Practical AI

Schools and universities are failing to adapt to our modern world, in which AI is becoming increasingly pervasive in all aspects of life and work.  In fact, AI may be changing what should be considered foundational knowledge that all students must learn.
In this Fully Connected episode, Daniel and Chris explore the role of AI in education and the future of learning.  They note the bureaucratic inhibitors to educational reform, and the fact that classroom teachers don’t have the authority to innovate and personalize the learning process for their students, and discuss how AI tools can support personalized learning while preserving critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills.
Featuring: 
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Sponsors:
SerpAPI: A Web Search API that gives developers real-time, structured access to search engine results. Visit serpapi.com/practicalai to get started for free and get 250 searches every month. 
Resources and Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Prior Webinars from our partner Prediction Guard
Midwest AI Summit 2026
Chris’s new book The Art of Swarming will be published soon, written to be the seminal foundational book for the fledgling swarming industry, defining the principles and architecture that enable autonomous agentic UxS swarms with emergent unified embodied intelligence.

As AI reshapes how we work, create, and think about our roles, staying adaptable means understanding not just the technology, but our own stories and identities. Reed Frerichs joins Daniel and Chris to explore narrative intelligence, storytelling, leadership, and personal growth in an AI-driven world. They discuss how entrepreneurs and leaders can use AI tools to navigate changing roles, embrace uncertainty, and develop emotional intelligence along with Reed's “own, author, act” framework.
Featuring: 
Reed Frerichs – Website, LinkedIn, Instagram
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Links:
Inner Story Series (YouTube)
Inner Story Series (Spotify)
Inner Story Essays (Substack)
Inner Story (Website)
Inner Story (Instagram)
Everspace
The Lesson
Sponsors:
Framer: The enterprise-grade website builder that lets your team ship faster. Get 30% off at framer.com/practicalai
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

As AI moves beyond the cloud and into robots, vehicles, and other physical systems, new approaches to models, simulation, and inference are emerging. Daniel and Chris are joined by Ming-Yu Liu, Vice President of Cosmos Lab at NVIDIA, who shares his perspective on open models, world models, and the future of physical AI. They explore why open models matter for innovation, how world models can help AI understand and simulate the physical world, and what it could take to build increasingly capable physical AI systems.
Featuring: 
Ming-Yu Liu – LinkedIn
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Links:
NVIDIA Cosmos
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 agents are moving beyond laptops and prototypes and into enterprise environments where security, compliance, scalability, and reliability matter. Nick Kuhn from VMware Tanzu Platform joins Daniel and Chris to discuss what changes (and what doesn’t) when deploying agents alongside traditional applications. They explore agent build packs, MCP gateways, shared memory, identity, sandboxing, and what enterprises can learn from years of platform engineering. Nick also shares practical advice for organizations adopting agents today and looks at what the future of AI could mean for enterprise teams and software development.
Featuring: 
Nick Kuhn – LinkedIn
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
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 search is changing how people discover information and how brands need to think about visibility. Daniel and Chris talk with Liam Dunne and Ben Moore, co-founders of Discovered Labs, about the shift from traditional SEO to AI search, what happens behind the scenes when an LLM generates an answer, and why retrieval and citations don't always tell the whole story. They dig into AI visibility, Reddit strategy, query fan-out, representation in model weights, and consensus. They also look ahead to a world where AI agents don't just discover websites, but interact with them and take actions on behalf of users.
Featuring: 
Liam Dunne – LinkedIn
Ben Moore – LinkedIn
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, LinkedIn, Bluesky, GitHub, X
Links:
What AI models know about 1,000 B2B SaaS brands before web search
Discovered Labs
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
Framer: The enterprise-grade website builder that lets your team ship faster. Get 30% off at framer.com/practicalai
Resources and Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
Prior Webinars from our partner Prediction Guard
Midwest AI Summit 2026