Citrix AI Hotsheet

Brian Madden

Citrix AI Hotsheet is a podcast for the IT leaders, architects, and decision-makers responsible for bringing AI into real enterprise environments at scale. Hosts Brian Madden and Dave Brear come at every topic from two angles. Brian, a longtime voice in end-user computing, focuses on where AI is heading and what it means for the future of enterprise work. Dave, an enterprise architect who's spent two decades designing Citrix environments for some of the world's largest organizations, focuses on what actually works inside those environments today. Together they explore the space between vision and execution. Each episode digs into what's actually changing for enterprise AI: agentic systems and computer use, identity and governance for non-human personas, the economics of AI at scale, and what it takes to bring AI into environments that can't be ripped out and replaced. Straight talk for the people doing the work. The podcast homepage is at https://citrixaihotsheet.riverside.com A podcast from Citrix.

Episodes

  1. 5 days ago

    Second Brains Hit the Enterprise Wall, & Why AI Automations Won't Lead to AI Utopia

    Welcome back to the Citrix AI Hotsheet, where Brian Madden (futurist, Citrix) and Dave Brear (account technology strategist, Citrix) talk about how AI is actually entering large, regulated enterprises, not the way the accelerationists tell it, but the way it's really happening. Three main topics this episode: The 7-stage roadmap, 2026 edition. Brian published the original 7-stage roadmap for human-AI collaboration a year ago. The biggest change in the 2026 version: it's not a ladder. Dave introduces a better shape: a tree house. Why AI automations are the wrong frame. Brian argues that the industry's dominant narrative—audit your tasks, identify automations, and build workflows—is RPA thinking applied to the wrong problem. Knowledge work isn't a collection of repeatable scripted tasks. It's messy, judgment-heavy, and distributed across a dozen different systems. The right move isn't automating the visible 20% of your job. it's connecting your second brain into all the applications and data sources you already have access to, so AI can work the way a human works—through the same front door with the same context. Dave's glass ceiling. Dave explains what he had before moving his second brain into a sanctioned corporate VDI: a system that could help with 20–30% of his work, e.g. the stuff that was safe to handle personally. The rest was on the other side of a glass ceiling he could see but not touch. Sensitive customer data, CRM records, and support case history were all locked in enterprise systems with no path to a personal AI. Moving into a Citrix VDI with his brain changed everything. Links mentioned in this episode Brian's 7-stage roadmap, 2026 edition (Citrix blog): https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/06/10/the-7-stage-roadmap-for-human-ai-collaboration-2026-edition/Dave's LinkedIn piece: My second brain just got a security clearance: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-second-brain-just-got-security-clearance-dave-brear-akv9e/)Episode 2 — The Last Chapter of EUC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgxx4UCtb6kEpisode 1 — AI agents, second brains, and the enterprise AI gap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55y_XUWGUnQ Find us online Brian Madden bmad.com: https://bmad.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmadden/Citrix blog: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/?s=bmadden&type=authorSecond brain: https://brianmadden.ai Dave Brear LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davebrear/Second brain: https://davebrear.ai

    47 min

  2. 14 Jun

    The Last Chapter of EUC

    This is a special edition of the Citrix AI Hotsheet. Instead of the usual conversation between Brian & Dave, this week Brian shares the keynote he gave earlier this month EUC Tech Cruise in Norway: "The Last Chapter of EUC." The talk lays out where the EUC industry stands in summer 2026 and where AI is taking it from here. Brian opens by looking at why the AI narrative has flipped (six months ago it was "is AI even worth it?", today it's "AI is too expensive") and argues both miss the real story. AI capabilities keep climbing, but diffusion (how fast individuals, teams, and companies actually absorb those capabilities) is the bottleneck. From there, he walks through his updated 7 Stages of Human-AI Collaboration roadmap (2026 edition): from using AI as a faster search engine, to a thinking partner, to a cognitive extension (your "second brain" / context vault), to a multi-tool agent, a fleet of AIs, a "pod" (worker + AIs), and finally the "published self". Finally, it's on to the last chapter of EUC. Brian argues the assumptions underpinning 30 years of end-user computing are changing, but the discipline itself isn't going away—it's getting bigger. He maps VDI, image management, profile management, endpoint management, performance monitoring, and the control plane onto a future built around context vaults, skills, agent workers, cognitive observability, and token routing. His take: AI won't eat all software, (only the shallow layer), and the skills EUC and IT pros have built for decades translate directly into managing this new "cognitive" world. Links mentioned in the episode: 7 Stages of Human-AI Collaboration roadmap, 2026 edition: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/06/10/the-7-stage-roadmap-for-human-ai-collaboration-2026-edition/ Skills Are All You Need: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/03/12/skills-are-all-you-need/ What's left for humans: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2026/04/09/whats-left-for-humans/ Brian's LinkedIn post announcing his second brain / context vault: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/i-built-second-brain-using-ai-its-changed-way-work-future-madden-0tote OSWorld benchmark: https://os-world.github.io Find us online: Brian Madden bmad.com: https://bmad.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmadden/ Citrix blog: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/?s=bmadden&type=author Second brain: https://brianmadden.ai

    1hr 7min

  3. 20 May

    AI Agents, Second Brains, and the Enterprise AI Gap

    Welcome to the first episode of the Citrix AI Hotsheet. Brian Madden (futurist, Citrix) and Dave Brear (account technology strategist, Citrix) introduce the show and dig into how AI is actually entering the enterprise — not the way the tech accelerationists or the vendor podcasts tell it, but the way it's really happening inside the banks, hospitals, and regulated environments where most knowledge workers actually work. Two main topics this week. AI will use the apps humans already use. Brian's thesis: AI in the enterprise won't come from top-down rewrites of every system — it'll come from AI workers logging in and using the same desktops, browsers, and applications human workers already use. We walk through why computer-using agents are slow today (screenshots, frame by frame), the OSWorld benchmark showing AI now exceeds the median human at operating a computer, and recent research on semantic primitives (W3C accessibility, Windows UI Automation) that cuts token consumption by ~80%. The rise of context vaults. Dave introduces the second concept: knowledge workers are quietly building "context vaults" — what most people call second brains — that compound their thinking with AI. It started for both of us as a folder of notes; now it's the most significant shift in how we work day to day. We talk about why this is a corporate blind spot, what the scale problems look like, and the experiment of connecting two second brains together over MCP so we can ask each other's AI what the other one thinks. Links mentioned in the episode OSWorld benchmark: https://os-world.github.ioarXiv paper on UIA-based agent navigation (~80% fewer tokens vs. screenshots): https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.00551Andrej Karpathy on personal context vaults — X post: https://x.com/karpathy/status/2039805659525644595 / companion gist: https://gist.github.com/karpathy/442a6bf555914893e9891c11519de94f Find us online Brian Madden bmad.com: https://bmad.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bmadden/Citrix blog: https://www.citrix.com/blogs/?s=bmadden&type=authorSecond brain: https://brianmadden.ai Dave Brear LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davebrear/Second brain: https://davebrear.ai

    42 min
  • 3 Episodes

About

Citrix AI Hotsheet is a podcast for the IT leaders, architects, and decision-makers responsible for bringing AI into real enterprise environments at scale. Hosts Brian Madden and Dave Brear come at every topic from two angles. Brian, a longtime voice in end-user computing, focuses on where AI is heading and what it means for the future of enterprise work. Dave, an enterprise architect who's spent two decades designing Citrix environments for some of the world's largest organizations, focuses on what actually works inside those environments today. Together they explore the space between vision and execution. Each episode digs into what's actually changing for enterprise AI: agentic systems and computer use, identity and governance for non-human personas, the economics of AI at scale, and what it takes to bring AI into environments that can't be ripped out and replaced. Straight talk for the people doing the work. The podcast homepage is at https://citrixaihotsheet.riverside.com A podcast from Citrix.

Information

  • Creator
    Brian Madden
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Brian Madden
  • Show Website
    Citrix AI Hotsheet
  • Provider

You Might Also Like