IT Tech Videos & Podcasts

David Savage explores how AI is transforming work, education and regional economies, and asks a critical question: are we preparing people for the future, or leaving them behind? Filmed across Leeds and London, The AI Skills Paradox delves into conversations with industry leaders, educators, policymakers and young people, to uncover a striking contradiction, demand for AI skills has surged by more than eighty per cent, yet over half of organizations invest little or nothing in training their people. Please discover the full Tech Flix landing page here.

Job For Life? Why You Need To Learn 40 New Skills Every Four Years For 200 years, a university diploma was enough to launch a 40-year career. Today, employers demand 40 new skills every four years. Anthony Salcito, Coursera VP and General Manager and former Microsoft executive joins David Savage to unpack the AI skills gap. We explore why critical thinking is surging in demand, how governments are rewriting workforce readiness, and why the human element is more critical than ever in an automated world.

The Truth About AI Strategy: Why Boardroom Disagreement Guarantees Failure Many traditional enterprises mistakenly believe that simply adopting cloud tools internally means they have a working AI strategy. In reality, true AI readiness requires breaking down entrenched data silos to expose engines to diverse, multi-application datasets. In this episode, MinIO co-CEO Garima Kapoor unpacks why scaling AI isn’t just a technical hurdle, it is a massive structural challenge that demands making "hard decisions inside your organization". We explore the human tensions behind legacy tech transformations and why fundamental changes to systems and processes are doomed to fail without uncomfortable, top-down alignment from the boardroom.

The Horizontal Specialist: How to Escape the Vertical Career Ladder We are taught to be vertical specialists: stay in your lane, climb the ladder, and fit into a box. But Casey Woo, founder of the Operators Guild, argues that in high-growth tech, the "lane" is actually a trap. On today's show David and Casey decode the DNA of the "Horizontal Specialist", the executive who thrives by moving left and right, not just up. They discuss why a CFO is often a COO in disguise, why you cannot "force a bird to swim," and how to stop chasing titles to become a true business artist.

Agentic AI: What Happens When The Tools Stop Asking For Permission? We’ve accepted AI as a copilot, but Channing Ferrer (Chief Revenue Officer and CEO of the Americas at Brevo) argues we are rapidly approaching the era where software executes entire workflows without human intervention. In this episode, Channing details a future of "bots buying from bots, bots selling to bots" and explains why the US mid-market is the new battleground for scale-ups and unicorns, whilst warning that to survive the automation wave, marketers must evolve into "Go-To-Market Engineers."

Meet Two Teenage Leaders Who Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity (We Aren't Kidding)! Today's show features a conversation recording at Web Summit with two future (and present) leaders : Raya Mardani and Aarav Sharma. They are 15 and 16 respectively and already building incredible solutions with a real mission and purpose.They joined me on stage for a talk called "Young Minds, Bright Futures" and it was too good not to follow up and record with them both whilst here.As Web Summit themselves put it, "Gen Z hold immense potential to solve some of the world's most pressing challenges". Listening to these two leaders, it's impossible to disagree.

How The Cloud Market Is Being Fundamentally 'Reset' The criteria for choosing a cloud partner has fundamentally changed: AI is trumping all previous discussions.On today's podcast Google Cloud’s Chief Revenue Officer Matt Renner joins David to explain why the underlying technology is the real story in financial services.We explore why 90-95% of early generative AI proofs of concept failed, why compliance is the primary regulatory focus for banks, and how Google Cloud is differentiating itself as a solution provider.

The Impossible Trade-Off: How Square Built a Simple Ecosystem and Brought AI to the Corner Store Willem Ave, Square's Global Head of Product, details the company’s evolution from a simple card reader to an entire ecosystem. He explains the complex "art and science" of keeping the platform effortless while adding sophisticated banking and software. Crucially, Willem reveals how Square is bringing accessible, trustworthy AI tools—like a virtual CMO or CFO—to small, non-knowledge worker businesses, arguing this is the best form of economic empowerment. The conversation explores balancing this innovation with the absolute necessity of maintaining merchant trust.

Transparency and AI: Why NetSuite Built Trust Into the Core Architecture Senior VP Brian Chess reveals NetSuite’s architectural bet with transparency in their AI: moving beyond quick wins to build trust into the core ERP system.We explore the leadership decision to enable external models (like ChatGPT/Claude) via the AI Connector Service.Brian also discusses the challenge of proving AI ROI to the CFO and why organizational experimentation is key in a rapidly evolving landscape.