Techstrong Gang – January 24, 2025

Hey everyone. I'm excited. We've got the trouble with Triples, or maybe it's software integration you're watching.

Textron Gang. Hey guys, happy Friday. It's another week in 2025.

It's, before you know it, it'll be June. Uh, we're almost through January, but you know what? We've had an amazing text on gang month of January, not only because of our great gang members, but it's just been a crazy month with stuff going on here, right?

How often do we invest $500 billion in Ether? Um, but that was yesterday's show. If you missed it, catch it.

Uh, today we've got the trouble with triples, as I mentioned. Well, that's Star Trek. But there, there might be, uh, trouble in Software Integration town.

We're going to hear about that. We're going to hear about a couple of other things. But first, let me introduce you to our full House of Tech Drunk Gang members today.

Some of them sporting their gang color clothes and everything, and, and cups. Um, first of all, we'll go, I think we'll go west to east. We'll start out in the west.

And if you're gonna start in the west, you gotta start at the top, the king of of the valley there, Jon Swartz. John, I see you're back home. It's good to see you.

How are you? Yes, It's good to be home. Hey, yesterday, very interesting thing.

I was just gonna drop this in because I, I wanna write about this. Eventually, I, I stopped by a, um, stealth AI safety risk assessment startup. They, they, they're doing something that a lot of AI companies do.

They're holed up in a house, so they're all living in the house together, putting together the company. Sounds like a TV show. It does.

I met like three or four members. Yeah. Sounds like Every, I believe Cool.

Out a hype house. Sounds Like every startup I ever knew. So, I don't know.

But anyway, Well, I, Benioff started Salesforce in an apartment, which is weird. But in any event, uh, this company, the reason why this company's interesting is that Eric Schmidt is in a sense, one of their advisors and one of the, the people who will be one of the executives there is, uh, help write the Biden's executive, order it on AI guard guardrails that was just revoked by Trump. So, uh, it was pretty interesting.

They sent pretty interesting things to tell me about where they think this is going. And Fodders, can we, can we move Along to the topics at hand? It's good to be with everybody.

All. Well moving right along. Then let's go, uh, our next Silicon Valley resident there.

If John's the, she's the, I don't know, the Duchess do of Silicon Valley. Lisa Martin. Hey, Lisa, how are you?

Good morning, Alan. Great to see you guys. We have a lot of integration things to talk about today.

I'm gonna weave that theme through all blocks. Absolutely. One of my favorite topics.

Moving next, I, I guess Colorado is further west than Texas, so, we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll stop high on the Rockies and, and say hello to Mitch Ashley Mitchell, it's good to see you. How's everything? Very good.

I'm looking forward to a very integrated conversation. Okay. There you go.

Okay. And then moving from Mitchell to Texas. It's our own Ann Ola Ward.

I think I almost got that right. Nailed it. Nailed it.

Okay. Thank you, Ann. It's good to have you here.

I You did, thank you. You changed your New Year's. Is that Valentine's Day up there?

It, well, it's Valentine's and birthday. Yeah, it was my birthday, so It was your birthday. Oh, happy birthday.

Birthday. Why have so many flowers? Thank Happy Birthday.

Happy birthday. Happy Birthday. Thank you.

Good for you. It's why I have flowers. All right.

And I figured why not get all the hearts out And, uh, you wanted to. Speaking of birthdays, it's our rum curmudgeon up in Harrison, chief Content Officer, Mike Vizard. Hey, Mike.

How are you? I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. Not gonna say anything more. I want to jump right into things.

All right. Our first, our first, uh, topic today. I mentioned it was the trouble with software integration.

Is there, we gotta shoot out at the Okay. Corral here. What, what's happening?

What, what's the problem, John, you wrote about this. I think. Let's, Yes.

Um, FU Intelligence did a report, um, by, uh, Keith Kirkpatrick. And, uh, they, In a sense, um, he kind of, in a sense, when we talked to each other, he, it was almost in a sense like a 3D jigsaw puzzle being fit together between existing software and then integrating AI into it all the while under pressure from the C-Suite to do it as fast as possible. So we, we discussed this, um, it was, the survey was conducted in the fall of 2024, and it kind of offers us a snapshot in the choices customers face over the price and functionality of Gen AI and other AppSec while assuring management their prudent investments.

And I, and I think the reason why this is really interesting and very newsworthy is because there are so many choices these companies are gonna have to make based on all these agentic AI offerings from every consumable software company around. And it's going to be a lot of incredible pressure from Wall Street to show customers are making the right choices and integrating things in the right way, according to Keith. And, uh, some companies are considering consumption models as part of their strategy.

And I kind of would turn this to Mitch because he's the expert in this area. Um, it's probably not surprising, but I think there is a sense of urgency now that there hasn't been in, in quite a while. Well, and, and by the way, shout out to Keith Kirkpatrick, who, uh, is the practice lead for enterprise applications, colleagues of mine, colleague of mine at, uh, Futurum.

You know, it's interesting because of the survey was back in, you know, end of last year, mid last year. And the pace, we all know the pace of how things are changing with AI agents and AI bots and AI interfaces, and everybody's using kind of their own people are sometimes buying it, or it comes with your Google or your, your Microsoft or your upgrade your subscription to it. And kind of as a former CIO the challenge in that situation is everybody has their favorites.

So they always want you to integrate their thing. And so you, you also have to be able to demonstrate, so if we spend all this money on Slack or on AI for whatever platform that we use, what's the benefit? What's the ROI and it, 'cause they aren't cheap, you know, you're talking about 10, $20 or more, $30 per user for these kind of capabilities.

We are seeing that now. I mean, if you take, there's a lot of kind of people talking about Google Agent Space as kinda having the lead. 'cause they really naturally have integrated into all the Google Workspace Suite and everybody needs to catch up with them.

I imagine in two months it'll be catch up with Microsoft or whoever. Um, so it is like a, it's like a, uh, a moving a 3D puzzle, moving at a hundred miles an hour. That's the problem we're trying to solve here.

Mitch. It seems to me at least that, I think 75% of the people said that they have an issue with this. And I assume the other 25% were lying or just clueless.

Um, integration's been a mess as long as I can remember. So how does this get any better ever? It it is, it is, it's one of the biggest jobs of IT organizations is integrating all these tools.

And that's why you see such a move to platforms, whether it's data platforms, development, DevOps, whatever kinds of platforms. And that, that's, I think that's the, the, the real race that's going on here is Google, Microsoft, and, uh, OpenAI trying to lock you into their ecosystem, right? Get you so invested in their capabilities.

Uh, you know, OpenAI is supposed to come out with the operator to be able to access information on your computer. Is that the right way to go? Or should we just, uh, we're a Microsoft shop, we'll keep on the, uh, co-pilot plus path.

So as a, as a CIO you're looking at this and say, how much am I gonna spend not just on the tools, but people to integrate and support all this stuff, especially when it's changing quickly. I think they're gonna pick their primary platform and probably ride that in most cases until things settle out a little bit more, which may make it harder for them to switch to anybody else down the road, frankly. Mm-hmm.

I, I think there's a, there's a subtle nuance here, and I didn't speak to Keith. You did John, between software integration and, and communication. Yeah.

I think we've made tremendous strides using APIs and Zaps and stuff like that over the last 10 years, whatever, of one software being able to transfer data, send kickoff, some sort of action, you know, communicating and working together, right? I think we've, we, we've cracked that nut to a large, large degree. Look, I think the, the success of APIs talks to that, where that's the majority of traffic on the internet are APIs.

Talking APIs. Now if you're saying that's not integration, that's just communication, okay. That's a nuanced kind of discussion.

And um, and then, so the question then begs what is true integration? Is it you live on my platform and you no longer exist as a standalone piece of software? Is that integration?

Because what about API and communication and and so forth, interoperability, is that not enough to be true integration? Because if it is integration, I say bs, we got plenty of integration out there. You have a good point.

'cause APIs give you access. They don't necessarily mean things are integrated. Think about, oh, copilot might be integrated into all the tools that you use in the, in the ui.

It's just part of it, it isn't sitting up there as a, you know, clippy thing that's gonna bother you or another window or screen. So, and it and APIs, Allen, are, are central to AI agents being able to talk to other traditional systems as well as between agents. So it's part of the fabric of it.

But to your point, integration isn't just connecting the dots between different applications and systems. It gives access. But that may be all.

There's also a difference between an API and what people call a connector, right? Which is a more polished version of something that I can invoke that is not a, you know, just raw bits. 'cause I think just exposing an API doesn't do a whole lot for most people who are trying to integrate something, Then you have to build it, right?

Mm-hmm. And maintain, I think if can look at it from, oh, sorry, Go ahead. Go ahead Lisa.

I think I was gonna say, I think if we look at it from a customer perspective, I look at IT marketing. I do a lot of work with boomie integration platform as a service. I see a lot of their events and we look at it from a customer centric point of view.

And customers just expect all of the data that companies have around them is going to not be siloed. It's going to be integrated, it's going to be accessible. You think about all of the different SaaS applications that vendors have and the number of AppSec that people have open at any one time.

We expect these seamless business processes. We expect data to be available so that companies can truly be data companies to deliver value to the customer. And the customer doesn't care.

They just wanna make sure that what, what data a company has on them is, is just, that is integrated so that the business processes that concern that customer are delivered and the value is proved. John did, did, uh, in speaking to the analyst, what was there this distinction between APIs and true integration? There?

There was, um, Keith, one of the things that Keith pointed out in the, that year, the survey that was, that was interesting, something I should have been mentioned earlier. It's just, we, we talk about the, the applications that have been deployed, I think, was it one fifth of the respondents? So they deploy more than 11.

And I think there was one other thing that more than half of those that their application technology stack blended application developed in-house. Um, it's just, I, you know, I think, Alan, I just like this, this kind of sense of frustration and we always, we see this undercurrent in a lot of the stories and segments we talk about just the, the pressure down permeates in the middle, and then these decisions that have to be made. Um, it's, it's not gonna get easier, basically.

No, I, I don't think it is. Alright, if we have nothing else on this, let's jump, uh, take a quick break and we'll jump into our B block here, which is, uh, the future of product development in the age of AI or Aquarius, or is that the fifth dimension? I don't remember.

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Home of security bloggers network. All right, folks, we're back in Talend's point. Yeah.

We're gonna talk a little bit about AI and product development and marketing and where all that data's going. And I know this is in Lisa's sweet spot, but there's a story on digital CXO talking about this issue, and it feels like maybe we're getting a little more data driven in our product development, but I gotta wonder like, well, where does that spark of ingenuity start to show up if we keep using the same old data? So, Lisa, how, what's going on here?

How do we strike a balance? Great question, Mike. This is such an interesting topic to me because as long as I've been in marketing, which is almost 20 years now, which I can't believe product managers have, and I, I, and I was a product marketing manager for many years, working very closely with PMs.

They've been tasked at really guiding the strategic direction of our product. They have to balance what the customers want, what the business wants, what's technologically feasible. And historically they've done that by customer advisory boards, customer feedback, which is still incredibly important, but also market research, competitive analysis.

And now with the data science as a foundation, they're able to use machine learning, predictive analytics to make truly data-driven decisions and things like, um, predicting feature user behavior. How are users interacting with our products? How do we prioritize one feature over the other?

And so the role of PMs is changing, I think, for the better. And there's a lot of alignment or integration, I'll say with marketing, because what we expect is to have all of this telemetry on how customers are interacting with their products to be able to make informed decisions in a timely fashion, almost in real time, so that the, the vendor is competitive. There's a number of alignments, I'll say integration as well, just to be cheeky with data science PM and marketing that I really thought was great in this article.

And the first one is user segmentation. It's incredibly important to understand where users are based on their behavior, how are they interacting with product features. This helps PMs develop personas.

And then marketing can take the development of personas and the buyer's journey per persona to the next level and facilitate that buyer's journey and understand what content do you use, what do they want to see at certain stages of that journey to get them qualified into a salesperson. Also, AB testing is a great alignment where data science is great for PMs as well as marketing. That's been around for a long time.

As I said, I've been in the industry for 20 years, and AV testing is nothing new. And it's not, but it's a staple of product management. It's a staple of product marketing.

And it really can kind of take the, the user segmentation that we just talked about to the next level. Machine learning and algorithms can help not just determine which feature is performing better, as I mentioned, but also how were those different user segments that they determined and that they've identified how are they interacting with the technology. And the third one is churn prediction.

It's definitely more cost effective to market to and retain customers than it is to attract new customers. Every organization has percentages of both, especially from a marketing standpoint, but it's really important to understand from a PM standpoint and a marketing standpoint, who's churning, who's likely to churn, why, what is it that we can do feature-wise? So we'll start reducing and dialing down that churn.

Maybe it's introducing new engagement models or customer support. So data science as a foundation for product management in alignment with marketing goes a long way to, to really helping companies become and delivering what customers want, which is that lifetime value. Excellent.

Excellent. You know, what about digital twinning, right? For product?

I, I, I just, it came to me while I was listening to you, Lisa, I've been doing a lot of interviews lately with some companies that, some big companies, I think Siemens, for instance, right, has created this whole digital twin sort of platform where you can take your physical product, a boat eventually, and you create a digital twin of it and see how it'll react in different sort of weather conditions or sea conditions. For instance, I, I wonder if we haven't thought about digital twinning products into some sort of, you know, virtual environment. And, and that's A great idea To see what they, I think for Security.

Yeah, that would be amazing To see, oh, that would be great for security, right? Because you could set up your whole environment, drop this in there, and mm-hmm. And, and play it out.

Think, I think we've seen people doing that, especially like on high end products, whether it's, for example, an aircraft engine or something like that, where there's millions of dollars. But I'm not quite clear that digital twinning has gotten cheap enough for everybody to go use for product Develop. I I, I think it has, I think it, it, it may not be cheap enough for, you know, a lower level software product, but I, I think the technology for digital twinning and creating that virtual environment to play in sandbox, if you will, I think someone already took that name.

Um, but I think I, I think it's, it's cheaper than ever. It's cheaper than ever and every day it's getting cheaper with, with AI and, and machine learning and stuff like this. Well, not to make AI agents the solution to everything, but if you dig down into kind of what, what are AI agents and what are the different types and kinds and, um, actually have a, a brief coming out soon.

I'll plug it when it, when it comes out. But if you look at it, you know, there are, there are AI agents that are reactive to triggers and things happening in the environment, like an image or a light source changing. There's also goal oriented, there's utility oriented.

Um, they're learning agents, which would be something that might enhance or maybe even replace what a digital twin knows. And then there's hybrids of these, and of course multi-agent from, from the same or different providers. So I think, Alan, you know what intrigued me about your comment too is that AI agents could potentially be part of that digital twin, whether it's technically representing it that way or it's just representing it through the data that it gathers and the inferences that it makes.

So, you know, when I, instead of just presenting us with information for here's the flights and hotel availability and book, all that, but take into account my calendar and my workload, what's kind of pending for to potential invites, the travel time, my preferences, personalize all of that for me, um, and then deal with all the changes that happen in my environment instead of me dealing with all that information and taking action on it. I love it. I mean, I'll, I'll tell you something.

I, uh, I was planning a trip and I went into, I, I, one of the ais, I, I use a, I use a lot of the different ais that I'd like to see the differences. And I said, gimme a three day itinerary to go, or four day itinerary to go here and there. And it laid out a beautiful itinerary better than anything I would get from Froms or something like that.

And, you know, I, I just, for, just because I'm crazy like this, I said, okay, go make my reservations at these restaurants and pull up the flights and, you know, let's buck them. And you know, the AI very politely told me, you know, Jack off. And he said, we, we, we don't, we don't do that.

We don't do that. I Don't have that feature on my Ai, that's not my job. That's not my job.

Um, but I thought to myself, wouldn't it be great if it was, you know, and I mean, tell me, Mitch, tell me you're the AI agent, man. Um, are we, am I gonna be able to do that soon because that would, that, that would put the cherry on my Sunday, right? I, I think that's, to me, one of the potentials, the real value of AI agents is not presenting us with more information, which, which what, what AI did for you, right?

It gave you a really good itinerary, which is super, that's very valuable. And to your point, the need is, well, I don't wanna, now how do I execute on that There 12 things in there, go do 'em. Yeah, Exactly.

I want you to do those things for me. And that's gonna take AI agents talking to others, both AI agents, but also traditional systems back in, Back to the software integration problems, Services making the payment. Exactly.

Back to the integration. So, um, you know, when Satya Nadal said that, uh, SaaS is gone, it's all gonna be agents. I think it's a hybrid world where we see agents talking to traditional services and systems, APIs, et cetera, to accomplish it.

That that's the world I wanna live in, where you can say, make it so it would be Captain Picard If you do that. You gotta go like that. Which one you say it Make it.

So, And let me ask you something about all this. Do you think that the pace at which products are rolled out and updated is gonna accelerate as a result of all of this? And we might have a new product launch every three months, or will it go the other way where we're just adding new features to everything constantly and there isn't such a thing as a product launch because, well, there was the first launch and now everything's just an update.

I definitely think the features, I think features are a lower lift. I think features have a quicker opportunity for revenue. There're, you know, taking advantage of money already have coming in, you add a little bit more to that income stream versus trying to go get a new one.

Um, and I think it's less jarring. I think whatever, whatever is the easiest way to take the money is the way it's gonna happen. And yeah, and the way, the way that this works is if you slowly stack it up, right?

Like we watch these services slowly add little features and then they hike up the price and it's $2, $3 at a time. And, and so I think that's probably what we're gonna see. Um, especially, I think You're already seeing it.

Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it's gonna get more subtle and the prices are, the increments will get smaller, but the the, it's gonna happen. The prices will go up.

I Mean, look, look, not to segue into our next block and talk about phones, but for most of the world, even for most of us in the tech industry, our biggest, the, the applications we interact with the most live on our phones. I, I don't know about you, but I, I think I have over a hundred AppSec on my phone. I'm, I'm crazy Easily, But I've got over a hundred AppSec on my phone.

Every single one of those AppSec is being updated, if not daily, at least weekly. I think I, we don't pay attention. We've become numb.

And I don't know if that's a good thing, but we've become numb to the constant continuous update. And I couldn't tell you what version of this app that I'm running, surprisingly, I can't tell you what version of iOS, for instance I'm running or what version of Mac Os or, but even Windows, right? I mean, it used to be a big deal when, when Windows would upgrade from, you know, windows 95 to 98 to Emmy or whatever, you know, and we have Windows 10 and Windows 11, but think about all the incremental upgrades that take place in Windows or, or your Mac or your phone, whether it's Android or whatever.

We don't even pay attention to them. We're desensitized to it. That To point, that's what happened with Apple and Intelligence, right?

Yeah. It wasn't a big OS Drop, not at all, Right? Incrementally.

And that got added and we're still seeing new features roll out in small, Small release, right? Not since the launch of OS 10 has, apple had something that dramatic and that different, that caught everybody's hearts and minds, But you had to sign up for a beta to use it, right? How many, I'm still on the beta cycles and I still don't necessarily know how great this Apple intelligence is to tell you the truth, other than the little thing that makes cartoon pictures, um, you know, and you get those pretty neon light around it.

I'm, I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm, I'm, I'm buying it, but that we'll save that for the next block. We'll save it for the next block. Anything else on, on, uh, product development though?

In, in the AI world? I think that, um, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Mitch.

Okay. No, no, no. I was gonna say from a, from a kind of customer perspective, there's some, this article had some great examples of Airbnb and Amazon, and I always kind of default to Amazon.

I don't do a lot of Airbnb myself, but there's so much data that's collected and we have this expectation in our consumer lives that bleeds in, and I talk about this all the time to where business lags, where things like Amazon are gonna use AI to make predictions based on past behaviors we've done in a non-creepy way. There's a line there, maybe it's dotted, but we have that expectation that the experience will be seamless. They're going to, they're going to serve me up relevant information so I can make a buying decision because the better the customer experience and PM and marketing have a lot to do with that, the more sales go up, the more revenue comes into economy.

So I think the integration p the data science piece foundationally, is really critical for that customer experience delivering the value that customers ultimately expect. So let me give you, let me give you an Amazon gone wrong real life story on that, Lisa. So I, I have, I have the big 15 inch Alexa screen in our kitchen that I use as like a, a digital center from my home.

And if you guys have all used Alexa, you know, and you get a notification from Amazon, it blinks yellow or you get a yellow light around it. I don't know how much you guys use it, but I get a notification. I said, hello Alexa, what's my notification?

Hello Alan. Good afternoon, Alan. A product you're following has been reduced $3.

I said, what product Alexa? Well, it's the, I don't know, the Dough wa or cat bed, rabbit Hutch, cat Tree. They started giving me all these products.

I don't have rabbits, I don't have cats. I don't know where the hell it got it from. Oh, so I, I, I said, uh, Alexa, I'm not interested in this.

Please take it off my, my list. Oh, would you like to me to add this to your list? I said, no, take it off my list.

So AI gone wrong. I bought a dog bed one time a year ago, and now it's trying to gimme every animal hutch in bed that they've got over there. Guess the lesson is don't doom cra don't doom cra rabbits.

No. Well, I'm, I'm trying to take it off. It won't let me take it off.

Yeah. And It won't. Interesting.

That is a good example of AI gone wrong. I don't have an Alexa because I, I have Siri and that's enough. It's listening.

I have a dog named Claire and I call her Clary Siri pops up probably we'll do it right now. Um, but so I don't have the Alexa experience and so I'm, I'm old fashioned Alan, where I'm on the Amazon website or I'm on the app and I have good experiences where surfing up relevant information. But you make up a good point is where is it getting that information that surfing you up wrong, irrelevant content.

That's a Question you, but don't assume that it was you that did it. Anyone that shared a computer or you know, a phone that was near your phone and your GPSs were turned on, your phones are talking. So someone close to you geographically on their phone could have bought it.

Someone could have used a shared computer. If you and your spouse share a login, don't assume that it was you that did it because your data's getting creeped from all I'm going home and asking Bonnie if she's been searching for Rabbit hutches, You might be getting a new rabbit. Maybe We're getting wanna think Happy birthday Rabbit, don't die Alexa 20 times.

'cause I don't know what I'm gonna show up on my Alexa now. It's, it, It's getting crazy. I'll tell you, I was, we have this attic and there's a ladder that goes up in the attic and I had it down the other day and sure enough, an email pops up asking me, you know, am I interested in these awesome new attic ladders?

And I'm like, I didn't even talk about it. I didn't mention it in some sort of video. Captured something somewhere.

And it was just kind of weird. Wow. Yep, yep.

That's crazy. It is. Again, it didn't have to be you, it didn't have to be your phone, your, your spouse's phone, a friend's phone, someone in the vicinity, your neighbor that was your phone was near their phone.

They're, they're having a conversation whether you realize it or not. Scary world. It's a scary world.

Well, alright, let's take a break here on Textron Gang 'cause we're over time on this block. We're gonna stay on that phone theme. Coming back at you though.

You're watching Textron Gang. All Right. As we were talking about earlier, yeah, this whole Samsung versus Apple thing continues to play out.

The latest is the fight over ai and Samsung has a new phone out there talking about how it can access external LLMs and, and have Bixby on your phone. And whether these two things are actually talking to each other is a mystery to me. But Anne, what is your take on what's going on here with Samsung Apple ai?

It seems like, you know, it it, it's a boxing match. Oh, absolutely it is. I mean, these are two players competing on a level that most can't and don't, um, I should say that I am X apple.

This is the only big company I ever worked for, and Samsung has been my client for almost a decade and, and has been very good to me. So I have love for both companies. So I say this from a place of love.

I do think Samsung's phones are absolutely more innovative. I will say that because I am an Android user through and through, I've used Android phones, um, as a majority phone for a long time because of the amount of control power it gets. These s 25 series, galaxy phones have a boost of, of AI features that I think have been unseen as of yet because they have cross app experiences and integration with GI or I'm sorry, Gemini, Google's ai, uh, to perform tasks across multiple AppSec.

So I think we're gonna see sort of more active assistance coming from these phones, especially for things like calendar events, sort of more like an actual assistant, which we haven't really seen from these phones yet. Um, they also have improvements to existing features like the gallery AppSec circle to search sort of the, the things we've seen on Google Pixel phones and other things. It's, it's catching it up, but it has the new Qualcomm Snapdragon eight, uh, chip set.

And so from a hardware perspective is gonna be tough to beat. Um, I would say if you're looking at sort of the core features when you're looking at an Apple phone, you're using Chachi BT as your third party AI integrator, right? And now with Galaxy, you are looking at Google, so it's not really truly Samsung versus Apple as much as it is Chachi, BT or Samsung, sorry, versus Chachi, BT, and Google.

I mean, it's, it's, it's the alliances within, uh, these two that I think makes it really interesting. So I think making a choice as a consumer, if you value privacy integration and a subtle sort of AI experience where it's not so much in your face, apple is your best choice, I think Galaxy makes sense. If you want more features cross crossing between AppSec, uh, multiple devices, live translation, um, and you don't mind the AI feeling and presence and watching it and having it feel a part of your experience, I think, uh, galaxy AI is definitely your your choice.

Yeah. Thi this, this is interesting. I remember when the, when Samsung or Apple used to make an announcement, it always was hardware heavy.

Now we're seeing beginning last year with Samsung, now the sign is the smartphone makers are, are leaning on AI to make their phones stand out. I think Galaxy AI last year was the big focus and, and I think now, but instead of focusing on individual AI powered features like generative edits, uh, Samsung's incorporating AI into its phones on a more fundamental level. And in a sense, you know, as part of the settings and, um, it, it's interesting because in a sense, a this stands out and, and when you compare it with Apple, um, apple is kind of slowly rolling this out and there is a genuine concern, not just on Wall Street, but in, I think within Apple, the stocks get been hammered lately among concerns about iPhone sales tapering off.

And there's a lot of attention being set on what impact, if any, apple intelligence will have. I I don't think it will immediately. I think it's gonna happen probably later in the year as more of these features become available, but it is part of the story and for years and and knows as, as well as anybody, Samsung was in a weird way chasing Apple or dueling for the top spot in smartphone sales rarely got the buzz that Apple did, even though it's feature sets were better probably.

And um, now it's in a sense kind of leapfrogged Apple and it will be interesting to see what Apple does when it rolls out the new AI features and what impact they might have at all. What I, yes, you're absolutely right. I think Samsung has gotten less, uh, fanfare.

I think they've gotten less media attention or they are quietly making these beautiful screens beautiful products. I think they both make beautiful products, but I do think Samsung has been short shifted in the press. I do also think that, you know, when it comes down to it, someone's getting the bill, someone always gets the bill, right?

So who's getting the bill for this new intelligence that we know they're spending billions building? I think Apple is gonna do probably a freemium model. They're gonna have paid tiers because that's what they do.

Ai, I think we're gonna see free access. I, I think for now at least. And so that's gonna be something consumers will notice.

But again, how are they gonna monetize all of this? I think right now we're in the wild, wild west, let's get 'em hooked sort of phase. But eventually I think you're gonna expect to see subscription costs for this and it will be, you know, something you're expected to pay for, not just the hardware of the phone or the service with your provider.

That change, oh, Go ahead. Sorry Mike, go ahead. Do you have a sense whether people actually switch phones when these announcements come, or are we all like Apple people and Samsung people and we're just along for the ride?

Most People are sellers. I, I would say there's such a thing as digital tribalism and I have been berated for being a primary Android user. I will tell you, I secretly also use my secret phone as an iPhone, and that's just so I can stay up on all features.

And when startups come to me a lot of the time, they don't have an Android app yet. So I have to have both and I have to be fluent in both. But I prefer Android and I get so much grief for that from Apple people.

'cause they're like, your text, you're green, you can't do this thing. And it's like, why do you care what color my text is? But it's a very real thing where, where the more you get locked into Apple, and the reason I use a Mac, I have an iPad, the reason that I don't use a primary Apple phone is that I can't give them everything and I won't give them everything.

I won't give one company everything because once you're in, you can't get out. Once all your stuff's in iCloud, you can't get out and I just can't let 'em have it. Lisa, you wanna Add to that?

I was just gonna ask kind of question and, and and you, but you really answered it. Like from a, from a a cost perspective as you know, if, if the Apple model like you talked about is becomes subscription to use more AI features and it's baked into Samsung, how likely are from a customer behavior perspective, is that likely to influence? I don't, I think you bring up a great point.

We're so locked in. I am Apple, everything, even Apple tv. Um, I wouldn't switch.

I know how to use this. I know how to operate it. Um, and I think even though it's, it's an arms race right?

Feature for not, not really feature for feature, but the Apple folks are gonna remain the Apple folks, the Samsung folks are gonna remain, remain the Samsung folks. And I think we're gonna continue to see that jockeying for market share globally because I I just think consumers are, once behavior is set, it's really hard to change it. Absolutely.

I think the only thing I see changing it is the cost of hardware because iPhones have gotten exorbitant. Um, yes. And and I think that that is something that, uh, younger people are maybe less concerned about.

Um, so, but, but People Don't feel the cost switch. People don't feel the cost of the phones because it's wrapped into your, your carrier subscription often, right? If you upgrade you line sign on two years, they, they don't know the difference.

But, but here's, here's my take. I can't wait to see this year's WrestleMania and these two heavyweights go at it in a, in a, uh, cage. The cage death match here, here's the facts.

At the end of the day in this corner, you've got Apple OpenAI and Microsoft, and in this corner you've got Samsung and Google, right? And, and it's funny, it's the same fight over that we saw in the PC wars and the browser wars and you know, is the Qualcomm series eight Snapdragon as good as, what's the new iPhone 16? Is it the A 20, the a 18 whatever it optimized for AI right there?

There's at every step of the way here, the these two get it go at it. What's interesting is because it's Google though, you do have an integrated suite of, of pro of, you know, work products, right? Google, whatever they call it workspace that is now integrating that AI that integrates right into the phone system.

Where on the other side you have OpenAI, which is not really part of Microsoft, but sort of part of Microsoft, not really part of Apple, but sort of part of Apple. Hey, if we had a real, you know, FTC that was looking at monopolistic practices, I think Google's in trouble frankly. But that, that being said, I don't know if they're ever gonna be able to charge this for these things because I'm telling you it's going to be table stakes.

It's going to be table stakes. Well, They're gonna charge, I guarantee you they may hide it, but they will have to, somebody's gonna always get the bill for all of this r and d all of the expense of maintaining this infrastructure that is needed. Whoever's coming up with the 500 billion will pay this too.

We missed you on that stigma, Alan. Oh, I, well let me, all right. I'm glad you said that because let me bring it up.

If you didn't catch it yesterday, I started a new LinkedIn live little video series called Shimmy Says, and I talked about this on Shimmy says, I thought so though. It's not live. You can go get it on LinkedIn, it'll probably be on YouTube shorts and you and uh, TikTok if we're still allowed to do TikTok, uh, TikTok is, well it's Shimmy says, and I, I spoke about the, this, this 500 billion, that's Stargate.

I I've got Stargate in my, in my brain. Yeah, it was, that was, I loved all of the Stargate iterations, but um, anyway, yes, someone's paying for it. Look, those tech bros didn't invest all that money for nothing, that's for sure.

Yep. Good Point. Um, do we have anything else Mr.

Vard? No, uh, well I Just wanted to show of hands, like, so who is Apple on this particular group Here? And I I used to be an appler With I'm raising half hand, like I'm raising a half hand because I do technically have an nice, well, But it's only your secret phone.

I wonder what people do with a secret phone. You said that. I'm Thinking Oh, all kinds of stuff.

I Don't know. Look, this is a family show. There's a family show we may not want share it.

Oh no, I, I will say I have very, I, I handle sensitive information for my clients, so I'm not gonna put anything Facebook on the same phone that handle really my work. Yeah, absolutely. Good for you.

I didn't realize the level of paranoia had reached that. Hi, but that's pretty cool. Maybe Apple would, well I think Paranoia, I say caution.

Yeah. Good, Good. So that, so that makes me the only, that makes me the only Samsung person on this.

Well, No, and I just recently got a Google, I, I've been Samsung up until this last phone. I I tried the Google Pixel 'cause I figured, ah, my whole life's Google anyway. Why don't I just see what we, whatever.

I will never get another one. I'm unlike Lisa, I have Apple tv, I've got my watch, my phone, my Mac, my iPads. The only thing, The only thing, the only thing I'm ever really jealous of on the Apple side is that yeah, Siri is a much better experience than Bixby ever will be.

And Bixby is just Not too Bixby Is Bixby is the Google sir Going away version of one way though. Bix Is going away. Yeah, yeah.

In the, in the new phone. Uh, it's Ai which is gonna be based on Gemini. Well, wait, no, they still chance They still have both.

They hire and you're supposed to figure out which one to use and Bixby iss an idiot. So I don't know. Yeah, but they say b uh, over time Google is gonna replace what Bixby does.

So eventually they're probably gonna be gone. John, you wanted to say something? Oh, No, no.

I, I, I, I tried Google Pixel. Actually, you know, the weird thing is I can't use a Macintosh or an I an iPad or, or desktop is completely pc. I will, I just refuse to go back 'cause it's so counterintuitive to me.

I used to write for Apple Trade Magazine and so the phone is just, oh, hello. The phone is just, you know, that I, I'll always stick with it. Hmm.

Go figure. Anyway, I biased. We will see how this plays out.

I, I think thanks For joining our consumer focus group here on Textron Gang. You Know what, maybe we could do this for the, for product development. We could be a focus group.

We're Available, right? We're available. We're the digital twins.

Okay. Um, hey, this is a great Textron gang. We've got a full day of Friday Textron tv following it.

Do check out my shimmy says show. I'm interested to hear what you say. And next Thursday at two 30 you can join me live on LinkedIn if you want to participate in that.

Um, but until then, have a great weekend, everyone enjoy it. I hope it's warmer or safer wherever you are and um, or colder I guess depending where you are. But, um, we'll be back Monday with more texture on Gang.

More fun. Until then, is Alan Shimel for Techstrong Wear Out.