Plus that generates full podcast style audio episodes on demand, the Vatican forms a new committee on the ethical implications of AI, and Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI is dismissed with the jury siding with Sam Altman.

If you are a founder, operator or executive trying to keep up with AI, this is your weekly five-minute briefing every Tuesday.

Stories Covered This Week:

Meta announces 10% layoffs and moves 7,000 employees into AI focused roles across the business

Google announces the biggest update to Search in 25 years bringing AI agents directly into the product

Amazon adds podcast style audio generation to Alexa Plus

The Vatican forms a new AI ethics committee focused on labor and human decision making

Elon Musk officially loses his lawsuit against OpenAI with the jury siding with Sam Altman

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 Intro
00:21 Meta cuts 10% and reorganizes around AI
01:16 Google reinvents Search with AI agents
02:11 Amazon Alexa Plus generates podcast episodes on demand
03:17 The Vatican forms an AI ethics committee
04:11 Musk loses his lawsuit against OpenAI

05:02 Outro

Partner Links:

Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass

Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Join the community: www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Swati Trehan, co-founder of Ema, breaks down what AI agents actually are, how “AI employees” work inside Fortune 500 companies, and why the future of enterprise software may look nothing like today’s SaaS tools.

Swati explains how Ema’s platform orchestrates teams of AI agents that can autonomously handle HR, IT, finance, onboarding, payroll, employee support, and customer service workflows across massive organizations. She also reveals how companies like Hitachi are already deploying AI employees at scale, why traditional automation failed, and how enterprise AI is evolving beyond simple copilots into fully agentic systems.

The conversation dives deep into the technical infrastructure behind agents, including memory, orchestration layers, knowledge graphs, model routing, and why Ema uses multiple LLMs simultaneously to optimize for cost, latency, and accuracy. Swati also shares why Excel remains one of AI’s hardest unsolved problems, why video is the next frontier for agents, and how the “SaaS apocalypse” is reshaping software businesses.

If you’ve been hearing terms like agents, autonomous workflows, AI employees, copilots, or agentic AI, this is one of the clearest explanations of where the technology is heading and what it means for the future of work.

Key Topics Covered:

What AI agents actually are (explained simply)

The difference between copilots, agents, and AI employees

Why traditional automation and RPA failed

How Fortune 500 companies are deploying AI employees today

Why HR is becoming the entry point for enterprise AI adoption

How Ema orchestrates teams of agents across workflows

The technical stack behind enterprise AI agents

Why memory, context, and permissions are critical for agents

The “mixture of experts” approach using multiple LLMs at once

Why Excel remains surprisingly difficult for AI systems

The next frontier: AI-generated video workflows

The rise of the “SaaS apocalypse”

Why solving business problems matters more than building features

How AI is changing the way founders and engineers think

Episode Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro

00:34 - What AI agents actually are

03:01 - The difference between agents and AI employees

03:25 - Liam’s “light bulb” moment using agents

04:06 - Swati’s realization that HR work could be automated

05:57 - The founding story behind Ema

08:20 - Why AI unlocks human creativity

09:20 - The technical infrastructure behind AI agents

12:12 - How Ema routes tasks across multiple LLMs

13:49 - Memory, context, and knowledge graphs for agents

16:35 - The biggest unsolved problems in AI agents

18:32 - Why video is the next frontier for AI

20:05 - Why Excel is still difficult for AI systems

21:00 - Who Ema’s ideal customers are

23:27 - Why HR teams are leading enterprise AI adoption

24:25 - How enterprise AI implementation actually works

26:13 - Why modular agents matter

28:35 - What the employee experience looks like with AI agents

30:24 - Live demo of Ema’s AI employee system

36:58 - How companies roll out AI agents internally

39:31 - Building AI employees in real time

44:01 - Ema’s competitive moat in the AI race

47:46 - The “SaaS apocalypse” and future-proofing AI businesses

49:16 - Why Ema focused on product over hype

52:12 - How AI changed the way Swati thinks

55:07 - Why rapid problem-solving matters more than ever

57:27 - Living in London while building a global AI company

59:16 - Why Swati does what she does

Swati Trehan’s Socials:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swati-trehan/

Ema: https://www.ema.co

Partner Links

Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass

Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Join the community: https://www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anthropic says fictional portrayals of AI may have influenced Claude’s recent blackmail behavior during internal testing. OpenAI officially launches a $4B enterprise deployment company. And Elon Musk’s xAI faces lawsuits over controversial power infrastructure at its data center.

This week, Anthropic explains why Claude Opus 4 attempted to blackmail engineers during safety tests, OpenAI expands aggressively into enterprise AI services with engineers embedded directly inside companies, OpenAI launches a new cybersecurity platform called Daybreak, Anthropic officially surpasses OpenAI in B2B adoption according to new Ramp data, and xAI faces growing scrutiny over gas turbines powering its AI infrastructure.

If you are a founder, operator, or executive trying to stay ahead of AI, this is your weekly AI news briefing every Tuesday.

Stories Covered This Week:

Anthropic says internet culture and fictional AI portrayals may have influenced Claude’s blackmail behavior during testing

OpenAI launches “The Deployment Company” with more than $4B in backing to help enterprises rebuild workflows around AI

OpenAI unveils Daybreak, a GPT-5.5 powered cybersecurity platform competing with Anthropic’s Mythos

Anthropic officially passes OpenAI in B2B adoption according to new Ramp data

Elon Musk’s xAI faces lawsuits over gas turbines powering its Mississippi data center site

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

00:18 Claude’s blackmail behavior explained by Anthropic

01:15 OpenAI launches The Deployment Company

02:30 OpenAI enters cybersecurity with Daybreak

03:29 Anthropic surpasses OpenAI in B2B adoption

04:47 xAI faces environmental backlash over AI power demands

05:55 Outro

Partner Links

Upgrade your AI toolkit: https://www.theaireport.ai/ai-executive-pass

Subscribe to our free newsletter: https://newsletter.theaireport.ai/subscribe

Join the community: https://www.theaireport.ai/leaders-launch-guide

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices