SHIFT

As AI moves beyond the screen and into the physical world, the next generation of intelligent products will be defined less by bigger models than by context, trust, and the ability to act. We caught up with renowned industrial designer Robert Brunner at HumanX Amsterdam. Brunner designed a number of products that have gone on to define the way we live with technology, including Apple’s original PowerBook laptop and Beats by Dre. We Meet:  Robert Brunner, Founder & Creative Director of AmmunitionCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

Nasrin Mostafazadeh, co-founder and CEO of Verneek, traces her path from a teenage robotics champion to founding an AI company with a boy at that same robotics competition, who later became her husband. She explains why 2026's wave of generic LLM shopping integrations largely failed, and how Verneek's domain-specific AI cut Nordstrom's product-tagging time by 20x while beating human accuracy by 20%.We meet: Co-founder & CEO of Verneek Nasrin MostafazadehCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

Neo4j CTO Philip Rathle on why the AI systems reaching production aren't monolithic LLMs,  and why "attackers think in graphs" even when defenders don't.Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.

From deciding where to build a new business, airport or fire station, to understanding the potential impact of decisions regarding conservation or governance, people make billions of maps everyday using GIS. We explore the history and evolution of this tech with one of its pioneers, in the latest installment of our oral history project.This episode originally aired in November 2024. We Meet:Esri Founder & President Jack DangermondCredits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong and Emma Cillekens, and it was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco. 

We know that kids spending time on social media are more likely to experience depression and anxiety. Less clear, and far more contentious, is the role we expect of schools, governments, and tech companies, and some parents are organizing.We Meet: Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA) Founder Julie ScelfoThis episode of our oral history project originally aired in March 2025. Since then, MAMA has grown to nearly 50 chapters nationwide, and a California court found Meta and YouTube liable for designing addictive products that harm kids - a case Scelfo has called a major win for the movement.Credits:This episode of SHIFT was produced by Jennifer Strong with help from Emma Cillekens. It was mixed by Garret Lang, with original music from him and Jacob Gorski. Art by Meg Marco.