AGNTCY - Unlock agents at scale with an open Internet of Agents. Visit https://agntcy.org/ and add your support.

What does it really take to turn cutting-edge AI research into a successful foundation model company?

In this episode of Eye on AI, we sit down with Anjney Midha, General Partner at a16z, to unpack how he helps scientists and researchers transform their breakthroughs into scalable, real-world AI businesses.

From his early backing of Anthropic to launching Mistral and Black Forest Labs, Anjney shares a behind-the-scenes look at how AI infrastructure companies are born.

We dive into the critical challenges of model reliability, evaluation beyond academic benchmarks, and the rise of hybrid architectures combining transformers with diffusion and LSTMs.

If you're building in AI or investing in it, this is the roadmap to what's next.

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Eye on A.I. on X: https://x.com/EyeOn_AI

(00:00) Turning AI Research into Real Companies

(02:08) Anjney’s Journey into Venture Capital

(05:44) The Birth of Anthropic

(08:26) Backing Mistral and Stable Diffusion

(13:16) Are Transformers Really Enough?

(18:36) Why AI Evaluation Is Broken

(22:10) Making AI Models More Interpretable

(28:38) The Real Potential of AI Agents

(32:43) How a16z Spots AI Breakthroughs

(37:45) Investing Like It’s the 1970s

(43:31) What AI Voice Tech Needs Right Now

(46:32) Models vs Products

(51:17) What’s Holding Back AI Agents

(55:41) Anjney Startup Investing Strategy

What happens when you combine 8 billion minutes of voice data with a full-stack AI engine?

Yes, that’s what Dialpad is doing.

In this episode, Brian Peterson, CTO and Co-Founder, breaks down how they’ve built an AI-powered communications platform from the ground up.

From real-time sales coaching and AI-driven support agents to predictive analytics that can spot churn before it happens, Brian shares why owning the full stack — infrastructure, LLMs, and data is the only way to deliver truly intelligent customer experience.

If you’re curious about the future of AI in business communication, this is the episode to watch.

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Craig Smith on X:https://x.com/craigss

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(00:00) Brian’s Founding Story

(03:56) What Dialpad Actually Does Today

(05:17) Is Voice the Most Valuable Untapped Data Source?

(07:41) Inside DialpadGPT

(10:10) AI Solutions for Sales, Support & Collaboration

(12:24) Owning the Entire Customer Journey with Unified Comms

(14:11) How Dialpad Stays Ahead in the AI Race

(17:50) Real-Time AI Coaching & Playbooks

(22:32) Why Most Enterprises are Behind in AI Adoption

(25:28) Action-Oriented AI Agents

(32:40) What’s Next for AI in Customer Communication

AGNTCY - Unlock agents at scale with an open Internet of Agents. Visit https://agntcy.org/ and add your support.

What if AI agents needed digital passports to act on your behalf?

In this episode, Ankur Banerjee, Co-Founder and CTO of cheqd.io, reveals how decentralized identity is becoming the foundation of the AI agent economy.

From booking Taylor Swift tickets with an agent to proving you're a real person online, we explore why identity and trust are the hidden infrastructure shaping the future of AI.

Ankur explains how cheqd is building privacy-first tools that let AI agents verify who they are, what they can do, and who they're working for, all without handing over your data to big tech. We dig into the rise of digital credentials, the limits of biometrics, and how protocols like MCP are making the internet safe for autonomous agents.

If you've ever wondered how AI will operate on your behalf in the real world, this conversation offers a glimpse into what's coming next.

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Craig Smith on X: https://x.com/craigss

Eye on A.I. on X: https://x.com/EyeOn_AI

(00:00) Why AI Needs Identity

(02:16) Ankur’s Path to cheqd

(05:39) Delegating Tasks to AI Agents

(11:26) Identity Lessons from Governments

(17:25) Trusting AI with Digital Credentials

(23:42) The Problem with Biometrics

(30:49) Web Standards for Agent Identity

(36:46) MCP and Agent Interoperability

(48:47) Bridging Web2 and Web3 Identity

(55:18) Why Companies Should Care About Decentralized ID