Why AI Scaffolding Matters More than Use Cases ft Erika Flowers | Invisible Machines S6E12

We’re in a moment when organizations are approaching agentic AI backwards, chasing flashy use cases instead of building the scaffolding that makes AI agents actually work at scale. Erika Flowers, who led NASA’s AI Readiness Initiative and has advised Meta, Google, Netflix, and Intuit, joins Robb and Josh for a frank and funny conversation about what's broken in enterprise AI adoption. She dismantles the myth of the "big sexy AI use case" and explains why most AI projects fail before they start. The trio makes the case that we're entering a post-software world, whether organizations are ready or not. Listen and learn why the scaffolding— or agent runtime — matters more than use cases, why organizational gaps kill AI projects, how to move projects from pilot to production, and what "post-software" actually means for enterprises.

Check out Erika’s podcast, “Flower Power Hour”: https://open.spotify.com/show/15BTSl9fWiH3QTmVAYj6Fd

Learn more about Erika at

www.helloerikaflowers.com/

0:09 - NASA AI Readiness Explained | Erica Flowers on Agentic AI & Runtimes

1:48 - Why the “Big Sexy AI Use Case” Is a Lie

2:42 - AI Didn’t Start with ChatGPT: What NASA Has Been Doing for 30 Years

4:24 - Why AI Runtimes Matter More Than Any Single Use Case

5:21 - The Hidden AI Problem: Legacy Data, Silos & Organizational Reality

7:13 - The Boring AI That Actually Works (And Why Enterprises Ignore It)

8:10 - The AI Arms Race Nobody Understands

9:22 - AI Scaffolding Explained: The Metaphor Every Leader Needs to Hear

12:12 - AI Readiness Is Cultural Change, Not Just Technology

14:38 - From Parking Lots to Companies: How Simple AI Agents Quietly Scale

17:01 - Why Most AI Features Feel Useless in Real Products

19:08 - Stop Automating Spreadsheets: Ask AI the Question Instead

25:06 - The Post-Software Era: Why Designers Aren’t Enough Anymore

28:33 - UI Is a Medium: How AI Will Absorb Interfaces Entirely

46:24 - Infinite Content, Human Creativity, and the Future After AI

---------- Support our show by supporting our sponsors!

This episode is supported by OneReach.ai

Forged over a decade of R&D  and proven in 10,000+ deployments, OneReach.ai’s GSX is the first complete AI agent runtime environment (circa 2019) — a hardened AI agent architecture for enterprise control and scale. 

Backed by UC Berkeley, recognized by Gartner, and trusted across highly regulated industries, including healthcare, finance, government and telecommunications.

A complete system for accelerating AI adoption - design, train, test, deploy, monitor, and orchestrate neurosymbolic applications (agents). 

• Use any AI models
• Build and deploy intelligent agents fast
• Create guardrails for organizational alignment
• Enterprise-grade security and governance

Request free prototype:

https://onereach.ai/prototype/?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=podcast_s6e12&utm_content=1  

---------- The revised and significantly updated second edition of our bestselling book about succeeding with AI agents, Age of Invisible Machines, is available everywhere: Amazon — https://bit.ly/4hwX0a5

#InvisibleMachines 

#Podcast 

#TechPodcast

#AIPodcast

#AI 

#AgenticAI

#AIAgents

#DigitalTransformation

#AIReadiness 

#AIDeployment

#AISoftware

#AITransformation

#AIAdoption

#AIProjects

#NASA

#AgentRuntime

#Innovation

#AIUseCase