Practical AI

As AI continues to reshape how organizations work, companies are increasingly asking what AI proficiency should look like across their workforce, and how they can help employees adapt without simply mandating AI adoption. Our returning guest Mike Lewis, Chief AI Architect at TiER1 Performance, joins Dan and Chris to explore AI proficiency through the L0–L3 framework, with a particular focus on the role of non-technical builders. They discuss AI resistance, identifying the right people to build AI-powered solutions, turning tacit knowledge into durable processes, and finding measurable business value from AI.
Mike Lewis was previously on Practical AI episode 289: https://practicalai.show/289
Featuring:
Mike Lewis – LinkedIn
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Links:
TiER1 Performance
Your New Job Is to Onboard AI Agents: How AI Native Companies Actually Operate
Sponsors:
Midwest AI Summit: Join AI practitioners on October 15 in Indianapolis for practical sessions, hands-on discussions, and real-world AI solutions. Use code PracticalAI20 to save 20% on your registration. https://midwestaisummit.com/#tickets
Prediction Guard: A self-hosted AI control plane for running agents in high impact environments. predictionguard.com/practicalai
Resources and Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Prior Webinars from our partner Prediction Guard
Midwest AI Summit 2026

AI has moved far beyond chatbots, but what exactly are AI models, agents, agent harnesses, and multi-agent systems, and why do they matter?
In this episode, Daniel and Chris break down the terminology behind today's AI landscape, explain the differences between AI features and autonomous agents, and explore why organizations are shifting toward fleets of AI agents powered by multiple models. They also discuss open vs. closed models, enterprise AI architectures, vendor lock-in, and practical ways to begin adopting agentic AI in your own organization.
If you feel left behind by this ongoing agentic AI revolution that has rapidly accelerated to warp speed, then this episode is the catch-up primer you've been waiting for!
Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Sponsors:
Framer: The enterprise-grade website builder that lets your team ship faster. Get 30% off at framer.com/practicalai
Midwest AI Summit: Join AI practitioners on October 15 in Indianapolis for practical sessions, hands-on discussions, and real-world AI solutions. Use code PracticalAI20 to save 20% on your registration. https://midwestaisummit.com/#tickets
Prediction Guard: A self-hosted AI control plane for running agents in high impact environments. predictionguard.com/practicalai
Resources and Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Prior Webinars from our partner Prediction Guard
Midwest AI Summit 2026

What happens when AI agents driven by a top frontier model escape their secure sandbox? Join Daniel and Chris as they unpack the AI wonk's equivalent of a murder mystery! OpenAI agents went rogue and successfully attacked Hugging Face private infrastructure. Our Dynamic Duo uncover how OpenAI's agents exploited vulnerabilities, moved through networks, and launched a large-scale autonomous attack. They explore what this reveals about agentic AI, cybersecurity, sandboxing, and why organizations need AI systems capable of governing other AI systems. Along the way, Chris and Dan examine the surprising role of open vs. closed models and their link to geopolitics, sovereign AI, and what this incident means for the future of enterprise AI security. 
Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Links:
Hugging Face Security Incident disclosure
Full Field Report on the Hugging Face AI Agent Intrusion
ExploitGym: Can AI Agents Turn Security Vulnerabilities into Real Attacks?
Keeping your data safe when an AI agent clicks a link
Open AI GPT-5.6 System Card
Sponsors:
Prediction Guard: A self-hosted AI control plane for running agents in high impact environments. predictionguard.com/practicalai
Resources and Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Prior Webinars from our partner Prediction Guard
Midwest AI Summit 2026

The agentic transformation isn’t coming. It has already begun.
Companies are deploying thousands — and sometimes tens of thousands — of AI agents. Enterprise software giants are watching their old economic moats erode. Capital is moving, productivity is being redefined, and human labor is being repriced in real time.

In this Fully Connected episode, Daniel and Chris explore the new economics of a post-agentic world: the global order that emerges after agents have been woven into every conceivable aspect of business and life. What happens when digital labor becomes abundant, agents manage other agents, and entire organizations operate at a scale no human workforce could match?
This isn’t another conversation about whether AI will take your job. It’s about what happens when the assumptions underneath jobs, companies, software, and productivity stop being true.
The post-agentic world is already taking shape.
The question is whether you’re preparing for it — or becoming part of what it replaces.

Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Links:
Is IBM a Canary in the Tech Coal Mine?
Verbalizable Representations Form a Global Workspace in Language Models
Upcoming Events: 
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Midwest AI Summit 2026

As AI applications become more complex, the infrastructure powering them needs to evolve. Corey Sanders, SVP of Product at CoreWeave, joins Chris to discuss why AI requires a fundamentally different approach than traditional cloud computing. They explore AI-native infrastructure, training and inference workloads, the rise of agentic development, optimizing GPU performance, AI research workflows, and why the future of software will be built around AI-first experiences rather than websites and apps.
Featuring:
Corey Sanders – LinkedIn 
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Links:
CoreWeave
Sponsors:
Framer: The enterprise-grade website builder that lets your team ship faster. Get 30% off at framer.com/practicalai
Upcoming Events: 
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Midwest AI Summit 2026