Sarmad Qadri, founder and CEO of LastMile, discusses the need for software engineering rigor in AI development and the democratization of AI. Topics include AI config, AI workbook, experimentation and collaboration with generative AI frameworks. The podcast also explores the retrieval-augmented generation system, AI config and semantic retrieval as AI development tools, the concept of orchestration in software engineering teams, ETL focus and vector databases in AI data, and the importance of proper tools for AI development.