Zero Shot

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TECHNOLOGY
UPDATED WEEKLY

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

6 DAYS AGO

Perplexity’s rug pull in India, AI PCs are the new Chromebooks, Deepseek isn’t an AI company

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin discuss and analyse major developments related to artificial intelligence every week. Praveen kicks off this episode with a look at Perplexity’s changes to its Pro plan’s free trial. Perplexity has changed its terms and conditions, and now requires users who signed up for a 12-month free subscription to put a credit card on file. The hosts of Zero Shot discuss why this is happening now. Then, Rohin tells everyone about AI PCs, the spiritual successors to Chromebooks. If you’re already using cloud services every day, would you replace every function on your personal computer with AI applications? AI is truly eating everything, now including hardware—at least in the rhetoric. Finally, Brady highlights that it’s been one year since the “Deepseek Moment”. The company dispelled the notion that Silicon Valley is charting the only way forward for creating better large language models. But Deepseek isn’t an AI company in the conventional sense. It works like a research lab funded by hedge fund profits, which shapes its R&D culture and exemplifies a different vision for bringing about AGI. Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken. Share your comments, critiques and suggestions with us at zeroshot@the-ken.com. Or write in just to say hi. We respond to everyone who contacts us. Additional Reading Airtel’s free Perplexity Pro paused for Indians with no credit card, angering usershttps://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/airtel-s-free-perplexity-pro-paused-for-indians-with-no-credit-card-angering-users/ar-AA1U2ig0 Jeff Bezos said the quiet part out loud — hopes that you'll give up your PC to rent one from the cloudhttps://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-version The numbers behind OpenAI, Gemini, and Perplexity’s deals with Phonepe, Jio, and Airtelhttps://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/the-numbers-behind-openai-and-perplexitys-deals-with-jio-and-airtel/ CES 2026 – “The Future Is Here” and “Innovators Show Up”https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/237-ces-2026-the-future-is-here-and ‘The enshittification of computer repair is happening.’https://infosec.exchange/@sawaba/115924627821844963 DeepSeek founder Liang’s funds surge 57% as China quants boomhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-12/deepseek-founder-liang-s-funds-surge-57-as-china-quants-boom No business model: DeepSeek's enduring advantagehttps://interconnected.blog/no-business-model-deepseeks-enduring-advantage/ Lossfunkhttps://lossfunk.com/ Sarvam AI’s Rs 10,000 crore pivothttps://the-ken.com/columns/zero-shot/sarvam-ais-rs-10000-crore-pivot/

54 min
14 JAN

Infosys and Cognizant's message to Microsoft: Thanks, but we found better AI

“Everyone is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The truth is that the tool doesn’t matter unless the IT company adopting them cannot translate it into increased revenue or reduced cost. And that’s the problem” That’s Sidu Ponappa, our first guest on Zero Shot. Sidu is CEO and co-founder of Realfast, a company that uses AI to accelerate Salesforce implementations. Today’s Zero Shot episode is about a simple question – why are India’s IT majors bypassing Microsoft’s Copilot and instead adopting other tools. Infosys just announced an org wide roll-out of Devin. Cognizant has picked Lovable for its 350,000 employees, becoming their largest enterprise customer. Where is Microsoft, which had its early advantage? That’s the question we posed in our discussion, and well, Sidu went beyond to second and third order effects, beyond the tools themselves. And we have something exciting – we want to hear from you about what kind of tools are used in your organisation. If you work in Indian IT (or know someone who does), let us know. Tell us. The poll is below. Oh, also in our second segment, Brady looks at the IPOs of two “AI Tigers” in Hong Kong: Minimax and Zhipu. Often (incorrectly) labeled as China’s responses to OpenAI, these two companies’ listings inadvertently became a source of unease among some AI companies—there is a deadline for their path to public markets. If OpenAI and Anthropic gain ticker codes, these firms will be black holes for liquidity, and any other AI company that goes public after these events aren’t going to be welcomed as warmly by investors. This means AI companies need to make a choice: go public as soon as possible, or expect to stay private for a very, very long time. Take our poll: What AI tools do you use at work? Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken. Write to us with comments, critiques, suggestions, or just to say hi: zeroshot@the-ken.com. We respond to everyone who contacts us.

1h 2m
31/12/2025

Taking aim for 2026

It’s the end of 2025, so we don’t have a full episode of Zero Shot for you today. This podcast launched in September, and we’ve produced 14 episodes for you so far. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, and our conversations—between Praveen, Rohin, and Brady—only work because you’re willing to sit with the complexities we wade into. We know artificial intelligence will move fast in 2026, so we’ll keep asking the questions that matter in this AI hype cycle. We’re glad you’re coming along with us. So, thank you, and we’ll be back next week. As always, if you’d like to get in touch with any or all of our hosts, please drop us a note at zeroshot@the-ken.com. We respond to all messages. The cover art of Zero Shot is generated by AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.

2 min
23/09/2025

Introducing Zero Shot

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

2 min

See All (19)

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.