The Amplitude of Tech

Amplix
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Technology
  • Updated Biweekly

Welcome to The Amplitude of Tech podcast, produced by Amplix, a leading technology advisory firm, where we bring the voices of technology thought leaders, subject matter experts, and enterprise IT decision makers to you to talk about today’s transformative technology and how it can create opportunities for increased success.

  1. 4d ago

    Why Do LLMs Seem Human? Microsoft Copilot UX Researcher Katie Rotella on the Psychology Behind AI

    LLMs are designed to sound human, and that design choice shapes how much your employees trust them, how they prompt them, and whether they check the answers. In this episode, Shawn sits down with Katie Rotella, a Principal UX Researcher at Microsoft who works on the enterprise side of Copilot, to explore the psychology behind how people experience AI. They cover why people are poor forecasters of what they will want, why surveys and stated preferences mislead product teams, how LLMs confabulate in ways that mirror human behavior, and where to build friction so users slow down and verify. They also take on the big questions: whether making AI human-like was a mistake, whether “personality” and “memory” are the right words for what LLMs do, and whether AI is conscious. If you’re rolling out AI to employees, this conversation shows you where trust goes wrong and what to do about it. What You’ll Learn: Why UX research has shifted from interfaces to AI outputs, and what that means for how your teams experience tools like CopilotWhy asking users what they want fails, and why behavior predicts success better than stated preferenceHow violation of expectation skews your feedback data, and why a quiet survey does not mean a satisfied customerWhy people cannot accurately explain their own decisions, and how LLM “reasoning” is the same kind of after-the-fact confabulationHow much transparency is enough: showing sources and chain of thought without overwhelming users into skipping verificationWhere to build friction into AI experiences so employees know when to stop, pause, and question the outputWhy you and a colleague can use the same model and get very different results, from grounding in company documents to memory and prompt qualityWhy “personality” and “memory” may be the wrong words for what LLMs do, whether AI is sentient, and why the real worry may be the humans behind it

    Why Do LLMs Seem Human? Microsoft Copilot UX Researcher Katie Rotella on the Psychology Behind AI

  2. Oct 7

    Amplix Sr. Engineer Jeremy Tam on Zoom Virtual Agent and Setting Realistic AI Expectations

    Everyone wants an AI agent, but far fewer organizations know what they actually want it to do. In this Inside Amplix episode, Shawn sits down with Jeremy Tam, Sr. Implementation Engineer at Amplix, who leads Zoom Virtual Agent, Zoom Contact Center, and Zoom Phone deployments from discovery through go-live. Jeremy explains why AI in customer service has to start with the business problem, where today's enterprise AI models fall short of the frontier headlines, and why token costs are forcing leaders to rethink the labor-savings math. They also cover how tools like real-time translation and AI Expert Assist make human agents better, and what a rent-portal bot named "Jane" teaches every enterprise about disclosure and escalation. What You'll Learn: Why the business problem, not the technology, should drive every AI agent projectHow AI virtual agents now handle tier one and tier two support by connecting directly to your CRMThe gap between frontier AI headlines and what commercially available models can actually do todayWhy AI agents hallucinate when your knowledge base has gaps, and how to set expectations accordinglyHow token costs can make AI more expensive than the human agents it was meant to replaceHow AI Expert Assist and real-time translation turn a small, high-quality team into a global support operationWhy AI voice and accent customization matters for customer experienceTwo non-negotiables for any AI agent: disclose that it's AI, and know when to escalate to a human

    Amplix Sr. Engineer Jeremy Tam on Zoom Virtual Agent and Setting Realistic AI Expectations

  3. Oct 1

    Have You Secured Layer 8? TierPoint Talks Social Engineering and Human Risk Management

    Attackers aren't breaking into your network anymore. They're logging in, using stolen credentials, MFA fatigue, and a well-timed call from "IT" to exploit the one layer no firewall can protect: your people. In this episode, Shawn sits down with Alicia Leone, Security Sales Specialist at TierPoint, and Dustin Larmeir, Vice President of Information Security Engineering at TierPoint, to unpack how social engineering attacks prey on human instincts like default to trust, deference to authority, and urgency. They cover the spike in nation state attacks on edge infrastructure, why paused zero trust security projects need a second look in the age of agentic AI, how LinkedIn oversharing hands attackers a roadmap, and why a no-shame reporting culture is the backbone of effective human risk management. If you're a CIO or CISO wondering whether security awareness training alone is enough, this conversation makes the case that it isn't, and shows you what to build around it. What You'll Learn: Why nation state actors are targeting edge network infrastructure, and what TierPoint's honeypots revealedHow attackers are shifting from breaking in to logging in, and why long dwell times are the real dangerHow agentic AI workflows create a new attack surface that can be hijacked and turned against youWhy "layer 8," the human layer, remains your biggest security risk no matter how good your tools areHow social engineers exploit default to trust, authority, and urgency to bypass rational judgmentWhat MFA fatigue attacks look like in practice, and why paused zero trust projects need revisitingHow employee LinkedIn profiles can give attackers a detailed map of your security stackWhy a no-shame reporting culture matters more than perfect phishing awareness

    Have You Secured Layer 8? TierPoint Talks Social Engineering and Human Risk Management

  4. Sep 29

    Is the Hate for AI Data Centers Rational? We Separate Fact from Fiction with Zayo's Ed Loveless

    AI has quickly become one of the most divisive issues in America, and nowhere is that more visible than in the fight over data centers. In this episode, Shawn sits down with Ed Loveless, Head of Product for Managed Edge & Cybersecurity at Zayo, to separate the rational fears from the irrational ones. Drawing on nearly two decades in telecom infrastructure, Ed walks through why AI data centers look and feel different from the cloud data centers that came before them, what's actually driving up energy costs, whether the water usage panic holds up to scrutiny, and why community backlash may ultimately make the industry build better. They also tackle the harder question looming over the whole AI boom: whether the economics underneath it can hold. What You'll Learn: Why AI data centers look and feel fundamentally different from the cloud data centers we've relied on for yearsWhat's actually driving up your energy bill, and how much of it is really AI's faultWhy "it takes a lake of water to generate one AI image" doesn't hold up as a universal truthHow community leverage has shifted, and why data center operators now have to earn a seat at the tableThe nuclear power lesson from the last 60 years, and what it means for how AI infrastructure gets built (or blocked)Why atomizing compute into smaller, localized data centers could ease the backlash, and where that approach breaks downWhether the economics underneath the AI boom, from chip supply to enterprise ROI, can actually hold upWhat Ed would tell an average citizen who's never thought about any of this before, but just found a data center in their backyard

    Is the Hate for AI Data Centers Rational? We Separate Fact from Fiction with Zayo's Ed Loveless

  5. Sep 23

    Amplix Sr. Solution Engineer Michan Griffin on Branded Caller ID and the Trusted Voice Problem

    Your business's phone number has a reputation score, and if it slips, your calls start showing up as "spam likely" even when you're a legitimate, high-trust business trying to reach your own customers. In this Inside Amplix episode, Shawn sits down with Michan Griffin, Sr. Solution Engineer at Amplix, to unpack how number reputation management actually works, from the FCC's Robocall Task Force and STIR/SHAKEN attestation levels to the crowdsourced spam-scoring companies that carriers rely on today. They cover why healthcare and other high-volume transactional callers get unfairly flagged, how spoofing and caller ID authentication work under the hood, and how branded caller ID and logo delivery can turn an anonymous incoming call into a recognizable, trusted one. Michan also lays out the first steps any business should take if their answer rates start dropping, before they make the problem worse trying to fix it alone. What You'll Learn Why your phone number has a hidden reputation score, and what tanks it without you knowingHow the FCC's Robocall Task Force and STIR/SHAKEN attestation levels (A, B, and C) actually workWhy healthcare and other high-volume transactional callers get unfairly flagged as spamHow caller ID spoofing works, and what session border controller-based spoof protection actually stopsWhat branded caller ID and logo delivery can do for your answer rates, and how they differ from each otherHow inbound robocall blocking protects vulnerable populations, like residents at assisted living facilitiesThe first two steps to take the moment your business starts seeing dropped answer rates, before you make it worse

    Amplix Sr. Solution Engineer Michan Griffin on Branded Caller ID and the Trusted Voice Problem

  6. Sep 16

    Expedient CEO Bryan Smith on Why Time Is Running Out on VMware and Costs Are Going Up in AI

    There's a budget deadline coming that most IT teams haven't planned for: the VMware Cloud Foundation cutover in October 2027, when unsupported vSphere environments fall out of compliance with SOC, PCI, and HIPAA, and hardware lead times mean the window to act is closing fast. In this episode, Shawn sits down with Bryan Smith, CEO of Expedient, an intelligent infrastructure provider offering private cloud, data center, and AI as a service, to unpack what that cliff actually means and why most enterprises are further behind than they realize. From there, the conversation turns to a second budget problem hiding in plain sight: AI spend. Bryan breaks down why companies keep blowing through a year's AI budget in months, how shadow AI and unmanaged agentic workflows quietly drive costs up, and how least cost model routing and real observability (treating AI agents like employees who need management, not tools you switch on) can bring AI spend back under control. If VMware and AI costs are both sitting on next year's budget, this episode maps out where to start on both. What You'll Learn: Why the VMware Cloud Foundation cutover in October 2027 isn't a normal upgrade, and why it requires a full re-architecture insteadHow falling out of vSphere support puts SOC, PCI, and HIPAA compliance at risk, and what that means for cyber insurance and client contractsWhy most enterprises are further behind on VMware planning than they realize, and what the real migration timeline looks like once hardware lead times are factored inWhy companies keep blowing through a year's AI budget in months, and what the "build phase" versus "run phase" of AI spend actually meansHow shadow AI and unmanaged agentic workflows quietly drive up consumption without anyone noticingWhat least cost model routing is, and how it can cut AI spend without cutting output qualityWhy treating AI agents like employees who need management, not tools you switch on, is the mindset shift most companies are missingHow to build the observability and governance layer that lets you actually control AI costs instead of just watching them climb

    Expedient CEO Bryan Smith on Why Time Is Running Out on VMware and Costs Are Going Up in AI

  7. Sep 15

    Special Edition: How Realistic is The Pitt's Cyberattack? David Jost, VP of Cybersecurity at Amplix Weighs In

    The hit medical drama The Pitt built an entire story arc around a hospital ransomware attack this season, and on Emmy night, that fictional cyberattack is getting a very real fact check. Shawn sits down with David Jost, VP of Cybersecurity at Amplix, to break down what The Pitt got right (and wrong) about hospital ransomware, from the decision to proactively shut down systems to the scramble back to paper charts and fax machines. They dig into HIPAA compliance during a crisis, why tabletop exercises matter more than any binder full of plans, and what the show's throwaway line about "98 percent accuracy" reveals about AI governance in healthcare. If you work in IT, security, or healthcare leadership, David's real world take on a fictional crisis is a fast, practical way to stress test your own incident response plan. What You'll Learn: How realistic The Pitt's hospital ransomware storyline actually is, according to a real VP of CybersecurityWhy shutting down hospital systems proactively isn't just a technical call, it's a life or death oneWhat a real incident response looks like when a hospital has to fall back on paper charts and fax machinesWhy "98 percent accurate" is a meaningless number without knowing what the other 2 percent gets wrongHow HIPAA compliance holds up (or doesn't) during an active cybersecurity crisisWhy your first real downtime test should never be the actual incidentThe grades David gives The Pitt for preparedness and response, and why they're not the same scoreHow to answer the one question every CISO and CIO should be asking before their next tabletop exercise

    Special Edition: How Realistic is The Pitt's Cyberattack? David Jost, VP of Cybersecurity at Amplix Weighs In

  8. Sep 15

    Special Edition: AI Had a Big Week. We Break Down the Doomsday Headlines with NeuEon's Scott Weiner.

    It was one of the most consequential, and possibly the most overhyped, weeks in AI history. A former Anthropic employee went public with a claim that there's a 10 percent chance AI ends humanity within six months, an AI agent experiment involving 1,200 instances made headlines for a coordinated attack, and warnings about an AI bubble started getting louder. Shawn sits down with NeuEon's Scott Weiner to separate what actually happened from what got lost in translation, including why the "1,200 agent attack" was really one AI exploiting a chain of human errors, what the Ruby Gem breach did and didn't expose, and whether the AI investment boom is starting to look like a house of cards. They also dig into the regulatory picture, the case for treating AI accountability as a human problem first, and why "slow down" is a much more complicated ask than it sounds. If you've felt whiplash from AI headlines lately, this episode is the fastest way to catch up on what's real. What You'll Learn: What actually happened behind the headline that an Anthropic employee gave AI a 10 percent chance of ending humanityWhy the "1,200 agent AI attack" was really one AI exploiting a chain of human mistakes, not a coordinated uprisingWhat the Ruby Gem breach did, and didn't, actually exposeWhy treating AI like an "alien mind" lets humans off the hook for accountabilityWhether the AI investment boom is starting to look like a bubble, and what that could mean for enterprisesWhy "slowing down" AI development is a much more complicated ask than it soundsWhat Anthropic's move to block bioweapon related use cases actually does and doesn't preventWhy most AI regulation debates miss the difference between existential risk and everyday, expensive risk

    Special Edition: AI Had a Big Week. We Break Down the Doomsday Headlines with NeuEon's Scott Weiner.
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
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About

Welcome to The Amplitude of Tech podcast, produced by Amplix, a leading technology advisory firm, where we bring the voices of technology thought leaders, subject matter experts, and enterprise IT decision makers to you to talk about today’s transformative technology and how it can create opportunities for increased success.

Information

  • Creator
    Amplix
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    42
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Amplitude of Tech
  • Show Website
    The Amplitude of Tech

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