We’re officially one week out from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit! On today’s episode, co-hosts James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley join host Eric Newcomer to preview what’s ahead — from standout speakers to can’t-miss panels and the big ideas that will shape the conversations next week.
To kick things off, Eric poses a timely question: What themes are starting to take shape across the participants and topics at this year’s summit? What’s really driving the energy in AI right now?
Here are a few of the themes that emerged from the discussion:
- Designers are moving closer to engineering, not just prototyping but launching internal tools and shaping product development in deeper ways.
- The war for context is just beginning — expect fierce competition over who owns the layers that make AI actually useful.
- Vibe coding: is it a real paradigm shift, or just a fun phase? And how big could it get?
- Is there a Microsoft Office Suite for the AI era?
- Distribution vs. product: what do the strategies of Uber and Waymo reveal about the future of AI deployment? Who wins self-driving cars?
- Text box solution vs. product: should everyone be copying ChatGPT, or is that a mistake?
- The growing appetite for data is fueling a new surveillance state.
- And finally, Eric's "Sprinting Toward the End of History" — companies face competition from every direction, but is there an end point?
It’s all building toward what promises to be a packed, thought-provoking week in Cerebral Valley. Let’s dive in!
Timestamps:
1:40: Eric poses the question
1:55: Evolution of the role of the designer
8:00: Text box vs product
14:15: Unbundling ChatGPT
19:19: Is there a Microsoft Office Suite for the AI era?
22:10: Who owns the context
26:02: Surveillance state
36:57: Distribution vs product
42:00: Sprinting until the end of history
