TechFirst with John Koetsier

NanoClaw is a new agent inspired by OpenClaw, but without the massive security risks you get with OpenClaw. Essentially, it's a safer OpenClaw.

What if you could run a powerful AI agent on your own machine: one that can browse, automate tasks, connect to apps, and even manage your workflow ... but without the massive security risks?

That’s the idea behind NanoClaw, a lightweight alternative to OpenClaw created by develope...

Imagine teaching a robot 1000 tasks in just 24 hours. Imagine teaching robots just like you teach humans.

In fact, what if teaching a robot were as easy as showing it once?

Humans can learn new skills almost instantly by watching, trying, or receiving a quick explanation. Robots, historically, haven’t been so lucky. Training them often requires huge datasets with real or virtual data, massive engineering effort, and weeks or ...

Can we give an AI human emotions? A soul? Can AI truly feel, or will it just act like it does?

In this episode of TechFirst, I talk with Vishnu Hari, founder and CEO of Ego AI (backed by Y Combinator and former AI product manager at Meta), about building emotionally intelligent AI characters that persist across games, Discord, chat, and even physical robots.

Vishnu survived a violent attack in San Francisco that left him part...

Is your AI agent running a restaurant — or a factory — while you sleep?

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Jensen Teng, CEO and co-founder of Virtuals, to unpack one of the boldest (or craziest) visions in tech today: a hybrid economy powered by AI agents, humanoid robots, teleoperation, and blockchain coordination.

An economy that may not really need humans for much at all ...

Virtuos has already f...

Is AI killing creativity ... or just making it easier to be average?

94% of creatives now use AI. But only 11% believe it actually makes them more creative. So what’s really happening?

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Saeema Ahmed-Kristensen, former head of design engineering research at Imperial College London’s Dyson School and now leader of a £24M research portfolio at the University of Exeter. Sh...

AI is moving faster than anyone predicted.

In a massive new study analyzing 1,000 jobs and nearly 20,000 tasks, Cognizant found that 93% of jobs are already impacted by AI ... with $4.5 trillion in U.S. labor value potentially automatable today.

But here’s the twist: AI isn’t replacing entire jobs. On average, only 39% of a role’s tasks can be automated. The future isn’t AI alone: it’s humans plus AI.

But will it be fewer...

AI models are powerful, but they don’t forget. And that's a problem.

They hallucinate. They inherit bias. They absorb sensitive data. And once they’re trained, fixing those issues is painfully expensive. Retraining takes weeks and maybe tens of millions of dollars. And any guardrails the AI company puts up are brittle.

What if you could perform surgery on the model itself?

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier si...

Large language models have dominated the AI conversation — but are small language models (SLMs) actually the future?

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Andy Markus, SVP & Chief Data and AI Officer at AT&T, to unpack how small language models are delivering enterprise-grade accuracy at a fraction of the cost and latency of massive LLMs.

Andy explains how AT&T uses SLMs for:

• Contract an...

Humanoid robots are coming into our homes, but they probably won’t be doing your laundry anytime soon.

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Jan Liphardt, founder & CEO of OpenMind and Stanford bioengineering professor, to unpack what home robots will actually do in the near future ... and why the “labor-free home” vision is mostly a myth (for now).

Jan explains why hands are still one of the har...

AI is hitting entertainment like a sledgehammer ... from algorithmic gatekeepers and AI-written scripts to digital actors and entire movies generated from a prompt.

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Larry Namer, founder of E! Entertainment Television and chairman of the World Film Institute, to unpack what AI really means for Hollywood, creators, and the global media economy.

Larry explains why A...

Robots aren’t just software. They’re AI in the physical world. And that changes everything.

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Ali Farhadi, CEO of Allen Institute for AI, to unpack one of the biggest debates in robotics today: Is data enough, or do robots need structured reasoning to truly understand the world?

Ali explains why physical AI demands more than massive datasets, how concepts like reas...

Can we really build a $10,000 humanoid robot on open-source AI?

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier talks with Chris Kudla, CEO of Mind Children, about a radically different approach to humanoid robots. Instead of six-figure industrial machines built for factories or war zones, Mind Children is building small, safe, friendly social robots designed for kids, classrooms, and elder care.

Meet Cody (MC-1), their first hum...

Is AI really the new UI, or is that just another tech buzzphrase? Or ... is AI actually EVERY user interface now?

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Mark Vange, CEO & founder of Automate.ly and former CTO at Electronic Arts, to unpack what happens when interfaces stop being fixed and start being generated on the fly.

They explore:

• Why generative AI makes it cheaper to create custom interfaces...

The web is turning agentic.

And that changes everything from shopping to search to SEO.

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Dave Anderson (VP at ContentSquare + host of the “Tech Seeking Human” podcast) to unpack what happens when browsers and AI assistants don’t just answer … they do stuff. For you. On your behalf.

From Atlas and agentic browsing to the growing backlash from retailers (hello, Amazo...

AI has mastered language, sort of. But the real world is way messier.

In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Kirin Sinha, founder and CEO of Illumix, to explore what comes after large language models: world models, spatial intelligence, and physical AI.

They unpack why LLMs alone won’t get us to human-level intelligence, what it actually takes for machines to understand physical space, and how technologies...

Quantum computers usually mean massive machines, cryogenic temperatures, and isolated data centers. But what if quantum computing could run at room temperature, fit inside a server rack — or even a satellite?

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Marcus Doherty, Chief Science Officer of Quantum Brilliance, to explore how diamond-based quantum computers work — and why they could unlock scalable, edge-dep...

Will AI kill your job?

What happens to your job as AI gets smarter and companies keep laying people off even while profits rise? Will you still have a job? Will the job you have change beyond recognition?

Scary questions, no?

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Nikki Barua, co-founder of Footwork and longtime founder, executive, and resiliency expert, to unpack what work really looks like in the...

What if someone actually built TARS from Interstellar—and discovered it really could work?

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Aditya Sripada, a robotics engineer at Nimble, who turned a late-night hobby into a serious research project: a real, working mini-version of TARS, the iconic robot from Interstellar.

Aditya walks through why TARS’s strange, flat form factor isn’t just cinematic flair—and h...

AI is already reshaping the workforce. What about teenagers?

Turns out, they might be more impacted than anyone else. After all, they're usually in low-skill entry-level jobs that AI can replace. The problem ... teens are losing their first experience with working, making money, and establishing an identity outside of their homes.

In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier speaks with Karissa Tang, a high school sen...