Humans In The Loop

Kasey Roh & Galina Fendikevich
  • 5.0 (3)
  • TECHNOLOGY

For enterprise leaders deploying AI that actually works without losing the humans who make it work. Humans In The Loop is a bi-weekly show hosted by Kasey Roh and Galina Fendikevich. Two operators navigating the two extremes of the AI era: Silicon Valley's AGI frenzy on one side, the boardrooms still asking "but does it work on our documents?" on the other. Every episode: one real problem, one working framework, and zero vendor fluff. 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo - Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937 💼 Connect with Us: - Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/ - Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/

Episodes

  1. 5D AGO

    Humans In The Loop Ep 7. Why Anthropic and OpenAI Are Copying Palantir's FDE Playbook

    Anthropic just raised $1.5B with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and Goldman Sachs. OpenAI raised $4B with TPG, Bain, and Advent the same day. Both labs are building delivery organizations explicitly modeled on Palantir's forward-deployed engineer playbook. In this episode of Humans In The Loop, Kasey Roh and Galina Fendikevich unpack the following question: are FDEs the right model for enterprise AI adoption? 00:00 Trivia: Anthropic vs OpenAI on the secondary market04:00 The news: $5.5B raised to fund delivery organizations06:30 Why Wall Street is funding deployment, not just models08:30 "Having the model alone doesn't change your workflows" — Goldman's quiet admission12:00 Why enterprise environments are a rat's nest (and why APIs alone don't ship)15:00 95% of enterprise AI pilots fail. MIT NANDA on the gap between API and production.17:30 What Palantir's 20-year playbook actually proves19:00 The 6,000-company ceiling: why this only works at the top22:30 FDE economics: $350K to $500K+ salaries and what they mean for customers24:00 The permanent retainer: why FDE deployments don't end26:30 Lock-in dressed as transformation28:30 The contrarian take: this isn't bullish, it's the opposite30:00 The mid-market opportunity nobody is solving yet 🗣️ Follow us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCJbkvAHHTRlo2EXkGyUrA-g/🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #enterpriseai #humansintheloop #humanintheloop #generativeai #aiadoption

    32 min

  2. APR 25

    Humans In The Loop Ep 6. Token Economics in Enterprise AI: Why Your AI Budget is Already Blown

    Token Maxing: The New KPI or the Next Enterprise AI Budget Trap? Token economics is reshaping how enterprises think about AI spending. In this episode of Humans In The Loop, Kasey Roh and Galina Fendikevich unpack Jensen Huang's token maxing framework, Uber's blown 2026 AI budget, Meta's failed leaderboard experiment, and why only 28% of finance leaders can measure AI ROI. 00:00 Token Maxing Intro01:09 Jensen Token Trivia03:22 Budget Reality Check06:24 Token Economics Framework09:57 Tokens Per Employee Debate12:06 Meta Leaderboard Backfire17:11 Uber Budget Blowout21:49 CFO Visibility And ROI Gap27:10 Governance And Spend Consolidation30:24 Open Source Comeback35:44 Platform Over Single Model37:54 Wrap Up And Where To Listen 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #enterpriseai #humansintheloop #humanintheloop #generativeai #aiadoption

    39 min

  3. APR 12

    Humans In The Loop Ep 1. AI Success Stories in the Enterprise: What Actually Works vs. What's PR

    Enterprise AI Reality Check: Only 2 Insurers in Fortune 500 Show Quantified ROI (Plus Maersk, HPE & Tiffany Success Stories) In the first episode of Humans in the Loop, Kasey Roh and Galina Fendikevich introduce the show’s focus on the gap between AI hype and real enterprise adoption, especially in regulated industries like insurance. Kasey shares analysis of Q4 earnings-call CEO remarks across ~60 companies, tracking AI mentions, quantified ROI, and 2026 plans; among Fortune 500 insurance carriers, only Chubb and Travelers cited quantified AI ROI, and Travelers mentioned AI about 45 times. They discuss why insurance may be more conservative and argue for small, tangible AI deployments rather than endless pilots. They highlight success cases: Maersk pivoting from a $100M blockchain effort to AI route optimization saving $375–$500M annually in fuel, HPE building a finance-ops AI agent (“Alfred”) with Deloitte, and Tiffany using genAI to create 700+ monograms for engraving. 00:00 Welcome to the Show00:15 Meet Galina01:04 Why Humans in the Loop02:20 Meet Kasey03:15 Earnings Call AI Study04:38 Insurance ROI Reality Check07:20 AI Mentions and Metrics11:33 2026 Plans and Budgets15:30 Why Insurance Moves Slow16:09 Start Small with AI18:43 Maersk Fuel Savings Win21:48 HPE Alfred Finance Agent24:48 Tiffany Engraving with AI27:10 Wrap Up and Thanks 🎧 Prefer audio? - Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo | - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #HumansInTheLoop #EnterpriseAI #AIGovernance #HumanInTheLoop

    28 min

  4. APR 12

    Humans In The Loop Ep 2. Can AI Rewrite Legacy Work? Rethinking Enterprise Processes in the AI Era

    Can AI Rewrite the Past? Mainframes, COBOL Modernization, and Real-World AI Wins Kasey and Galina discuss insights from the NAMIC mutual insurance conference in Chicago and why AI adoption can feel like an uphill battle outside the tech bubble. We dig into mainframes—over 90% of global credit card transactions and about 68% of IT workloads run on them at roughly 6% of global IT cost—and why hybrid architectures can enable AI without migrating off legacy systems. We unpack Anthropic’s claim that Claude can help modernize COBOL and the market reaction that coincided with a $30B IBM market-cap drop, while emphasizing the real challenges of testing and validation amid an aging COBOL workforce. We also cover Marriott’s mixed results with guest-facing AI versus “invisible AI” in core operations, and Hallmark’s approach of keeping humans in the loop while using AI for supply chain, personalization, and workflow efficiency. 00:00 Welcome Back Intro00:14 Chicago Conference Takeaways01:37 Can AI Rewrite Legacy02:53 Mainframe Trivia Shockers04:57 Why Mainframes Still Win09:27 Hybrid AI On Mainframe12:00 Claude Modernizes COBOL13:32 Talent Gap And Validation17:26 IBM Watson And Urgency19:23 Marriott AI Concierge Fail22:44 Invisible AI Backend ROI25:42 Hallmark Human In Loop31:18 Trust But Verify Wrap Up33:44 Closing And Call To Action 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #enterpriseai #humansintheloop #humanintheloop #aigovernance #generativeai

    34 min

  5. APR 12

    Human In The Loop Ep 4. Tesla's $1B Automation Failure: What Every AI Leader Should Learn From Tesla

    When Elon's $1B automation turned into a tent full of humans Kasey and Galina discuss how businesses often try to force operations to fit AI, instead of mapping workflows in detail so AI can adapt to the business and reveal high-ROI opportunities. Kasey shares her 2018 Tesla experience during Model 3 “Production Hell,” when Elon Musk pushed near-total factory automation to hit 5,000 cars/week but production lagged, costs soared (about $100M/week), and we resorted to manual work and a tent-based assembly line. We explain the turnaround: breaking work into granular steps, using real-time KPI dashboards, keeping humans in the loop, iterating, and automating only where it fit—paralleling today’s AI POCs that fail in production without integration and workflow understanding. 00:00 AI Adoption Reality Check02:37 Meet Kasey and Tesla Roots04:43 Production Hell and Funding Chaos07:27 The Fully Automated Factory Bet13:16 Why Automation Broke Down18:16 The Tent Line Human Pivot22:22 Workflow Mapping Turnaround29:43 Leadership Lessons for GenAI37:55 Avoid FOMO and Cautionary Tales40:32 Final Takeaways and Wrap Up #enterpriseai #humanintheloop #humansintheloop #generativeai #aigovernance #tesla

    43 min

  6. APR 12

    Humans In The Loop Ep 3. AI Replacing Software Engineers: What Happens When You Lay Off 30,000 SWEs

    What Happens When You Lay Off 30,000 SWEs and Let AI Drive? Kasey and Galina unpack the gap between the Silicon Valley AI frenzy and slow enterprise adoption, starting with observations from New York Build Week where construction is only beginning to explore AI. We discuss trivia and stats: Google and Microsoft publicly report over 30% of internal code is written by AI, while Meta predicts 50% within a year. We review layoffs and a Forrester finding that about 55% of leaders who cut jobs due to AI expect to rehire, often at lower pay or offshore, alongside data showing software engineering job postings rising. We contrast PWC’s AI rollout—governed tooling, peer-led “prompting parties,” embedded change agents, and function-specific use cases—with Amazon’s layoffs and mandate to use its internal coding tool, plus reported outages and concerns about AI-generated errors. We close by questioning training pipelines, advocating apprenticeships, and emphasizing human judgment, curiosity, and creativity in an AI-assisted future. 00:00 AI Hype vs Reality00:28 Construction Industry Check-In01:15 Live Trivia Setup02:51 How Much Code Is AI05:38 Layoffs and Rehiring Regrets08:58 Why Engineer Jobs Rise12:03 PWC AI Rollout Playbook14:36 Prompting Parties and Change Agents17:33 Upskilling vs Layoffs Tradeoffs22:56 Amazon Mandates and Outages28:57 Leadership Lessons for Adoption30:05 Apprenticeships and Creativity Future32:26 Curiosity and Closing Thoughts 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #enterpriseai #humansintheloop #humanintheloop #aigovernance #generativeai

    34 min

  7. APR 12

    Humans In The Loop Ep 5. Enterprise AI Vendor Due Diligence: Did You Vet the Model?

    You Vetted the Vendor. Did You Vet the Model? Kasey and Galina discuss a major blind spot in enterprise AI procurement: security questionnaires heavily vet vendors but often fail to ask which foundation model underlies the product. After consolidating five enterprise questionnaires into 130 unique questions, we found they focus on data protection, controls, and governance yet omit direct model provenance. We highlight how startups can host an open-source model in US cloud regions, fine-tune it, and still pass most reviews without disclosing the base model, complicating accountability when failures occur. We also share market signals that many US startups using open-source stacks rely on Chinese-origin models and note growing Chinese model usage. The episode argues model choice affects delegated decision-making and bias, and suggests adding at least one question: name and version of the foundation model. 00:00 AI Between Hype and Reality00:35 Security Questionnaire Pain01:18 Missing Model Vetting03:36 AI Collapses the Stack04:50 Open Source Trivia Shock08:42 Chinese Models Rising Fast13:06 Why Model Origin Matters19:26 Questionnaire Blind Spots21:28 Simulation Passing the Audit24:59 Accountability When AI Fails27:04 Provenance vs Trade Secrets32:09 Bias Example Nuclear Game38:13 Practical Fix One Question41:44 Wrap Up and Call to Action 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo- Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937💼 Connect with Us:- Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/- Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/ #enterpriseai #humansintheloop #humanintheloop #generativeai #aiadoption

    43 min
  • 7 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

For enterprise leaders deploying AI that actually works without losing the humans who make it work. Humans In The Loop is a bi-weekly show hosted by Kasey Roh and Galina Fendikevich. Two operators navigating the two extremes of the AI era: Silicon Valley's AGI frenzy on one side, the boardrooms still asking "but does it work on our documents?" on the other. Every episode: one real problem, one working framework, and zero vendor fluff. 🎧 Also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts: - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5CAwQDcofIzMM9p5GIChOo - Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/humans-in-the-loop/id1892864937 💼 Connect with Us: - Kasey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaseyroh/ - Galina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gfendi/

Information

  • Creator
    Kasey Roh & Galina Fendikevich
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Kasey Roh & Galina Fendikevich
  • Show Website
    Humans In The Loop