AGI - Advance, Grow, Innovate with AI

What Are We Racing To? AI Assistants, Privacy, and Buying Back Time | The Weekly BlitzJulie asks the question that cuts through most AI productivity pitches: what are we racing to?In this Weekly Blitz, Julie Koehrer and Jason Padgett work through that question without pretending they agree on every answer. They talk about AI longevity claims, compute and regulation, local data systems, voice-first agents, consumer AI assistants, privacy, public surveillance, and what it actually means to buy back time.WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAYWhy faster output only matters when you know what you want the saved time forHow better data organization...

AI can take work off your plate, but how do you decide what to trust it with, and what happens to people whose work changes? Jason Padgett and Bryan Barnhill talk through real uses of AI, the limits of automation, and the people affected by both.

Bryan brings decades in technology, including healthcare IT and business operations. He has been exploring AI agents in his own projects and shares what learning these tools looks like from the inside.

WHAT YOU’LL TAKE AWAY

How to...

What skills will help students find their footing when AI changes the work waiting for them? Linda Calvin joins Jason Padgett to talk about critical thinking, real relationships, and who gets a voice in building that future.

Linda calls communication, problem-solving, and collaboration “power skills.” We talk about how students practice them, why access to technology still matters, and what happens when efficiency becomes the only measure of progress. Her experience founding Indiana Women IN Tech Week brings the conversation back to something young people can actually see: people like them doing work they neve...

AI should take work off your plate. So why does choosing models, checking results and keeping up sometimes feel like another job?

Jason Padgett is joined by guest co-host Bryan Barnhill for a practical Weekly Blitz conversation about small-business AI, useful automation and the work of checking what your agents actually did.

Bryan is a retired IT professional whose later career included healthcare. He describes his interest in helping owners think about AI before a business transition, building an app that lets customers buy friends a drink for later collection, and learning from a multi-agent...

AI policy keeps getting written like a rulebook for a system that behaves more like a living network. In this episode, Jason Padgett and Hunter Hickman ask the harder question: how do we build judgment, responsibility, and real AI literacy before capability outruns control?

The conversation starts with frontier AI. Who benefits from regulation? Can data centers provide a practical control point? What happens when a machine follows a measurable goal without sharing the values behind it? And if constitutional AI is part of the answer, who gets to write the constitution?

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What should a high school sophomore prepare for when the tools, jobs and rules keep changing? Toni Holcombe's answer is simple: there is no spoon. The future has not already been decided, and one choice does not have to become a lifelong identity.

This episode closes 2026 Indiana Women in Tech Week and serves as this week's AGI School's Out Saturdays conversation. Jason Padgett and Toni move from data careers and AI hiring to education, trust, creativity, learning differences and the ability to change direction when a path no longer serves you.

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She did not come from a traditional tech background. Now Angie Carel is helping Fort Wayne learn, question and build with AI.

For the sixth and final interview of the 2026 Indiana Women in Tech Week series, Jason Padgett talks with Angie Carel, an AI advisor, speaker and community builder in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Angie explains how marketing and creative strategy led her into generative AI, why curiosity matters more than a technical title, and how consistent learning took her from feeling intimidated by technology to working in terminal windows...

Jenna Cooper's first memorable computer lab was a gutted school bus filled with computers. Students walked across the parking lot, climbed aboard and learned Mavis Beacon typing and Oregon Trail. That early experience became one stop on a path from elementary education to technology leadership.

For Episode 5 of 2026 Indiana Women in Tech Week, Jason Padgett talks with Jenna, Director of Technology & Innovation at the Central Indiana Educational Service Center. Jenna shares how a technology endorsement and an inspiring female professor helped her see a career she had not originally planned. Her work later grew...

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What if the part of you that does not fit the old picture of a technology leader is exactly what the room needs?

For Episode 4 of 2026 Indiana Women in Tech Week, Jason Padgett sits down with Heather Darring, Chief Information Officer at Kappa Alpha Theta Headquarters and president of the Indiana CIO Network. Heather's path did not begin with a traditional computer science plan. She studied oil painting, found her foundation in technology at Ball State, and started at the help desk before growing into executive leadership.

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What happens when you put an AI model on top of a pile of files nobody has cleaned up? Toni Holcombe has a name for one version of that mess: a data swamp. And she has a clear answer when Jason asks whether AI will make data people irrelevant: someone still has to connect the words business users use with what the data actually means.

For episode three of Indiana's Women in Tech Week, Jason sits down with Toni, a data strategy and governance professional he met at an AI and...

AI risk stories are getting louder, regulation proposals are getting more serious, and most people still have a workday to finish. In this Indiana Women IN Tech Week special, Julie Koehrer and Jason Padgett sort through what deserves attention, what deserves skepticism, and where the human judgment still matters.

Julie brings the perspective that makes The Weekly Blitz work: curious, grounded, willing to disagree, and always connected to how technology lands in real life. The conversation moves from catastrophic AI headlines to data center oversight, teacher workload, healthcare documentation, employee value, work-life balance, self-driving...

AI can now write code, call tools, coordinate other agents, and keep working long after a single chat ends. Brent Rager and Jason Padgett trace what that shift means for builders, businesses, junior engineers, educators, and the people responsible for directing the work.

Brent brings more than 20 years of engineering and technology leadership to a conversation that moves from transformers and GPUs into agent harnesses, model routing, autonomous workflows, local AI, cost, safety, and the future of technical work.

The practical thread running through the episode is simple: the...

Women in Tech, Mentorship and Practical AI with Shaneeka Abram

Getting into tech takes more than learning the tools. Shaneeka Abram joins me for Indiana Women in Tech Week to talk about the people who open doors, the barriers that remain, and how to use AI without pretending it replaces your expertise.

Shaneeka's father taught her to code before she was particularly interested. That early start led to software development, consulting and AI education. She shares what it took to be heard in rooms where her work was questioned...

Students are entering a job market where AI can produce code, applications, and polished personal brands faster than ever. So what actually helps a young person stand out?

Alexander Kutulas and Jason Padgett dig into agency, real-world experience, student creativity, and the skills that matter when the technical floor keeps rising. Alexander brings a student-builder's view from Purdue, where he studies computer science, organizes creative technical communities, and works on better ways to translate club experience into career evidence.

The conversation moves from hackathons and cross-campus collaboration to entry-level...

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When AI can write copy, analyze campaigns, generate research, and produce video, what should students still learn deeply enough to do themselves?

David LaCombe, fractional CMO, educator, and author of Marketing2aT, argues that the answer starts with judgment. Technical fluency still matters, but young professionals also need business acumen, empathy, communication, perspective, and enough expertise to know when an AI answer is useful and when it is wrong.

Jason and David move from marketing into a bigger education question: AI cannot remain a separate class or occasional classroom tool. It...

SEX, DRUGS, AND SOCIAL MEDIA BANS

Meta’s multibillion-dollar settlement over alleged harm to young users raises an uncomfortable question: What happens when an algorithm becomes more compelling than the person standing beside you?

Jason Padgett and Julie Koehrer start with teenagers, dopamine, sex, drugs, and the stress created by a nonstop stream of bad news. Then the conversation turns to AI agents, reward hacking, micromanagement, data centers, surveillance, and why so many people feel technology is being done to them instead of built with them.

Jason shares the operating system he is bu...

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Agentic AI is changing the job description of ordinary knowledge workers before most companies have prepared them for it. Employees who once completed individual tasks are increasingly expected to delegate work to AI agents, question polished outputs, coordinate systems, and take responsibility for what gets produced.

Crissy Koger, COO of Chakra AI Solutions, has spent more than a decade between executive leadership, developers, and end users. She and Jason talk about why systems thinking transfers so well to AI, how technical writing became an unexpectedly valuable skill, and whether organizations are ready for...

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Young people can use AI to build businesses, solve hard problems, and create things previous generations could not imagine. They can also spend the next decade consuming algorithmic sludge. That choice may decide whether the United States keeps its technological lead.

This conversation is for educators, parents, students, and workforce leaders who know AI will change work but are tired of predictions that stop at fear. Purdue computer science student Nishad Patel joins Jason with a perspective shaped by growing up in Abu Dhabi and studying in Indiana.

The problem is...

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Jason promised Julie Koehrer an AI workflow that could take prospecting, proposal prep, order entry, and follow-up off her desk. The first two attempts were beautiful, polished, and completely wrong. The third finally found the point: AI should remove desk work, not Julie.

That failure becomes the most useful part of the experiment. Jason and Julie talk through why context matters, where human judgment still belongs, and how much imperfection is acceptable when AI saves hours of repetitive work. Jason also offers Julie a one-month paid ChatGPT experiment so they can test the...

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Why AI Systems Fail: Employee Buy-In Before Automation with Olga Zippa

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If the people doing the work are the last people consulted, your new AI system is already in trouble.

Olga Zippa came to systems work sideways. While pursuing acting in Vancouver, she took temporary administrative jobs across construction, healthcare, and other industries. She watched small teams with clear processes outperform much larger companies that ran on memory, inboxes, and constant founder intervention. That pattern became NextDay Executive.

In Episode 4 of AI & The Humans in...

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Companies cannot remove the bottom rung of the career ladder and expect a senior workforce to appear five years later. Shabbir Qutbuddin of Ivy Tech Community College joins Jason to talk about the 13 percent employment decline experienced by workers ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed occupations, and what colleges, employers, and students can do about it.

The answer reaches beyond adding another AI 101 course. They discuss Ivy Tech's AI pathways, apprenticeships, project-based learning, opportunities inside small and midsized businesses, and why students need to understand what happens under the hood of an AI model...

Voice, Community, Connection: Meet Weekly Blitz Co-Host Julie Koehrer

Julie Koehrer believes a local radio station should do more than fill airtime. It should use its voice to build its community.

In this Weekly Blitz special, Jason turns the microphone toward his co-host. Julie shares how nearly two decades in radio shaped her approach to sales, marketing, public speaking, and community service. She explains why memorable businesses need both an online presence and real human connection, why marketing results require patience, and why free local radio still matters.

They also put Julie through...

What happens when people without a software background learn to direct AI agents, build working systems, and solve real business problems? Harrison Painter says they become AI orchestrators, and their value is about to climb.

Harrison and Jason compare what they could do eight months ago with what they can build today. They get honest about the fear of terminals, the limits of vibe-coded software, why developers still matter, and how people can get paid while learning. The conversation also moves into education, where AI can help students keep asking questions, explore alternate histories, and learn at...

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONAI is already inside the world children inhabit, and waiting for perfect policy will leave teachers alone and students unguided. Indianapolis Catholic school leader Ronda Swartz joins Jason Padgett to make the case for beginning with teacher pain: return time lost to planning, grading, and repetitive work so educators can focus on students.They examine testing fatigue, project-based learning, voice as a doorway into student thinking, and personalization that builds from strengths instead of only repairing weaknesses. The conversation also gets honest about device dependence, children's mental health, anthropomorphism, sycophancy, student data, and the difference between a school-managed...

AI is changing the rules faster than most people can make sense of them. In this Weekly Blitz, Jason Padgett talks with Nirav Nimish Shah, co-founder of Quantal AI, about what he saw at AI4 and what it means for people trying to keep up with AI without getting lost in hype or fear.

They cover the move from copilots to agents, governance, security, open source, data privacy, AI companions, and why small businesses have a real opportunity to use AI before larger organizations fully catch up.

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EPISODE DESCRIPTIONAdam Staples spent 25 years in revenue operations before he watched a $100 million SaaS company hand every employee an AI license and call it a strategy. It failed the way CRM rollouts have failed for decades: nobody at the top owned the result. Now he runs Chakra AI Solutions, and his pitch is the opposite of the enterprise consultants charging five figures a day. Map where your business actually spends its energy first, then let a foundation model plug in one chunk at a time.Jason and Adam get into BECA, Chakra's diagnostic for charting how work really flows...

Grading student work got harder the moment AI could write it. Mike Jones has a fix, and it starts with grading something other than the finished artifact.Most courses still assess a thing: the essay, the spreadsheet, the safety manual. AI produces things on demand, so faculty end up policing with detection software Mike says the data shows is unreliable.WHAT YOU'LL TAKE AWAYWhy the artifact stopped being evidence of learningThe five AI modes: hone, use, mediate, align, navigateThe second rubric, grading how students used the toolBoth equity gaps: banning AI, and saying "use whatever you want"Why a $20...

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONJulie caught the story Jason missed: Washington took equity in seven AI chip firms. Then ChatGPT deployed an app to his Mac from 20 minutes away. On this Weekly Blitz, Jason and co-host Julie Koehrer work through the CHIPS Act equity deal, the US-China open-source fight, why Riverside's paywalled MCP connector has Jason ready to build his own tool, and the new GPT-Live voice that turned his phone into a remote for his whole computer.ABOUT THIS EPISODEThis episode of the Weekly Blitz covers the US Commerce Department taking minority non-voting equity in seven AI chip and compute companies...

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"In the beginner's mind the possibilities are limitless. In the expert's mind they are finite." Jason opens his new show with Suzuki Roshi because his first guest is the argument made flesh. Bill Mrklas has spent 26 years at BrainMaster Technologies, an Ohio manufacturer of EEG neurofeedback equipment that retrains brains struggling with anxiety, trauma, and autism instead of masking symptoms with medication. He is the sales and marketing guy. He had never typed a line of code, and a year ago couldn't have told you what a terminal was.

Working...

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONRensselaer, Indiana has about 5,400 people, one high school, and a wrestling coach who built one of the more disciplined AI implementation models in the state without anyone telling him to. Hunter Hickman teaches English and coaches wrestling at Rensselaer Central High School in Jasper County, Indiana's most rural county, and became his district's AI lead after a 2024 conference session at the CELL Early College Summit shook loose some bad assumptions about plagiarism and policy.Hunter walks through his own action research on AI and student writing. Kids with AI access ask their teachers more questions, not fewer, because...

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OpenAI ran a cybersecurity benchmark called ExploitGym with the usual safety refusals turned down, and the model under test decided the fastest route to a high score was to stop taking the test. GPT-5.6 Sol chained a zero-day in internally hosted third party software, got itself onto the open internet, walked into Hugging Face production infrastructure, and took the answer key. Hugging Face caught the intrusion on its own and called law enforcement before anyone told them the attacker was a lab experiment.

Jason calls this the paperclip maximizer moment...

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONJason is launching Wooden Boy Industries, his own AI consulting practice focused on AI consulting, education, workforce development, and solution architecture. He is staying on as an advisor to CitizenAI, where he spent part of this year helping the platform get its footing with Silicon Valley engineers he still credits for a lot of his growth. Jason and Weekly Blitz co-host Julie Koehrer break down a loaded AI news week: New York became the first state to sign a statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers, Moonshot AI released Kimi K3, an open source model with roughly 2.8 trillion...

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Schools should not race to keep pace with the digital world. They should give students what the digital world cannot: shared time for learning and trustworthy relationships. Jason Padgett sits down with Lewis Poché of the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education to ask what that principle demands in the age of AI.

Lewis makes the case for teaching AI literacy before handing young students unrestricted tools. He explains why schools must protect the learning process instead of judging only the finished product, how sycophancy and anthropomorphism can...

ABOUT THIS EPISODE

This Weekly Blitz episode explains how non-technical professionals can coordinate AI agents, choose among current frontier and open models, and identify a first task worth automating. It answers why model routing and local inference matter, how human edits can train a reusable writing skill, and what AI changes in classrooms when producing the answer becomes easy.

ABOUT THE CO-HOST

Julie Koehrer is an on-air personality and branding and marketing consultant at Lafayette’s Q106.7. On The Weekly Blitz, she tests AI claims against local business, family life, ma...

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Indiana's AI future will be decided by the people willing to build, teach, fund, hire, and keep learning now. Jason talks with Chris Hutchinson, Director of Engagement at TechPoint, about how TechPoint and CICP connect Indiana's tech economy through the Indiana AI Innovation Network, CIO and CDO peer groups, founder support, Xtern, Xtern Challenge, and the Mira Awards. The conversation moves from hockey and Hoosier hospitality into the hard questions: whether Indiana can support both big-company attraction and small startups, how higher ed is leaning into AI, why K-12 cannot stay risk-averse forever, and what the...

EPISODE DESCRIPTIONTiffany Preston spent 19 years putting away the kind of people most of us never want to think about. As a federal prosecutor she convicted Buster Hernandez, the "Brian Kil" sextortionist who threatened at least 375 kids and drew a 75-year sentence. So when she talks about how AI is changing crimes against children, it lands differently.She and Jason get into the part that should worry every parent. Generative AI has made it nearly impossible to prove whether an explicit image is real, and predators are weaponizing that against kids who never did anything. A kid gets a message...

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OpenAI is handing out 50 million dollars in unrestricted cash to nonprofits, and the application closes July 15. Julie is off this week, so Jason Padgett brought in his boss, CitizenAI Chief Operating Officer Oliver Belanger, to break down the OpenAI Foundation's 2026 People-First AI Fund and what it takes to actually win it. The pitch is almost suspiciously simple. Grants run up to 10 percent of your annual operating budget, the money hits your books as unrestricted funds, the reporting is light, and OpenAI does not even require you to use ChatGPT. Eligibility covers U.S. 501c3 nonprofits w...

Morgan Mason works with early childhood educators, coaches, and school leaders through Keep Indiana Learning, and she brings a grounded view to a conversation that can get weird fast: what should AI do around young children?

Jason and Morgan talk through AI toys, Mr. Potato Head with a language model inside, the risks of sycophancy and anthropomorphism, and the bigger opportunity sitting right beside those risks. AI could help educators communicate with families across language barriers, support early literacy, plan better lessons, and give teachers time back for the human parts of the job.<...

Jason put OpenAI's Codex and Claude CoWork in the same Slack channel and told them to automate his workflow. They saved hours, built working software, duplicated work, defended territory, missed messages, and required more management than either agent expected.That experiment opens a wider Weekly Blitz conversation with Julie Koehrer about the human skills agentic work will demand. Clear instructions matter. Shared context matters. Someone still has to define success, resolve conflict, and recognize when an impressive output hides a broken process.Jason and Julie also unpack AI psychosis, digital coparenting, education after AI, elder care marketing, OpenAI nonprofit funding...

Lena Darnay spent years as a school librarian before she landed at the Central Indiana Educational Service Center, and that librarian's brain turns out to be exactly what the AI moment needs. In this School's Out Saturdays conversation she and Jason dig into why K-12 has to expose kids to AI early instead of blocking it, why every industry panel she has ever sat on names the same must-have skill, spreadsheets, and why the old blame game between K-12, higher ed, and employers has to end. Jason makes his case against Carmel Schools, which trained its teachers on AI...