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Practical AI LLC

Making artificial intelligence practical, productive & accessible to everyone. Practical AI is a show in which technology professionals, business people, students, enthusiasts, and expert guests engage in lively discussions about Artificial Intelligence and related topics (Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, GANs, MLOps, AIOps, LLMs & more).

The focus is on productive implementations and real-world scenarios that are accessible to everyone. If you want to keep up with the latest advances in AI, while keeping one foot in the real world, then this is the show for you!

Practical AI: Machine Learning, Data Science

Longtime friend of the show Rajiv Shah returns to unpack lessons from a year of building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and reasoning models integrations. We dive into why so many AI pilots stumble, why evaluation and error analysis remain essential data science skills, and why not every enterprise challenge calls for a large language model.

Featuring:

 • Rajiv Shah – 
LinkedIn • 
 • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Upcoming Events: 

 • Join us at the 
Midwest AI Summit • on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the 
AI Engineering Lounge • , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today!
 • Register for 
upcoming webinars here • !

We've all done RAG, now what?

In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by Chris Aquino, software engineer at Thunderbird to hear the story of how they developed a privacy-preserving AI executive assistant. They discuss various design decisions including remote (but confidential) inference, local encryption, and model selection. Chris A. does an amazing job describing the journey from "let the big LLM do everything" to splitting apart the workflow to be handled by multiple models. 

Featuring:

 • Chris Aquino – 
LinkedIn • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links: 

ThunderbirdThunderbird Pro
Sponsors:

 • Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce.

 • Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai
Upcoming Events: 

 • Join us at the 
Midwest AI Summit • on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the 
AI Engineering Lounge • , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today!
 • Register for 
upcoming webinars here • !

Creating a private AI assistant in Thunderbird

In this Fully Connected episode, we dig into the recent MIT report revealing that 95% of AI pilots fail before reaching production and explore what it actually takes to succeed with AI solutions. We dive into the importance of AI model integration, asking the right questions when adopting new technologies, and why simply accessing a powerful model isn’t enough. We explore the latest AI trends, from GPT-5 to open source models, and their impact on jobs, machine learning, and enterprise strategy. 

Featuring:

 • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links: 

The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025MIT Report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing
Sponsors:

 • Miro – The innovation workspace for the age of AI. Built for modern teams, Miro helps you turn unstructured ideas into structured outcomes—fast. Diagramming, product design, and AI-powered collaboration, all in one shared space. Start building at 
miro.com • Shopify – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce.

 • Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai
Upcoming Events: 

 • Join us at the 
Midwest AI Summit • on November 13 in Indianapolis to hear world-class speakers share how they’ve scaled AI solutions. Don’t miss the 
AI Engineering Lounge • , where you can sit down with experts for hands-on guidance. Reserve your spot today!
 • Register for 
upcoming webinars here • !

Cracking the code of failed AI pilots

Daniel and Chris sit with Citadel AI’s Rick Kobayashi and Kenny Song and unpack AI safety and security challenges in the generative AI era. They compare Japan’s approach to AI adoption with the US’s, and explore the implications of real-world failures in AI systems, along with strategies for AI monitoring and evaluation.

Featuring:

 • Rick Kobayashi – 
LinkedIn • Kenny Song – 
LinkedIn • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

Citadel AI
Register for upcoming webinars here!

GenAI risks and global adoption

Dan and Chris break down Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan, issued by the White House in July 2025. Structured as three "pillars" — Accelerate AI Innovation, Build American AI Infrastructure, and Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security — our dynamic duo unpack the plan's policy goals and its associated suggestions — while also exploring the mixed reactions it’s sparked across political lines. They connect the plan to international AI diplomacy and national security interests, discuss its implications for practitioners, and consider how political realities could shape its success in the years ahead. 

Featuring:

 • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

 • Press Release: 
White House Unveils America's AI Action Plan • Paper: 
America's AI Action Plan
Sponsors:

Shopify • – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai
Register for upcoming webinars here!

Inside America’s AI Action Plan

Allegra Guinan of Lumiera helps leaders turn uncertainty about AI into confident, strategic leadership. In this conversation, she brings some actionable insights for navigating the hype and complexity of AI. The discussion covers challenges with implementing responsible AI practices, the growing importance of user experience and product thinking, and how leaders can focus on real-world business problems over abstract experimentation.

Featuring:

 • Allegra Guinan – 
LinkedIn • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

Lumiera
Sponsors:

Shopify • – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai
Register for upcoming webinars here!

Confident, strategic AI leadership

Dan sits down with guests Mark Daniel Ward and Katie Sanders from The Data Mine at Purdue University to explore how higher education is evolving to meet the demands of the AI-driven workforce. They share how their program blends interdisciplinary learning, corporate partnerships, and real-world data science projects to better prepare students across 160+ majors. From AI chatbots to agricultural forecasting, they discuss the power of living-learning communities, how the data mine model is spreading to other institutions and what it reveals about the future of education, workforce development, and applied AI training.

Featuring:

 • Mark Daniel Ward – 
LinkedIn • Katie Sanders – 
LinkedIn • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

The Data Mine
Sponsors:

Shopify • – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai
Register for upcoming webinars here!

Educating a data-literate generation

We unpack how AI is reshaping hiring decisions, shifting job roles, and creating new expectations for professionals — from engineers to marketers. They explore the rise of AI-assisted teams, the growing compensation bubble, why continuous learning is now table stakes, and how some service providers are quietly riding the AI wave.

Featuring:

 • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Sponsors:

Outshift by Cisco • : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows."

Register for upcoming webinars here!

Workforce dynamics in an AI-assisted world

In this episode, Chris sits down with Igor Nikitin, CEO and co-founder of Nice Technologies, to explore how AI and modern engineering practices are transforming the actuarial field and setting the stage for the future of actuarial modeling. We discuss the introduction of programming into insurance pricing workflows, and how their Python-based calc engine, AI copilots, and DevOps-inspired workflows are enabling actuaries to collaborate more effectively across teams while accelerating innovation. 

Featuring:

 • Igor Nikitin – 
LinkedIn • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

Nice Technologies
Sponsors:

Shopify • – The commerce platform trusted by millions. From idea to checkout, Shopify gives you everything you need to launch and scale your business—no matter your level of experience. Build beautiful storefronts, market with built-in AI tools, and tap into the platform powering 10% of all U.S. eCommerce. Start your one-dollar trial at 
shopify.com/practicalai

Reimagining actuarial science with AI

In this episode of Practical AI, Chris and Daniel explore the fascinating world of agentic AI for drone and robotic swarms, which is Chris's passion and professional focus. They unpack how autonomous vehicles (UxV), drones (UaV), and other autonomous multi-agent systems can collaborate without centralized control while exhibiting complex emergent behavior with agency and self-governance to accomplish a mission or shared goals. Chris and Dan delve into the role of AI real-time inference and edge computing to enable complex agentic multi-model autonomy, especially in challenging environments like disaster zones and remote industrial operations.

Featuring:

 • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
LinkedIn • , 
Bluesky • , 
GitHub • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Links:

ROS - Robotic Operating SystemGazeboHugging Face Agents CourseSwarm Robotics | Wikipedia

Chris's definition of Swarming:
Swarming occurs when numerous independent fully-autonomous multi-agentic platforms exhibit highly-coordinated locomotive and emergent behaviors with agency and self-governance in any domain (air, ground, sea, undersea, space), functioning as a single independent logical distributed decentralized decisioning entity for purposes of C3 (command, control, communications) with human operators on-the-loop, to implement actions that achieve strategic, tactical, or operational effects in the furtherance of a mission.
© 2025 Chris Benson

Sponsors:

Outshift by Cisco • : AGNTCY is an open source collective building the Internet of Agents. It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks. For developers, this means standardized agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for inter-agent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi-agent workflows.

Agentic AI for Drone & Robotic Swarming

Andrew Vanderburg of UT Austin and Christ Shallue of Google Brain join us to talk about their deep learning collaboration, which involved searching through a crazy amount of space imagery to find new planets.

Join the discussion

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a double hiring bonus • of $600! Or, refer a friend and get a check for $1,337 when they accept a job. On Hired companies send you offers with salary, benefits, and even equity upfront. You are in full control of the process. Learn more at 
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Featuring:

 • Andrew Vanderburg – 
Website • Chris Shallue – 
Website • , 
GitHub • Chris Benson – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
LinkedIn • , 
X • Daniel Whitenack – 
Website • , 
GitHub • , 
X
Show Notes:

Google AI Blog: Open Sourcing the Hunt for Exoplanets
Artificial Intelligence, NASA Data Used to Discover Exoplanet | NASA

Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!

Detecting planets with deep learning

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