What's Up with Tech?

Evan Kirstel
  • 5.0 (1)
  • TECHNOLOGY

Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!

  1. 1D AGO

    From Guesswork To Answers: How People.ai Transforms Sales

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Forecast calls shouldn’t feel like theater. We sat down with People got ai’s new CEO Jason Ambrose to unpack how turning raw activity—emails, meetings, call transcripts—into crisp answers can transform forecasting, end CRM fatigue, and give leaders the clarity they actually need. Instead of forcing reps to feed fields, the platform reads what is already happening and returns guidance you can use right now: which deals are at risk, which stakeholders are missing, and where to act to hit the number. We trace People ai’s path from early activity capture to training models on billions of interactions across years of market shocks. That history pays off when patterns shift; the system sees signals static dashboards miss. Jason explains why most forecasting rituals only assign accountability, not risk, and how a risk-first approach reframes the conversation: timing, probability, engagement, and next best actions. The result is a plan you can execute, not a spreadsheet you defend. We also dig into the CRM reality. Systems of record still matter, but the monolithic UI is giving way to flexible experiences, agents, and chat surfaces that pull answers into the tools your teams already use. Executives want to ask open questions—what’s happening in Japan, where a product stands—and get a directionally correct answer in minutes, not days. Agents are set to automate internal churn like account plans, win wires, and pricing checks, so sellers spend more time with customers and less time in tabs. Jason’s vision is simple and ambitious: make accurate, actionable answers available anywhere, integrate with the stack you have, and scale from pilot wins to trusted operations. If you’re ready to replace hunches with clarity, tune in, share with a teammate, and leave a review so we can keep bringing you conversations that cut through the noise. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    21 min

  2. 2D AGO

    How Gifting Pink Socks Sparked A Culture Of Human Connection Across Healthcare And Beyond

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com A bright pair of pink socks walked into HIMSS and walked out as a global symbol of connection. We sit down with Nick Adkins to unpack how a playful gesture turned into 300,000 gifts, a nonprofit rooted in kindness, and a book that invites all of us to love more and fear less. Nick takes us back to 2015, when he and cofounder Andrew Richards skipped the booth, packed a backpack with socks, and discovered the power of intentional gifting to break silos in healthcare. From viral photos and a TEDx talk to collaborations with hospitals, schools, and even astronauts, the Pink Socks movement shows how a small token can open big conversations. The new book, Pink Socks: How A Pair Of Socks Became A Symbol Of Love And Connection, weaves ten years of stories for three audiences: longtime community members, the Pink Socks-curious, and anyone craving a simple path back to empathy. We go inside the moment that changed everything: a raw, post-talk conversation at Stanford’s MedX with a lung transplant recipient whose story turned socks into a practice of holding space. Nick explains why connection, not just connectivity, heals teams and cultures, and how leaders can model empathy in ways that shift entire companies—sometimes starting with a poem. Practical ideas abound: put down the phone, introduce yourself to the person next to you, use a small, visible token to spark dialogue, and watch a tense room—say, a long post office line—soften into patience. If your heart is ready for a clear, human reset, this conversation offers a map. Explore pinksocks.life, discover how the nonprofit supports schools and community projects, and consider gifting the interactive hardcover with QR codes that bring stories to life. If this story resonates, share the episode with a friend, subscribe for more human-centered conversations, and leave a review to help others find us. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    30 min

  3. 5D AGO

    Build Fast, Govern Faster: The Real Path To Agentic Success

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com What if the secret to scaling AI agents has nothing to do with better prompts and everything to do with smarter integration? We sit down with Rich Waldron Co-founder & CEO of Tray dot ai to unpack how an integration-first architecture turns agent hype into measurable business outcomes. From cloud-native orchestration to resilient API handling, Rich explains why the hardest part of agents isn’t connectivity—it’s everything behind it: concurrency, retries, governance, logging, and security. We dig into the real reasons enterprise pilots stall and the pattern he sees among programs that succeed: IT-led, department-partnered builds with clear ROI, tight scopes, and fast iteration cycles. Rich shares a standout customer story migrating hundreds of integrations off a legacy vendor while launching agentic workflows on a single governed platform—delivering 60% lower integration costs and three times faster builds. Along the way, we explore how engineering teams use AI coding tools to prototype faster and offload grunt work, freeing time for architecture and testing without threatening roles. If you’re choosing where to start, accelerators for ITSM, HR, support, and knowledge make time-to-value tangible and create a structure teams can adapt to proprietary data and processes. We also cover the growing priority of enterprise governance: controlling which tools agents can access, how data moves, and how identities map across systems. Rich outlines Tray’s Agent Gateway for MCP—adding authentication and permissioning and exposing Trey-built tools to other services in a controlled way—so CIOs can move quickly without giving away the keys to the kingdom. Ready to move from pilot to production with confidence? Follow, share, and leave a review to tell us where your organization is on the journey—and what’s blocking your next agent from going live. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    17 min

  4. 6D AGO

    CES 2026: Where AI Meets Reality

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Vegas turns into a living blueprint for the future as we sit down with CTA’s Gary Shapiro and best-selling author Jim Harris to unpack why CES 2026 is more than a showcase—it’s where strategy gets decided. We dig into how AI has moved from headline hype to the connective tissue of every sector, shaping robotics, health, mobility, and enterprise workflows. Gary lays out the big picture: a record wave of innovation colliding with real constraints like energy supply, fragmented regulation, and national industrial strategies. The tension is exciting—and actionable. We walk through what’s truly new this year: a surge in humanoid and wearable robotics, patient-centered health tech powered by continuous sensing, and a startup scene in Eureka Park designed to compress months of business development into days. CES Foundry expands into AI and quantum with live demos, while new categories highlight enterprise tech, filmmaking, logistics, and travel. Keynotes—from Dr. Lisa Su to global brands at the Sphere—frame where compute, platforms, and partnerships are headed next. It’s a global stage, with 40% of attendees from abroad, and a clear signal that innovation is now a team sport. If you’re an enterprise leader, this isn’t a gadget tour. Nearly half the action is B2B: partner summits, private suites, and tracks that turn tech trends into operating plans. We share practical tips to win your week—map your days by venue, leverage the upgraded AI-driven app, hydrate, and focus on one theme per day to avoid context switching. Looking ahead, we explore how quantum computing, agentic AI, and autonomy could reshape supply chains and healthcare, and why energy and policy choices will determine how fast the future arrives. Subscribe for more deep dives from the front lines of innovation, share this with a colleague who’s planning their CES agenda, and leave a quick review to tell us which track you’re most excited to explore. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    22 min

  5. DEC 17

    How AI Transcription Is Rewriting Journalism And Media Workflows

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com A journalist screams, “I’m wasting four hours a day transcribing,” and a product is born. We sit down with Lasse Finderup, CEO of Good Tape to unpack how a newsroom pain point turned into a privacy-first platform used by millions—and why saying no to feature bloat matters more than chasing every shiny AI trick. We trace the spin-out origin story and the “instant product-market fit” that came from building for colleagues who needed reliable, fast transcripts yesterday. Lasse explains the decision to never train on user data and to host models in-house, trading flashy add-ons for deep security, ISO-grade compliance, and trust. We explore global AI adoption gaps—from Denmark’s “I’ll just ChatGPT this” culture to regions where automated speech-to-text still feels like magic—and why context matters when you’re designing tools for journalists, podcasters, and creators handling sensitive sources. From a tech perspective, we dive into an open-source stack centered on Whisper V3 Large and the heavy lifting around the model: optimization, infrastructure, and the real costs of self-hosting LLMs. Lasse lays out a sharp distinction between “record-everything meetings” tools and workflows where the transcript is the output itself. That sets the stage for Good Tape’s next big leap: an “artificial memory” that surfaces relevant past notes at the right moment, with user-controlled reminders that feel helpful, not invasive. We also touch on multilingual transcription’s surge across contact centers and newsrooms, market consolidation on the horizon, and founder advice: build for real needs, not just because AI makes it possible. If you care about accuracy, confidentiality, and simple tools that get out of your way, this conversation will sharpen how you evaluate transcription tech and where the industry is heading. Subscribe, share with a teammate who fights transcripts, and leave a quick review to help more builders and storytellers find the show. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    19 min

  6. DEC 16

    Beyond Copilots: Agents That Do The Work

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Copilots can suggest the next click, but they rarely deliver the finished job. We dive into a different path: enterprise AI agents that integrate with your systems, understand your business rules, and execute end-to-end workflows with governance, accuracy, and reliability. Rob Bearden co-founder and CEO Sema4.ai shares how their platform moves beyond brittle scripts and UI macros to reasoning-driven automation that adapts to changing contracts, policies, and supply constraints—turning strategy into repeatable, measurable outcomes. We trace the journey from big data to autonomy: insights and KPIs used to point the way, but humans still had to do the work across dozens of apps and tabs. Agents close that last-mile gap by reading documents, joining data across ERPs and CRMs, and following rule-bound reasoning paths to finish the task. You’ll hear concrete wins like multi-page invoice reconciliation done in minutes with higher accuracy, AP help desk cases resolved without swivel-chair searches, and quote-to-cash automated across fragmented systems. The result is less toil, fewer errors, and outcomes you can audit and scale. If you’re stuck in AI pilot purgatory, the way out is a platform strategy and tight guardrails. We break down a crawl-walk-run approach: pick a high-leverage use case, define the outcome, run a focused proof, measure ROI, then rinse and repeat. We also scan the broader agent ecosystem—Salesforce, ServiceNow, and hyperscalers are leaning in—while making the case for an enterprise-wide layer that spans SaaS apps, data warehouses, and data lakes. Finance operations lead early adoption, but healthcare, insurance, and manufacturing are close behind, wherever people juggle multiple systems to make a decision. Ready to trade tab hell for trained agents and predictable outcomes? Follow the show, share this episode with your ops and finance leaders, and leave a review to help more teams find it. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    18 min

  7. DEC 15

    Inside AMD’s AI Strategy From Edge To Data Center

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com Big leaps in AI rarely come from one breakthrough. They emerge when hardware design, open software, and real workloads click into place. That’s the story we unpack with AMD’s Ramine Roane: how an open, developer-first approach combined with high-bandwidth memory, chiplet packaging, and a re-architected software stack is reshaping performance and cost from the edge to the largest data centers. We walk through why memory capacity and bandwidth dominate large language model performance, and how MI300X’s 192 GB HBM and advanced packaging unlock bigger contexts and faster token throughput. Ramin explains how Rocm 7 was rebuilt to be modular, smaller to install, and enterprise-ready—so teams can go from single-node experiments to fully orchestrated clusters using Kubernetes, Slurm, and familiar open tools. The highlight: disaggregated and distributed inference. By splitting prefill from decode and adopting expert parallelism, organizations are slashing cost per token by 10–30x, depending on model and topology. The conversation ranges from startup-friendly workflows to hyperscaler deployments, with practical insight into VLLM, SGLang, and why open source now outpaces closed stacks. We also look ahead at where inference runs: the edge is rising. With performance per watt doubling on a steady cadence, AI PCs, laptops, and phones will take on more of the work, enabling privacy, responsiveness, and lower costs. Ramin shares a sober view on quantum computing timelines and a bullish take on the broader compute shift—moving once-sequential problems into massively parallel deep learning that changes what’s even possible. If you care about real performance, total cost of ownership, and developer velocity, this conversation brings a grounded blueprint: open ecosystems, smarter packaging, and inference architectures built for high utilization. Subscribe, share with a colleague who cares about LLM throughput and cost, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    30 min

  8. DEC 12

    Rethinking Tech Hiring With AI

    Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com A billion-dollar talent marketplace doesn’t happen by accident—it happens when access, scale, and experience come together. We sit down with  Michael Morris the head of Torc at Randstad Digital to unpack how a once-independent platform now matches millions of professionals with work, why the talent market feels like a “teenage” phase, and how AI is reshaping recruiting without removing humans from the loop. The conversation gets practical fast. Automation now handles the busywork—sourcing, screening, scheduling—so recruiters and hiring managers can focus on what actually drives outcomes: culture fit at the team level, long-term growth, and a great candidate experience. We challenge sacred cows like resumes and rigid job descriptions, and explore how a next-generation marketplace will let customers express needs via prompts, voice, and examples. The result is faster, clearer matching that opens doors for more diverse, AI-enabled talent, from Python developers to marketers fluent in prompt-driven workflows. We also dig into the skills that matter most as enterprises chase AI readiness. Coding is no longer the bottleneck; user experience and domain fluency separate good from great. That’s why soft skills and communication sit alongside credentials from Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI, and why personalized learning beats one-track training. Whether you’re building a data team in healthcare, prototyping fintech apps, or scaling a platform, the path forward is the same: invest in people, modernize how you describe work, and use AI to upgrade—not replace—the human touch. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more builders, leaders, and learners find the ideas—and opportunities—that move their careers forward. Support the show More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel

    21 min
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About

Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!

Information

  • Creator
    Evan Kirstel
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    580
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 TechInfluencer
  • Show Website
    What's Up with Tech?