Transform NOW

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk interviews Travis D. Hahler, author of Rethink Resistance and senior director of global strategy and transformation at Salesforce, about why organizational resistance to change, especially AI-driven change, is rooted in biology, not mindset. Travis explains how the brain scans for threat, expends energy when routines are disrupted, and processes change as loss...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • The Fight Over AI Is Really a Fight Over Who Governs https://time.com/article/2026/06/10/the-fight-over-ai-is-really-a-fight-over-who-governs/ • Palantir’s Karp says businesses are ‘unhappy’ with the...

In this episode, Brad Hairston talks with Richard McGrail, an automation & AI services leader from SS&C GIDS, who shares his insights on AI trends observed while speaking with attendees at the annual SS&C customer conference in Windsor, UK in May 2026. . What we talked about with Richard: * Where customers are on the AI journey * EMEA regulated markets as a brake on adoption * Build vs...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode:.Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/02/technology/trump-executive-order-ai.html .Meta workers can opt out of being tracked at work - but only fo...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk speaks with Tim Shea, founder and CEO of Latticework Insights, about what it takes to build an enterprise-grade agentic AI program that delivers measurable value. Shea explains that while LLMs are powerful, hallucinations, non-determinism, and high-stakes risk make many agentic initiatives fail without human checks, clear leadership, and strong operating model...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • Altman and Amodei Walk Back AI Job Apocalypse Warnings Ahead of Trillion-Dollar IPOs https://mlq.ai/news/altman-and-amodei-walk-back-ai-job-apocalypse-warnings-ahead-of-trillion-dollar-ipos/ • Micros...

In this episode of the Transform NOW podcast, host Michael Marchuk hosts Rob May, CEO of Neurometric and co-host of the AI in NYC podcast, discussing practical AI deployment beyond hype. Rob explains Neurometric’s focus on small language models and inference optimization, helping companies move high-volume tasks off frontier models to task-specific endpoints to reduce latency and cost. He explores...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. .News stories covered in this episode:.Elon Musk loses lawsuit against OpenAI - https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2026/05/18/elon-musk-loses-lawsuit-openai/90145826007/ .81% of Enterprise Technology Leaders Report Production Failures fro...

In this episode, Brad Hairston talks with Brian Evergreen, AI expert/advisor and the author of the book Autonomous Transformation. Brian was named by Forbes as one of the Top 30 Thinkers Redefining Leadership in 2025 and by Edelman as one of the Top 50 AI Creators to know. Brian explains how leaders who stop trying to solve today's problems and start designing tomorrow's future will be the...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • SAP Is Blocking AI Agents. Salesforce Is Welcoming Them. One of These Strategies Will Win. https://www.mindstudio.ai/blog/sap-blocking-ai-agents-vs-salesforce-mcp-first-strategy • Companies name AI a...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk talks with Bryce Carpenter about how AI is transforming manufacturing roles well beyond robots on the shop floor. Bryce discusses how AI and other digital technologies are key to improving productivity per worker and making it economically viable to bring production back without lowering American wages. With Indiana’s population expected to be flat or declinin...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. .News stories covered in this episode:.As AI pushes students to reconsider majors, universities struggle to adapt https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ai-pushes-students-reconsider-majors-100000151.html .An amateur just solved a 60-year-old...

In this episode, Brad Hairston talks with Vikash Jain, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group, who explains how agentic AI is expanding — not shrinking — the tech services market, while unpacking the gaps in productivity expectations, enterprise readiness, and commercial models that will define who wins and who gets left behind. . What we talked with Vikash about: * Agenti...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • Google will invest as much as $40 billion in Anthropic https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/04/google-will-invest-as-much-as-40-billion-in-anthropic • OpenAI Posts Five-Principle Framework for AGI, Altman...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk welcomes technologist David Dean to the Transform Now Podcast to discuss Dean’s book, An Inbox Between Us, which explores how work actually gets done through an “unwritten contract” of emails, meetings, and informal workarounds that sit alongside official processes. Dean explains how bottlenecks are overcome through human lived experience, creativity, and psyc...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: . Meta workers outraged over internal software tracking keystrokes, mouse movements: ‘How do we opt out?’ https://nypost.com/2026/04/22/business/meta-workers-outraged-over-software-tracking-keystrokes-...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk hosts Len Ward, founder and managing partner of Connexis and former Wall Street VP, who shares his path from Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston to building a full-service agency that went all-in on AI after OpenAI’s emergence. Len explains the shift from “search and retrieve” to “solve my problem,” emphasizing measurable AI impact by removing bottle...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • ChatGPT app store falters six months after launch https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2026-03-30/chatgpt-app-store-falters-six-months-after-launch • Industrial Policy for the Intelligence Age: Ide...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk interviews technologist and serial entrepreneur Kevin Surace, an early architect of voice AI with 90+ patents, about how gen AI and agentic automation are reshaping creativity, coding, and business operations. Kevin explains how AI tools democratize music, video, and software creation, often triggering jealousy as amateurs produce high-quality outputs quickly,...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI..News stories covered in this episode:.Meta debuts new AI model, attempting to catch Google, OpenAI after spending billions https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/08/meta-debuts-first-major-ai-model-since-14-billion-deal-to-bring-in-alexandr-wang.htm...

In this episode, Brad Hairston talks with John Rossman (author, advisor, former Amazon executive) and Andy Forti (PE-focused advisor) who co-wrote a paper that speaks to how companies can more effectively achieve big bet transformations. In the era of AI, big bets are being made everywhere, so this episode is very timely! . Link to white paper discussed on this episode: https://rossmanpartners.com...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. News stories covered in this episode: • Senators tell ByteDance to shut down Seedance 2.0 AI video app 'immediately' - https://www.engadget.com/ai/senators-tell-bytedance-to-shut-down-seedance-20-ai-video-app-immediately-112146241....

Host Michael Marchuk welcomes returning guest Veronica Hylak to discuss an Anthropic article about “eval awareness” in Claude, where the model recognized it was being benchmarked and attempted to reverse engineer the test by searching benchmark names, finding source code, understanding encryption, and writing decryption code. Veronica argues this is both pattern recognition and emergent behavior,...

In this episode, Transform NOW co-hosts Brad Hairston and Michael Marchuk banter about some interesting recent news headlines in the world of automation and AI. .News stories covered in this episode:.Meta plans sweeping layoffs to offset heavy spending on AI https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/meta-plans-sweeping-layoffs-to-offset-heavy-spending-on-ai-dzkd9x7gs . New report...

In this episode, host Michael Marchuk interviews Daniel Hindi, CEO of Noem.ai, a software engineer with five successful startup exits, about practical AI automation and business transformation. Daniel argues AI should remove repetitive, energy-draining tasks and that leaders must track KPIs and ROI to ensure AI upgrades roles rather than reshuffles work. He recommends finding the problem first, de...