Episode #12: Beyond the AI Hype - What Companies Are Getting Right and Wrong

🚨 Out now!! Last week I sat down in the studio with 3 people deep in the thick of AI right nowFederico Lucignano – CTO at Honey Insurance, previously at AWS where he led the launch of Amazon Polly, one of their flagship AI services.Paulwyn Devasundaram – 2 weeks into her role as Head of Engineering at Relevance AI, building the tools companies are now using to deploy AI agents across their businesses.Devesh Maheshwari – CTO at Lendi Group, leading one of the most ambitious transformations in Australian fintech to become AI native this year.We covered a lot of ground, here’s a few things that stuck with me…Regulated industries have real consequences. One mistake can cost you your license, so you don’t get to ship first and fix later. (14:50)Seat-based SaaS pricing is under serious pressure. Usage and outcome models are coming, but token costs haven’t been fully figured out yet. (01:03:50)The death of the software engineer gets thrown around a lot right now, but what’s actually dying is inflated hiring. (43:40)For years, tech companies hired for headcount as a vanity metric, or hired people to just sit in the corner and code because that’s what was needed at the time. Now what companies actually need are product minded engineers who can think critically. (48:00)I left the studio feeling very optimistic about the future.Full convo below if you want to jump around:00:00 – Intro + who’s on02:30 – Anthropic leak: real or marketing?06:15 – What “AI native” actually looks like10:15 – Building AI products vs transforming companies14:50 – Why regulated industries move differently21:20 – Where AI is already working (support, ops)28:00 – Why agents are getting better35:00 – What Relevance AI actually does43:40 – “Death of the engineer” debate48:00 – Product engineers vs traditional devs55:00 – The real hiring problem over the last decade01:03:50 – SaaS pricing pressure + token economics01:10:00 – AI-native vs AI-first companies01:15:00 – Where this is all heading🎧 Episode available on Apple and Spotify - Link in comments 🎙️Leadership RoadmapLinkedIn Page: @Leadership RoadmapYoutube Channel: @Leadership Roadmap YT