What happens when artificial intelligence moves faster than our ability to understand, verify, and trust it?

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Alexander Feick from eSentire, a cybersecurity veteran who has spent more than a decade working at the intersection of complex systems, risk, and emerging technology. Alex leads eSentire Labs, where his team explores how new technologies can be secured before they quietly become load-bearing parts of modern business infrastructure.

Our conversation centers on a timely and uncomfortable reality. AI is being embedded into workflows, products, and decision-making systems at a pace most organizations are not prepared for.

Alex explains why many AI failures are not caused by malicious models or dramatic breaches, but by broken ownership, invisible dependencies, and a lack of ongoing verification. These are not technical glitches. They are organizational blind spots that quietly compound risk over time.

We also explore the ideas behind Alex's recently published book on trust and AI, which he made freely available due to the speed at which real-world AI failures were already overtaking theory.

From prompt injection and model drift to the dangers of treating non-deterministic systems as if they were predictable software, Alex shares why generative AI requires a fundamentally different security mindset. He draws a clear distinction between chatbot AI and embedded AI, and explains the moment where trust quietly shifts away from humans and into systems that cannot take accountability.

The discussion goes deeper into what trust actually means in an AI-driven organization. Alex argues that trust must be earned, measured, and monitored continuously, not assumed after a successful pilot. Verification becomes the real work, not generation, and leaders who fail to recognize that shift risk scaling errors faster than they can contain them. We also talk about why he turned his book into an AI advisor, what that experiment revealed about the limits of models, and why human responsibility cannot be automated away.

This is a grounded, practical conversation for leaders, technologists, and anyone deploying AI inside real organizations. If AI is becoming part of how decisions get made where you work, how confident are you that someone truly owns the outcome?

Useful Links

• Connect with Alexander Feick
• Learn more about eSentire

Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo

How much value do your developers actually get to deliver in a typical week, and how much of their time is quietly lost to meetings, context hunting, and process drag?

I'm joined by Phil Heijkoop, Global Practice Head of Developer Experience at Valiantys, for a conversation that cuts through the hype surrounding AI and asks a harder question about why so many engineering teams still struggle to see meaningful returns.

Phil argues that most organizations are only unlocking a small fraction of a developer's true contribution, not because of a lack of talent, but because process drag slowly squeezes out deep, focused work. AI, he explains, does not fix this by default. Without the right foundations in place, it simply accelerates the wrong work at scale.

We explore the long shadow cast by the "move fast and break things" mindset and why that philosophy becomes risky inside regulated, enterprise environments where resilience and trust matter more than speed alone. Phil shares what he sees when organizations chase shiny new tooling while ignoring technical debt, unclear standards, and fragile workflows.

From protecting uninterrupted time for deep work to automating manual friction points and setting shared guardrails, he outlines how teams can realistically unlock three to five times more output before AI even enters the picture. Only then, he says, does AI act as a multiplier rather than a source of chaos.

The conversation also digs into developer experience as a business lever, not a perk, and why leadership clarity, cultural trust, and consistent standards matter as much as tooling choices. We discuss the growing risks in the software supply chain, the sustainability of open source dependencies, and what recent high-profile retirements signal for enterprise teams that depend on them.

If AI is accelerating your organization in the wrong direction, what foundational changes would you need to make today to ensure it amplifies value instead of friction, and how honest are you willing to be about what is really slowing your teams down?

Useful Links

• Connect with Phil on LinkedIn
• Learn more about Phil's work
• Valiantys Website

Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo

What happens when the future of money stops being about speculation and starts being about people, ownership, and agency?

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Dr. Friederike Ernst, co-founder of Gnosis, to unpack a conversation that goes far beyond crypto price cycles or technical hype. This is a thoughtful discussion about where blockchain is heading and, just as importantly, where it could go wrong if we are not paying attention.

Friederike has spent more than a decade building foundational infrastructure for the Ethereum ecosystem, from smart wallets to decentralized exchanges and blockchain networks that quietly power large parts of Web3. But as she explains, the industry is now standing at a fork in the road.

One path leads to blockchain becoming a silent backend upgrade for banks and incumbents, improving efficiency while keeping power centralized. The other path is far more ambitious, using blockchain to return ownership, control, and financial agency to everyday people.

We talk about why financial infrastructure, despite working reasonably well for many of us in Europe, remains deeply inefficient, expensive, and exclusionary at a global level.

A major theme of this episode is usability. Friederike is clear that technology only matters if it improves real lives. She explains why early blockchain products asked too much of users and how that is now changing, with experiences that feel as simple as using a neobank or debit card while preserving true ownership under the hood.

The goal is not to make everyone a crypto expert, but to make financial tools that work seamlessly while remaining genuinely user-owned.

We also explore the darker possibilities. Like any powerful technology, blockchain can be used to empower or to control. Friederike does not shy away from the risks of surveillance, social scoring, and misuse, and she argues that the real battle ahead is cultural, not technical. Values like privacy, free expression, and personal agency need to be defended openly, or the technology will be shaped without public consent.

As we look toward 2026, this conversation offers a refreshing reminder that the future of money is still being written. The question is whether it will be owned by communities or quietly absorbed by the same institutions we already rely on.

After listening to this episode, where do you think that future should land, and what choices are you willing to make to influence it?

• Connect With Dr. Friederike Ernst
• Learn More about Gnosis

Tech Talks Daily is sponsored by Denodo