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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias tackle the latest developments in AI with a fast-paced series of updates—from Claude overtaking ChatGPT in the voice mode battle, to Google's shockingly tiny Gemma 3 model, to the rocky rollout of GPT-5 and what it teaches us about innovation at scale. Then, the duo zooms out for a big-picture look at AI’s massive and growing energy demands. Can AI keep advancing without breaking the grid? Enter neuromorphic computing—a brain-inspired breakthrough that could power the next era of AI more efficiently. Hot dogs, ant colonies, and nuclear power all make appearances in this can't-miss conversation.

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📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
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🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Claude Voice ➡ https://www.anthropic.com/
ChatGPT Voice Mode ➡ https://openai.com/chatgpt
Google Gemma 3 ➡ https://ai.google.dev/gemma
OSS Models (OSS-20B, OSS-120B) ➡ https://huggingface.co/mistralai/Mixtral-8x7B
Mark Horner’s TED Talk on Neuromorphic Computing ➡ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66b49ZrJzdw&t=3s

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
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🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
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Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive into two groundbreaking releases from OpenAI: the long-awaited GPT-5 and the surprising return to open source with GPT-OSS. They unpack the shift toward simplified AI interaction, the implications of automatic model selection, and what GPT-5’s real-world performance means for power users. Then they explore how the new OSS models may radically reshape how associations build and deploy custom AI solutions. Plus: updates from ASAE Annual, thoughts on AI hallucinations, and why association leaders should start thinking more like engineers.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

ChatGPT (GPT-5) ➡ https://chat.openai.com
Claude 4.1 Opus ➡ https://www.anthropic.com
Soundpost ➡ https://www.soundpost.ai
LM Studio ➡ https://lmstudio.ai
Hugging Face ➡ https://huggingface.co
Quen3 ➡ https://qwenlm.github.io/blog/qwen3/
Kimi K2 by Moonshot AI ➡ https://www.moonshot.cn
OpenRouter ➡ https://openrouter.ai

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
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https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
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Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, co-hosts Mallory Mejias sits down with Dr. Nicola Sahar to explore how a University of Toronto med student dove head-first into clinical AI research and went on to found Semantic Health, an AI-powered medical coding platform later acquired by the American Academy of Professional Coders in 2023. They unpack the art and science of medical coding, discuss why AI will augment rather than replace coders, dive into the critical role of data privacy and private-cloud deployments in healthcare AI, and share why associations are uniquely positioned to guide their members through this AI transformation.

Dr. Nick Sahar is a Canadian physician and health tech entrepreneur who co-founded Semantic Health. In 2023, Semantic Health was acquired by the American Academy of Professional Coders - AAPC - marking a significant milestone in the adoption of AI in healthcare operations. Today, Dr. Sahar remains an active voice in the healthcare AI space, focused on building tools that support clinicians and improve patient care.

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolasahar/
Semantic Health - https://www.semantichealth.ai/
AAPC - https://www.aapc.com/

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com
Claude ➡ https://claude.ai

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, Mallory Mejias and Amith Nagarajan cover a trio of urgent topics shaping the AI landscape. They kick off with Anthropic’s surprising rise to enterprise dominance—fueled not despite, but because of its safety-first approach. From there, the conversation heats up around accelerating predictions for artificial general intelligence (AGI), with some forecasting human-level AI by 2027. Finally, the hosts zoom out to tackle the hidden but massive infrastructure demands powering this AI surge—and why nuclear energy might be the unsung hero. Plus, Mallory introduces us to her rambunctious new puppy, Chai, who’s stealing hearts (but not the mic) behind the scenes. Along the way, you’ll hear updates on new tools like Google Opal and NotebookLM, thoughts on open source vs. closed models, and why humility and daily learning are the keys to thriving in the AI age.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Google Opal ➡ https://opal.withgoogle.com/landing/
NotebookLM ➡ https://notebooklm.google
MemberJunction ➡ https://memberjunction.org
Claude by Anthropic ➡ https://claude.ai
Quen-3 ➡ https://huggingface.co/Qwen
Moonshot AI ➡ https://moonshot.ai

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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Are we ready for a world where AI agents write our blogs and robots clean our homes? In this episode, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive deep into the rise of agentic AI and the future of robotics. They explore how digital workforces powered by open-source platforms like MemberJunction are already transforming productivity, especially in marketing. Then, they pivot to the physical world, breaking down NVIDIA’s fascinating vision of the “Physical Turing Test” and simulation-based training for robots. You’ll hear about digital twins, robot chefs, and what it all means for associations navigating this new frontier.

📽 Jim Fan’s Presentation on the Physical Turing Test and Physical AI - https://youtu.be/_2NijXqBESI?si=6JLhFNQIa4cEfSbP

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
MemberJunction ➡ https://docs.memberjunction.org
Claude ➡ https://claude.ai
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com
Groq ➡ https://www.groq.com

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this heartwarming and enlightening episode, co-hosts Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias welcome the dynamic father-son duo, Conor and Finn Grennan, to discuss their journey teaching generative AI in Nepal. Connor, Chief AI Architect at NYU Stern, and his 16-year-old son Finn share stories of cultural resonance, the universal challenges of AI adoption in education, and how peer-to-peer learning can drive real change. From Kathmandu classrooms to critical thinking conundrums, this conversation explores why the messenger matters just as much as the message—and why students everywhere might be the future's best AI evangelists.

Conor Grennan is Chief AI Architect at NYU Stern School of Business and trains large companies on how to drive AI adoption. He's worked with organizations like NASA, McKinsey, PWC, Google, Amazon, and many more. Finn Grennan just finished his sophomore year in high school where he has been asked by the administration of his school to help set AI strategy.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
ChatGPT ➞ https://chat.openai.com
Claude ➞ https://www.anthropic.com
AI Mindset ➞ https://www.ai-mindset.ai/
Conor's Post About their Trip to Nepal ➞ https://shorturl.at/W3GwR

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this dog-dedicated episode of Sidecar Sync (Happy 12th to Ninja!), Mallory Mejias and Amith Nagarajan tackle two extremes of the nonprofit tech landscape. First, they dig into Cloudflare’s bold new default to block AI content scrapers—what it means for associations, the rise of pay-per-crawl, and whether blocking AI is smart strategy or short-sighted fear. Then, they shift gears to dissect a revealing Chronicle of Philanthropy survey on nonprofit tech adoption, where some orgs are experimenting with AI while others still won’t accept credit cards. The result? A growing digital divide—and plenty of lessons for association leaders looking to future-proof.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Claude ➞ https://claude.ai
Gemini CLI ➞ https://cloud.google.com/gemini/docs/codeassist/gemini-cli
ChatGPT ➞ https://chat.openai.com
rasa.io ➞ https://rasa.io
Cloudflare Article ➞ https://shorturl.at/xY54H
Nonprofit Tech Survey ➞ https://shorturl.at/2U9jb

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

Send us a text

In this episode, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive into the world of AI agents, hackathons, and the secret cyborgs in your office. Fresh off a high-intensity AI agent-building retreat, Amith shares how association leaders—regardless of technical skill—can use open-source tools to build powerful, secure AI assistants. Then, the duo explores a framework by AI researcher Ethan Mollick to explain why organizations are lagging in AI gains despite skyrocketing individual productivity. They unpack the importance of visionary leadership, encouraging experimentation within your team (and your members), and building your own “lab” to prototype the future—even with limited resources. This episode invites you to chart your course and navigate AI’s uncharted waters with confidence and creativity.

🤖 Join the AI Mastermind: https://sidecar.ai/association-ai-mastermind

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor https://meetbetty.ai/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Member Junction ➡ https://memberjunction.org
Claude ➡ https://claude.ai
GitHub Copilot ➡ https://github.com/features/copilot
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 Thank you to our sponsor: Cimatri
https://cimatri.com/

👍 Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space. Mallory co-hosts and produces the Sidecar Sync podcast, where she delves into the latest trends in AI and technology, translating them into actionable insights.

https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias