The magentIQ Show

The company burning billions on AI is somehow getting less done. In Episode 8 of The magentIQ Show, Ian Barkin and David Brain dig into why, working through the mistakes the AI era keeps repeating even though most of them were supposed to be learned a decade ago.Here is what Ian and David unpack:Why the era of unlimited tokens is turning, and why disciplined AI is proving cheaper and more productive than handing everyone a blank cheque to use as much as possibleWhy choosing the tool before defining the problem still trips teams up, and why a demo is no substitute for knowing where you are and where you actually want to goWhy expecting staff to 10x themselves overnight is a tall order, and why the forward deployed engineer cannot be a whole team of specialists squeezed into one personWhy speed for its own sake is not a strategy, and how the old trade off between time, cost, and quality still holds no matter how fast the tools have becomeThe throughline is encouraging rather than cautionary. The teams that win are the ones that map where they are, agree on the outcome they want, choose the right tool for the job, and give their people the design time and support to do it well. Enthusiasm builds momentum, but pairing it with context and a little hard won history is what turns an AI project into a real result.Listen now and tell us which lesson you see playing out most in your own organization.Find us in your favorite streaming service:iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSLiHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

AI can draft a report in seconds, but it cannot put its name on it. In Episode 7 of The magentIQ Show, Ian Barkin sits down with Andreas Welsch, ten year AI veteran, LinkedIn Learning instructor, and author of two books written entirely by hand. Their conversation cuts past the hype to a question every leader is now living with: when output is effortless, how do you keep the quality, the judgment, and the accountability that make it worth anything at all?Here is what Ian and Andreas unpack:What work slop really is, how AI output that just shifts the labor and the bottleneck onto whoever receives it, and why you are never off the hook for the quality of what you shipWhy staying in the loop matters, drawn from Andreas's own experience letting AI build an app unsupervised and ending up with something he could not understand or trustHow to enable people to use AI well, with real training and a learning curve, rather than throwing a tool over the fence and expecting productivity to appearWhy the human edge becomes the differentiator as everyone converges on the same tools and data, and why people remain the heart and soul of a businessThe throughline is refreshingly practical. AI is a powerful new tool, not a substitute for craft, and the leaders who win will be the ones who pair it with real expertise, keep people close to the work, and treat quality as something they still own. Smart, sharp, and hype free.Resources from Andreas Welsch:LinkedIn Learning courses: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/instructors/andreas-welschBooks: The HUMAN Agentic AI Edge: https://intelligence-briefing.com/human-agentic-ai-edge/AI Leadership Handbook: https://intelligence-briefing.com/ai-leadership-handbook/Listen now and tell us how you are keeping quality and accountability in your own AI workflows.Find us in your favorite streaming service:iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSLiHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440

The whether of AI is settled, or at least that's what our webinar audiences told us. What people are hungry for now is the how. In Episode 6 of The magentIQ Show, Ian Barkin and David Brain answer the questions that came straight from the people in their recent webinars, share fresh survey data on where AI adoption really stands, and walk through a client who saved six figures a year by building AI in the right way, with people firmly in the loop.In this episode, Ian and David unpack:What the latest survey data reveals about AI maturity, and why the sharp jump into production over six months is a genuinely positive signalWhy token maxing a model to do a job a simple automation could handle is bringing a bazooka to a knife fight, and how to match the tool to the taskThe John Briggs story: how one founder saved 150 to 200 thousand dollars a year and built a smarter client portal by partnering rather than going it aloneHow confidence scores and human QA keep people in the loop, so you trust AI's answers without losing the ability to check its workFind out why the operators who win are the ones who start where the pain is, choose the right tool, design for outcomes, and build AI and people to work better together. The opportunity is real, the wins are already happening, and the path from why to how is more achievable than the noise would have you believe.Listen now and tell us how you are moving from why to how in your own organization.Find us in your favorite streaming service:iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSLiHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

Ian Barkin and David Brain are joined by Tom Davenport, President's Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College and author of twenty-five books on AI, analytics, and the future of work. Tom, David, and Ian have co-authored numerous journal articles and a book on citizen development. Tom is a friend, collaborator, and expert with an unrivaled perspective on the agentic era. Welcome to Episode 5 of The magentIQ Show.In this episode, Ian, David, and Tom unpack:Why process slop happens when everyone in a workflow uses AI to write and review the same documentsThe 30x gap between AI rhetoric and capability: 60% of companies have cut jobs, but only 2% have the systems to absorb the workWhy the forward deployed engineer is just an AI-washed consultant, and why the next great job title might be the backward deployed engineerThe return of the blue book, the lost generation of graduates, and what David plans to tell a room full of schoolboys about using AI wellWhether humans can keep pace with agentic workflows, or whether they just become a dipping bird hitting the enter keyThe Thoreau origin of brain rot, and why teaching the next generation to think with AI rather than around it may be the defining educational challenge of the decadeFurther reading and resources from the conversationCo-authored by Tom Davenport and Ian Barkin:"All Hands on Tech: The AI-Powered Citizen Revolution" is the definitive guide to vibe coding in the agentic era. Drawing on years of joint research, Ian and Tom argue that the next wave of enterprise transformation will not come from a handful of technologists at the top, but from the millions of business users now equipped to build, automate, and innovate with AI tools. The book lays out how leaders can mobilize this citizen workforce, govern it responsibly, and turn it into a durable source of competitive advantage. Available at Amazon here. "We're All Programmers Now", Harvard Business Review, 2023, HbrWe’re All Programmers Now"Harnessing Grassroots Automation", MIT Sloan Management Review, Mitsloanreview.mit.edu/article/harnessing-grassroots-automationCo-authored by Tom Davenport and David Brain:"Before Automating Your Company's Processes, Find Ways to Improve Them", Harvard Business Review, 2018, HbrBefore Automating Your Company’s Processes, Find Ways to Improve Them

Ian Barkin and David Brain return for Episode 4 of The magentIQ Show, picking up where the headlines leave off. AI is everywhere at work right now, but the loudest signal is not better results. It is token maxing and layoffs justified by an AI story that often runs ahead of reality. Ian and David dig into what happens when leaders measure AI adoption by volume of usage instead of business value, and why that choice quietly rewires incentives across the entire organisation.The conversation moves through the latest wave of org hacking making the rounds: Coinbase's one-person product teams, Jack Dorsey's ambition to cut his company down to two layers, and the broader fantasy that agentic AI can absorb the messy human parts of building products and running teams. Ian and David name the constraints those models ignore. The pace of a single operator. The bias of a single perspective. The management work that does not disappear just because you can generate a status report. They also surface a risk more leaders need to say out loud, which is the use of AI to manage performance when the system will confidently fill in blanks, hallucinate context, and send signals that ripple through motivation and retention.From there the lens widens to enterprise AI implementation and the rising tide of AI consultancies, forward deployed engineers, and services arms trying to turn licences into outcomes. Ian and David tackle commoditisation, lock-in, the puzzle problem of orchestrating a thousand-piece agentic stack, and why buying into the inner circle of a model provider does not solve the hard part of deployment.In this episode, Ian and David unpack:Why AI-driven layoffs are often a budget reshuffle dressed as transformation, and what is really being freed upOne-person product teams as org hacking, and the speed and bias limits the pitch leaves outFlattening the org chart versus the real work of coaching, context, and careThe risks of letting AI manage people when the model is built to sound confident, not to be correctToken maxing as a vanity metric that floods teams with low-trust outputThe graduate backlash to a decade of "AI will take your job" messaging, and what it signals about the next workforceWhy enterprise AI implementation still needs governance, security, and services to landThe Sunday tinkering and Monday reality framework for building real AI fluencyA practical path for small and medium businesses: learn personally, prototype safely, then harden for productionThe takeaway is constructive. The agentic workforce is real, the opportunity is genuine, and the operators who win will be the ones who design for value rather than volume, who keep the human craft of management intact, and who treat citizen creativity as an input to disciplined deployment rather than a substitute for it.Listen now and tell us where you stand on the question shaping the agentic era: are you optimising for tokens, or for outcomes?Find us in your favourite streaming service: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSL iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

Ian Barkin and Joe Boggio have been comparing notes on innovation since their Capgemini days. They were at one of the first OpenAI hackathons in San Francisco three years ago. The room they sat in turned out to be ground zero for everything that followed. Welcome to Episode 3 of The magentIQ Show.For four decades, the McKinsey Three Horizons model gave leaders a comfortable distance from the future. Horizon One was the current business. Horizon Two was the set of capabilities worth watching. Horizon Three was the long bet that might mature in a decade. The model worked when the future moved at the speed of strategy. It does not work now. Joe's thesis is that Horizon Three now compresses into Horizon One in roughly ninety minutes, and the executive playbook for navigating change has to be rewritten from scratch.In this episode, Ian and Joe unpack:Why the single variable that decides whether a company transforms is the psychology of the CEO, and why no budget, no model, and no hotline to Jensen will save you if that variable is offThe Total Soccer theory of the AI-native organization, borrowed from 1970s Dutch football, and why every role in your company now plays offense and defenseWhat it actually felt like inside one of the first OpenAI hackathons, where a Harvard graduate called it an existential crisis and a distinguished Meta engineer reacted like Picasso had just been handed color for the first timePractical advice every CEO can act on Monday morning: find your top three token users and take them to dinner, hire a reverse mentor in their twenties, and run the red pill exercise of imagining the AI-native competitor designed to put you out of businessListen now and tell us where you land on the leadership question of the agentic era.Find us in your favorite streaming service: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSL iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

Co-founders Ian Barkin and David Brain have been having these conversations for fifteen years. This time, the recording light is on. Welcome to Episode 2 of The magentIQ Show, and the first installment of our founder discussions.Wall Street just placed a very loud bet on a quiet truth: enterprise AI is hard. Anthropic has teamed with Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Hellman and Friedman, and General Atlantic to stand up an AI services firm aimed at private equity portfolio companies. OpenAI is making the same move with even more capital behind it. The takeaway is unmistakable. Powerful models like Claude and ChatGPT are no longer the bottleneck. Deployment is. Messy workflows, missing process documentation, and the reality that ninety five percent of proofs of concept never reach production.In this episode, Ian and David unpack:Why Anthropic and OpenAI are buying their way into the enterprise and what their new consultancies will inheritThe bookends dilemma: most companies lack the process foundation to automate and the imagination to deploy AI ambitiouslyAI coding as a two to three times accelerator for senior developers and a liability when treated as a replacementService as software and outcome-based pricing as the commercial shift the industry has needed for a decadeHow input-based pricing in BPO and managed services actively punishes innovationThe boardroom hype problem and the cost of swapping "gen AI" for "agentic" without a plan to back it upIt is the kind of honest, peer-level conversation The magentIQ Show was built for. No hype, no fluff, just two co-founders who have been doing this work since before it had a buzzword.Listen now and tell us where you land on the great enterprise AI deployment debate.Find us in your favorite streaming service: iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSL iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

Episode 1 of The magentIQ Show is here!Ian Barkin sits down with Pat Geary, the man who gave Robotic Process Automation its name. Over lunch, no less. The term that built an industry started as a metaphor on a napkin, and Pat has had a front row seat for every wave since. In this episode, Pat and Ian trade stories from the early days of enterprise AI, revisit the now legendary "Welcome to Robotistan" paper, and turn a sharp eye on today's agentic AI gold rush. Expect strong opinions on autonomy, auditability, and why most of what is being sold as agentic today would not pass a five minute conversation with a chief risk officer.It is the kind of honest, peer-level conversation The magentIQ Show was built for.Listen now and tell us where you land on the great agentic debate.Find us in your favorite streaming service:iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magentiq-show/id1896570951Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033f2oKxnFr5fmcpdSHjSLiHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/333292440Got a perspective worth sharing? We are always looking for guests. Reach out at [email protected].

Every CEO has a mandate. Every consultant has a framework. Every LinkedIn post has a hot take. But who's actually telling the truth about AI?The magentIQ Show is the podcast for people who want to cut through the BS and hype. Hosted by Ian Barkin and David Brain, two operators who have spent more than two decades building, scaling, and exiting in the AI, automation, and outsourcing world.Join some amazing guests as we have honest, peer-level conversations about what AI really means for the way we work, from the boardroom to leadership to the systems underneath it all.No jargon for jargon's sake. No vendor cheerleading. No magic.Just the most consequential shift of our working lives, talked about the way operators talk about it.Season 1 launches with our AI Readiness series. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts.