Disambiguation

Michael Fauscette
  • 0.0 (0)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

"Disambiguation is the process of removing confusion around terms that express more than one meaning and can lead to different interpretations of the same string of text." Host Michael Fauscette of Arion Research; a leading technology analyst, tech startup advisor, consultant, board member, and storyteller; and his guests "remove the confusion around" artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI and business automation by looking at the business solutions available today to improve business outcomes and gain competitive advantage. 

  1. The Intelligence Model: Why Your Organization Needs a Map Before It Deploys AI

    1 DAY AGO

    The Intelligence Model: Why Your Organization Needs a Map Before It Deploys AI

    Most companies jump straight to AI use cases. They pick the hottest tools, launch pilots, and wonder why nothing scales. The problem isn't the technology. It's that they don't have a map of how work and decisions actually move through their organization.In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with Minyang Jiang (MJ), Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer at Credibly, to unpack what she calls the Intelligence Model: a framework for understanding where AI excels, where humans still lead, and why the scarcity models that shaped how businesses operate for decades are now being fundamentally challenged by AI's abundance. MJ also shares hard-won lessons from leading AI transformation at a fintech lending company, including why friction is something leaders should protect, not eliminate.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction01:16 - MJ's Path: From Ford Motor Company to Fintech AI Transformation03:17 - Why System-Level AI Change Is So Hard for Real Businesses06:52 - The Intelligence Model: Mapping Work Before You Automate It09:05 - The Scarcity Problem: Decisions Built Around Human Limits10:34 - Where Humans Still Beat AI: Prioritization, Decisioning, and Intuition13:17 - Why Human-AI Collaboration Still Produces the Best Results15:52 - The Awkward Teenage Phase of AI Agents18:32 - AI Has No Mental Model: The Adjacency of Expertise Problem22:23 - Credibly AI: Patented AI Underwriting and Industry Classification27:01 - The Explainability Tension: Complexity vs. Customer Trust29:39 - Change Management: The Crowd, the Lab, and the Leader33:35 - The Balloon Effect: Why AI Productivity Creates More Work, Not Less37:19 - Human in the Loop to Human in the Lead: The Trust Progression42:10 - Agent-to-Agent Commerce: Redesigning for Machine Buyers45:37 - What Leaders Should NOT Do: The Case for Intentional Friction48:48 - MJ's Recommendations: Stefano Bertoni and Lenny's Newsletter49:51 - Wrap-UpABOUT THE GUEST:Minyang Jiang (MJ) is the Chief Strategy & Revenue Officer at Credibly, a fintech lending company, where she leads the AI transformation and innovation team. Her career spans Ford Motor Company's marketing program, founding the Go Ride Health startup within Ford's mobility division, and building cross-functional AI adoption strategies in financial services.ABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/

    51 min
  2. Securing the Agentic Coding Era: When AI Writes Code, Who Guards the Gate?

    9 APR

    Securing the Agentic Coding Era: When AI Writes Code, Who Guards the Gate?

    Up to 30% of enterprise code is now AI-generated. Microsoft's CTO projects 90% by 2030. But here's the problem: AI coding tools are optimized for speed and functionality, not security. Research shows AI-assisted development introduces roughly 45% more bugs and 40% more security vulnerabilities. And only 13% of AI-generated code is attributed back to a developer.So who's accountable? And who guards the gates?In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with Nir Valtman, co-founder and CEO of Arnica, to unpack why the speed gains from agentic coding come with hidden security costs, how to move from "vibe coding" to viable coding, and what a mature, secure AI-assisted development workflow actually looks like.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction00:43 - Nir Valtman's Journey: From Hacker to Security CEO03:08 - The SolarWinds Turning Point06:02 - The Hidden Risk of AI-Generated Code08:17 - 45% More Bugs, 40% More Vulnerabilities: The Research09:00 - The Attribution Problem: Only 13% Traced to Developers10:00 - The Hidden Cost of Faster Code Generation10:50 - Guiding Coding Agents to Write Secure Code12:55 - Why Security at the Model Level Is Cost-Prohibitive15:16 - Arnica's Agentic Rules Enforcer and AI SAST20:33 - Pipeline-Based vs. Event-Driven Security Scanning24:00 - From Vibe Coding to Viable Coding24:57 - The Vision: Autonomous Software Development Done Right27:40 - Where Humans in the Loop Still Matter29:55 - What Keeps a Security CEO Up at Night32:02 - The Cost Challenge of Enterprise-Scale AI Scanning35:15 - Agents as a Digital Workforce for Development35:57 - Where CISOs Should Start Right Now38:23 - Governance by Design Meets AppSec41:13 - Nir's Recommendation: The Acquired Podcast42:35 - Wrap-UpABOUT THE GUEST:Nir Valtman is the co-founder and CEO of Arnica, a software supply chain security company. He holds seven patents in software security and has held security leadership roles including CSO at Kabbage and VP of Security at Nostra. Nir brings a hacker's mindset to enterprise application security.ABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/

    43 min
  3. The Missing Layer: Why Your AI Agents Need a Governance Plane

    1 APR

    The Missing Layer: Why Your AI Agents Need a Governance Plane

    Your AI agents are running. But can you go to sleep at night knowing they won't send 3,000 emails to the same person, run up a $3,000 bill overnight, or give away refunds your business can't afford?In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with Logan Kelly, CEO of Waxell AI, to explore why governance for agentic systems is not observability, not guardrails, and not something you bolt on after deployment. It's a dedicated plane that has to be there from the start.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction00:45 - Logan's journey from CallSine (autonomous sales agents) to Waxell AI03:55 - What a governance plane actually does and why the distinction matters07:06 - Why "we'll deal with governance later" is a dangerous bet09:34 - 26 governance categories and 200-300 policies per agent fleet10:20 - Deterministic observability vs. probabilistic agent governance13:14 - Failure modes don't have to be terminal: the manager-employee model14:05 - The Gong analogy: why agents need real-time coaching, not post-game review16:42 - Making governance accessible to non-engineers18:12 - Real-time semantic interception: filtering outputs before they reach the customer21:17 - The air traffic controller analogy: governing upstream, not at the gate23:11 - Business operations teams setting agent policies without writing code25:43 - Digital employees: why business leaders need to be in the governance loop28:00 - "Go to sleep at night" as the real value proposition of governance29:47 - MCP layer security vulnerabilities and the rug pull attack31:16 - Governance by design: building it into infrastructure from day one34:07 - How governance actually makes agents faster and more creative35:31 - Protecting customer experience and brand at machine speed39:29 - The next 12-18 months: autonomy at scale vs. co-work at scale43:02 - Thought leader recommendation: Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot)ABOUT THE GUEST:Logan Kelly is the CEO of Waxell AI, a governance plane for agentic systems. Previously, he founded CallSine, an AI-driven sales engagement platform that deployed fully autonomous agents, where he experienced firsthand the cost, quality, and security challenges that emerge when agents operate without a governance layer. That experience drove him to build the infrastructure that lets organizations run agents safely at scale.CONNECT WITH LOGAN:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logankkelly/Company: https://www.waxell.ai/ABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AgenticAI #AIGovernance #EnterpriseAI #AIStrategy #AIAgents #Podcast

    45 min
  4. March 2026 AI Pulse

    26 MAR

    March 2026 AI Pulse

    A US AI company designated a supply chain risk by its own government. An executive order to override state AI regulation. A paper that stunned the math world. March was one of the most consequential months in AI yet.In this episode, Michael Fauscette and co-host Tom Pringle break down the biggest AI stories of March 2026, from the Anthropic-DoD standoff and its fallout, to OpenAI's GPT-5.4, NVIDIA's Vera Rubin platform, Yann LeCun's world models startup, Gemini's Apple partnership, the state of AI regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, and why governance by design isn't optional anymore.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction01:05 - Anthropic vs. the Department of Defense: Supply Chain Risk Designation06:15 - The #UninstallChatGPT Movement and Claude's Surge08:20 - Red Lines: Autonomous Weapons and Mass Surveillance14:45 - OpenAI GPT-5.4 and Autonomous Multi-Step Workflows17:50 - Governance by Design: Why After-the-Fact Doesn't Work at Machine Speed23:20 - Rethinking Corporate Structure for a Hybrid Workforce25:15 - NVIDIA Vera Rubin: 10x Performance Per Watt Over Blackwell28:10 - Yann LeCun Leaves Meta, Launches World Models Startup33:48 - Gemini 3.1 Pro, Apple Intelligence, and the Model Race43:25 - Donald Knuth's "Cloud Cycles" Paper: Claude Opus 4.6 Stuns Mathematicians45:55 - AI Regulation: Trump's Executive Order vs. EU AI Act Delays53:00 - Cool Tech: Lego's AI-Powered Smart Brick57:35 - Wrap-UpABOUT THE CO-HOST:Tom Pringle is Director of Pilot Research, bringing a sharp, skeptical perspective on AI hype and a deep background in enterprise technology.ABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/

    58 min
  5. The Human Operating System: Why People Infrastructure Is the Missing AI Investment

    25 MAR

    The Human Operating System: Why People Infrastructure Is the Missing AI Investment

    We spend millions upgrading our technology infrastructure. We budget for servers, software, security. But what if the most critical infrastructure in your organization has no line item at all?In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with Barbara Wittmann, Founder of Digital Wisdom Collective, to explore why "human infrastructure" should be on every CIO's budget, why change management is an outdated concept, and what it actually takes to prepare people for AI at the speed the technology demands.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction00:48 - Barbara's 25 years rescuing broken digital transformations02:46 - The moment she decided to flip the equation03:54 - Human infrastructure: what it includes and why it belongs on the IT budget05:23 - Why AI failures are almost always human failures06:10 - Change management is dead; continuous upgrade is what works07:15 - Lessons from SAP's Business Process Renovation team and Hasso Plattner10:03 - Why workers still keep Excel backups next to their enterprise systems11:39 - Survival of the wisest: wisdom vs. knowledge in the AI era14:58 - Wayfinding artifacts: shared maps that give organizations a compass17:52 - Adaptive agency: the skill nobody is training for20:58 - Human in the lead, not human in the loop22:26 - Values-based AI governance and the ego problem25:17 - The biggest breaking point is on the human side, not the tech side28:44 - What 5,000+ IT leaders say about their AI adoption struggles31:36 - Continuous upgrade: why one-and-done transformation is broken34:12 - Judgment as the fastest-eroding human capability37:09 - Thought leader recommendation: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will GuidaraABOUT THE GUEST:Barbara Wittmann is the Founder of Digital Wisdom Collective, where she helps organizations upgrade their human infrastructure for the AI era. With 25 years of experience rescuing broken digital transformation projects, including work on SAP's Business Process Renovation team alongside Hasso Plattner, Barbara brings a practitioner's perspective on why technology is rarely the problem and people always are.CONNECT WITH BARBARA:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbarawittmann/Company: Digital Wisdom CollectiveABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #HumanInfrastructure #ChangeManagement #AIGovernance #DigitalTransformation #Leadership #EnterpriseAI #Podcast

    40 min
  6. From SEO to AEO: Preparing Your Content for AI Discovery

    18 MAR

    From SEO to AEO: Preparing Your Content for AI Discovery

    Your website traffic is dropping, your click-through rates are falling, and your PDF lead magnets are dying in email inboxes. The way people search has changed, and if your content isn't structured for AI discovery, you're becoming invisible.In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with Jenna Nelson, Founder of Her Agency, to explore the shift from SEO to AEO and GEO, why static content strategies are failing, and how to structure your brand for the way people actually search in 2026.TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Introduction 00:46 - Jenna's background in digital marketing and AI implementation 01:58 - The AI adoption timeline: why two years from now is too late 04:01 - The leveling effect: small businesses can leapfrog right now 05:45 - Change management: why AI breaks bad processes faster 07:09 - The shift from keyword search to query-and-answer content 10:17 - Zero-click search and why the top three results are all that matter 11:39 - Writing for machines and humans: structured schemas and FAQs 13:36 - AEO vs GEO: answer engines vs generative engines explained 15:53 - The generational shift: LLM-first search is already here 17:21 - Tools for testing your AI visibility: Squarespace, Search Atlas 18:55 - Static lead magnets are dead: what replaces the PDF 22:38 - Michael's readiness assessment tool as a live example 24:30 - How AI-powered qualification tools transformed Jenna's sales process 26:29 - Speed to market: test offers in an hour, not six months 27:54 - Brand-trained AI vs out-of-the-box: the difference is night and day 30:29 - Reinforcement learning: feed your edits back into the system 32:40 - Hyper-personalized lead gen: segmentation at the individual level 35:43 - Advice for SMBs: start with visibility, then internal tools, then client-facing 38:23 - Leadership and AI adoption: it should come from the top 40:42 - Thought leader recommendation: vibe coding tools like Lovable and CursorABOUT THE GUEST: Jenna Nelson is the Founder of Her Agency, a digital marketing and AI implementation firm that helps businesses optimize their visibility for the AI-driven search landscape. With a background in brand strategy and digital marketing, Jenna specializes in AEO/GEO optimization, AI-powered lead generation tools, and helping companies train AI on their brand voice.CONNECT WITH JENNA: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennalnelson/ Company: Her AgencyABOUT DISAMBIGUATION: AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday. Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion Research Author of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/ Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/

    43 min
  7. MCP, AI Agents, and the Future of Network Infrastructure

    11 MAR

    MCP, AI Agents, and the Future of Network Infrastructure

    What happens when a 25-year network engineer discovers that AI agents can talk directly to infrastructure? The answer is reshaping how we think about network operations, governance, and the future of IT.In this episode, Michael Fauscette sits down with John Capobianco, Head of AI and Developer Relations at Itential, to explore how Model Context Protocol (MCP) is becoming the connective tissue between AI agents and enterprise systems, why network infrastructure needs a governance layer before autonomy, and what happens when you let 500 engineers loose on an AI agent in Slack.TIMESTAMPS:00:00 - Introduction00:47 - John's journey from aluminum factory to network engineering03:08 - MCP explained: why it's as significant as SMTP or HTTP07:37 - Why business leaders should care about MCP10:06 - Michael's personal MCP use case: content retrieval bot12:40 - Democratizing access: you don't need a CS degree to start14:03 - Web MCP: the future of agent-driven web interaction16:12 - The Pyats MCP server: agents talking to Cisco devices19:44 - How natural language changes network troubleshooting22:01 - Itential's Flow AI and Flow MCP Gateway: the governance control layer25:52 - Human in the loop, on the loop, and in the lead26:34 - Governance by design: baking in guardrails, not bolting them on30:10 - The digital workforce paradigm for agent deployment33:28 - Open Claude bot: 1.5 million agents in six weeks35:04 - MCP security: shadow AI, vetting tools, and common sense39:02 - The Open Claude bot story: 30 social engineering attacks defeated43:42 - Advice for IT leaders who feel they're falling behind45:48 - The NOC in two years: Gartner's 70% augmentation prediction50:30 - Thought leader recommendation: Damon LightfootABOUT THE GUEST:John Capobianco is Head of AI and Developer Relations at Itential, with 25 years of network engineering experience spanning public and private sector roles, including senior network architect at the Parliament of Canada. He's authored two books on network automation, including a Cisco Press title on Pyats, and is a leading voice on blending AI agents with infrastructure management.CONNECT WITH JOHN:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-capobianco-644a1515/Company: https://www.itential.com/ABOUT DISAMBIGUATION:AI clarity for business leaders. New episodes every Wednesday.Host: Michael Fauscette, CEO & Chief Analyst at Arion ResearchAuthor of "Building the Digital Workforce"SUBSCRIBE & follow for weekly episodes on AI strategy, agentic AI, and enterprise technology.Website: https://www.disambiguationpod.com/Arion Research: https://www.arionresearch.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfauscette/

    52 min
  8. Building Visibility: How Personal Brand Drives Business Growth

    4 MAR

    Building Visibility: How Personal Brand Drives Business Growth

    Jimi Gibson, VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, joins the show to explain why executives and subject matter experts need to build personal brands in the age of AI-driven search, and how a professional magician's framework for capturing attention translates directly into business communication strategy.Jimi shares his Magic Script framework (connectivity, curiosity, conversion) with a live card trick demonstration that breaks down the neuroscience of engagement: oxytocin for trust, dopamine for curiosity, serotonin for satisfaction. He walks through his first 90 days of building personal visibility for Thrive and shares research showing that executives who post on LinkedIn just 10 times a year see 30% more referrals and larger deal sizes. The conversation dives into how the shift from SEO to generative engine optimization (GEO) and answer engine optimization (AEO) is changing how companies get found, with 37% of searches now originating in LLM platforms and AI-driven traffic converting at 3.5 to 4 times the rate of traditional search traffic.Guest: Jimi Gibson, VP of Brand Communication, Thrive Internet Marketing AgencyTimestamps: 00:00  Intro 00:32  Welcome Jimi Gibson 01:13  From professional magician to marketing strategist 03:57  How a performer mindset shapes brand visibility 08:18  The Magic Script: connectivity, curiosity, conversion 08:29  Live card trick demonstration 15:42  The neuroscience behind the Magic Script 21:49  Why storytelling beats data dumps 23:44  Becoming the face of Thrive: the first 90 days 30:44  How personal brand drives company growth 34:45  From SEO to GEO and AEO: how AI changed search 42:46 Finding answers vs. finding a way to find answers 44:39 Activating subject matter experts as thought leaders 47:41  Book recommendation: "Story Worthy" by Matthew DixDisambiguation is an Arion Research production. New episodes weekly.Website: https://arionresearch.com Host: Michael Fauscette

    49 min
See All (132)

Trailer

About

"Disambiguation is the process of removing confusion around terms that express more than one meaning and can lead to different interpretations of the same string of text." Host Michael Fauscette of Arion Research; a leading technology analyst, tech startup advisor, consultant, board member, and storyteller; and his guests "remove the confusion around" artificial intelligence (AI), generative AI and business automation by looking at the business solutions available today to improve business outcomes and gain competitive advantage. 

Information

  • Creator
    Michael Fauscette
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    132
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ©️All Rights Reserved
  • Show Website
    Disambiguation