The AI Productivity Gap with Keith Townsend
Screaming in the Cloud
Seeking advice versus validation
Corey and Keith discuss how people use AI or consultations for confirmation instead of critical feedback.
Corey Quinn reconnects with Keith Townsend, founder of The CTO Advisor, for a candid conversation about the massive gap between AI hype and enterprise reality. Keith shares why a biopharma company gave Microsoft Copilot a hard no, and why AI has genuinely 10x’d his personal productivity while Fortune 500 companies treat it like radioactive material. From building apps with Cursor to watching enterprises freeze in fear of being the next AI disaster in the news, Keith and Corey dig into why the tools transforming solo founders and small teams are dead on arrival in the enterprise, and what it'll actually take to bridge that gap.
About Keith Townsend
Keith Townsend is an enterprise technologist and founder of The Advisor Bench LLC, where he helps major IT vendors refine their go-to-market strategies through practitioner-driven insights from CIOs, CTOs, and enterprise architects. Known as “The CTO Advisor,” Keith blends deep expertise in IT infrastructure, AI, and cloud with a talent for translating complex technology into clear business strategy.
With more than 20 years of experience, including roles as a systems engineer, enterprise architect, and PwC consultant, Keith has advised clients such as HPE, Google Cloud, Adobe, Intel, and AWS. His content series, 100 Days of AI and CloudEveryday.dev, provide practical, plainspoken guidance for IT leaders. A frequent speaker at VMware Explore, Interop, and Tech Field Day, Keith is a trusted voice on cloud and infrastructure transformation.
Show Highlights
(01:25) Life After the Futurum Group Acquisition
(03:56) Building Apps You're Not Qualified to Build with Cursor
(05:45)Creating an AI-Powered RSS Reader
(09:01) Why AI is Great at Language But Not Intelligence
(11:39) Are You Looking for Advice or Just Validation?
(13:49) Why Startups Can Risk AI Disasters and AWS Can't
(17:28) You Can't Outsource Responsibility
(19:52) Business Users Are Scared of AI Too
(23:00) LinkedIn's AI Writing Tool Misses the Point
(26:42) Private AI is Starting to Look Appealing
(29:00) Never Going Back to Pre-AI Development
(34:27) AI for Jobs You'd Never Hire Someone to Do
(39:09) Where to Find Keith and Closing Thoughts
Links
The CTO Advisor: https://thectoadvisor.com
Sponsor:
https://www.sumologic.com/solutions/dojo-ai
https://wiz.io/crying-out-cloud
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