Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

What made 2025 special? 🎊 We recorded this to publish after Christmas, but demand for year‑end reflections prompted an early release - so if you hear me say Christmas has passed, that’s why. 🎊 In this episode, I reflect on the past year and what it revealed: a K-shaped divide. On one track, AI models are now doing hours of high quality work, improving at exponential pace, and shifting how we work from doing to judging. On the other, organisations and the broader economy are struggling to keep up. Stay to the end for my seasonal film recommendation.

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2025

In this episode, I’ve distilled a year of extraordinary dialogue into one 20-minute briefing. I’ve spent 2025 in conversation with the architects of our future - the builders and thinkers redefining AI, energy, and the global economy. These are the "eureka" moments from my most exclusive interviews. From the future of "protopia" with Kevin Kelly to the hidden tech gaps with Dan Wang, this is your strategic roadmap for the exponential age.

Transcribed - Published: 19 December 2025

In this episode, I look at the next 24 months of AI. The technology is improving rapidly – so what could hold back widespread transformation of how we work and live? I dig into the real constraints, from electricity shortages to institutional inertia, why mid-2026 matters for enterprise AI, and why so many people remain uneasy about a technology they use every day.

Transcribed - Published: 10 December 2025

In this episode, I reflect on the third anniversary of ChatGPT's launch as a marker of where we are in the exponential age. As a product, ChatGPT captures the speed of technological progress, the new behaviours emerging around it and the widening gap between innovation and institutional change – all symptomatic of the era I called the exponential age in my 2021 book.

Transcribed - Published: 5 December 2025

The AI industry is sending mixed signals, with markets turning red while teams report real productivity gains. In this session I explore why we are living in a split reality, where individuals move faster with these tools but the wider economy is ambivalent. We once assumed juniors would get the biggest lift from AI, yet the newer agentic tools seem to reward senior workers who know how to structure problems and judge output.

Transcribed - Published: 21 November 2025

Junior roles in AI-exposed fields are disappearing fast. The obvious culprit is AI rapidly automating entry-level jobs. And yet, this isn't quite right. What is driving the drop is managers’ expectations about what AI will do, not the work that it's already replacing. I discussed this with Ben Zweig of Revelio Labs, which builds global workforce data from millions of individual profiles to track hiring, separations and job flows. Together, we explored the future of work and shared practical advice for new grads.

Transcribed - Published: 14 November 2025

The AI boom isn’t just about chatbots. In this video, I explain why cloud companies and chipmakers are exploding in value: we’re moving into an economy where computation becomes a fundamental input – like steel, electricity or oil. If that’s true, our demand for compute could approach infinity.

Transcribed - Published: 7 November 2025

In this episode, I speak with Jordan Schneider, creator of Chinatalk, to explore the new phase of US–China competition. Both countries are using trade policy, export controls and industrial strategy to shift the balance of global power. Yet, their economies remain tightly bound.

Transcribed - Published: 23 October 2025

This conversation is a practical map of how AI “answer engines” upend the web’s traffic-funded model – and what could replace it. Matthew Prince (co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare) joins Azeem to discuss scarcity, pricing, and why unique, trustworthy content becomes the premium input to AI.

Transcribed - Published: 8 October 2025

In this episode, I spoke with Dan Wang, author of “Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future”. We unpacked a bold thesis: China is not merely a competitor in AI and tech, but is re-imagining its entire state apparatus as an engineering state - in contrast to the more “lawyerly” institutions of the US and UK.

Transcribed - Published: 1 October 2025

Is AI in a bubble or a boom? I spent hundreds of hours figuring this out. Today I present a practical five-gauge framework to benchmark today’s AI frenzy against history’s bubbles, from railways to dot-coms. A clear, data-driven guide for investors and decision-makers.

Transcribed - Published: 25 September 2025

GPT-5 was the most advanced AI when it was released, but most people were disappointed. Why? In this episode, I unpack the two key paradoxes that shape how we judge new technology: shifting goalposts and negative space.

Transcribed - Published: 24 September 2025

Can AI stocks beat Big Tech? In this episode, I discuss OpenAI and its decision to expand a secondary share sale that lets insiders sell about $10.3 billion of stock at roughly a $500 billion valuation. Although skeptical at first, the calculations reveal there is a path for OpenAI to deliver outsized returns.

Transcribed - Published: 10 September 2025

This is the single most important paper to come out in tech in recent weeks. Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar and Ruyu Chen investigated whether generative AI is leading to job losses in roles most exposed to AI – and how these effects differ by age and the way AI is used. In this episode, I break down these results and their implications.

Transcribed - Published: 5 September 2025

Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, led one of the first major content licensing deals with OpenAI in 2024. In this conversation, he joins Azeem to unpack how AI is transforming media – and what that means for every business navigating the shifting economics of attention, trust, and discovery.

Transcribed - Published: 24 July 2025

At the start of the year, I made seven predictions about how 2025 would unfold. Six months in, it's time to mark my own work. From AI capability breakthroughs to autonomous vehicles, climate extremes to workforce transformation, I examine what I got right, what I missed, and why the 2027-2028 period will be when vertical AI hits the real economy in force.

Transcribed - Published: 9 July 2025

In this episode, I reflect on a whirlwind three-day visit to China - my first in over 20 years. And what I saw was remarkable. The infrastructure puts most of the West to shame. The AI isn't just hype - it's working at serious scale. And the electric vehicles? They're about to steamroll the global auto industry. Here's what really struck me during my whirlwind trip to Beijing and beyond.

Transcribed - Published: 2 July 2025

Broadcasting live from Paris, I tackle three massive technology stories that are reshaping our digital future. From Apple's stunning interface redesign to the collapse of traditional search advertising, and Sam Altman's vision of an AI singularity that's already begun - this episode captures the tectonic shifts happening in tech right now.

Transcribed - Published: 18 June 2025

This week, I'm speaking with Kevin Weil, Chief Product Officer at OpenAI, who is steering product development at what might be the world's most important company right now.

Transcribed - Published: 10 June 2025

Economist and polymath Tyler Cowen challenges Silicon Valley's optimistic projections about AI-driven economic growth. We explore what could slow down AI's economic impact, despite its remarkable capabilities – and where humans find the new normal amidst major shifts.

Transcribed - Published: 4 June 2025

Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, joins Azeem to explore how AI is fundamentally transforming software development.

Transcribed - Published: 28 May 2025

Aaron Levie, CEO & co-founder of Box, joins Azeem Azhar to explore how an “AI-first” mindset is reshaping every layer of Box – from product road-maps to pricing – and what that teaches the rest of us about building faster, smarter organisations.

Transcribed - Published: 21 May 2025

Lennart Heim, a researcher and information scientist at RAND Corporation, joins Azeem Azhar to unpack a provocative claim: China is catching up with US AI capabilities, but it doesn't matter.

Transcribed - Published: 14 May 2025

Greg Jackson, CEO of Octopus Energy, joins Azeem to discuss the Iberian blackout and how we can create a more stable, flexible, and resilient energy grid for the future.

Transcribed - Published: 7 May 2025

Physicist and entrepreneur Steve Hsu, whose startup Superfocus tackles hallucination problems in large language models, joins Azeem to discuss AI agents, hallucination challenges and what happens when technology meets labor markets.

Transcribed - Published: 30 April 2025

Sir Niall Ferguson, renowned historian and Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, joins Azeem Azhar to discuss the evolving relationship between the U.S. and China, Trump's foreign policy doctrine, and what the new global economic and security order might look like.

Transcribed - Published: 23 April 2025

In this episode, Azeem Azhar speaks with Ryan Petersen, CEO and founder of logistics platform Flexport, about the current state of global trade amidst escalating tariffs, geopolitical tensions, and technological disruption. Ryan offers unique insights from the frontlines of the US-China trade war and explores how businesses are adapting to a rapidly changing landscape.

Transcribed - Published: 16 April 2025

Azeem Azhar welcomes Packy McCormick, founder and investor at Not Boring, to discuss the current tech landscape – reflections on Web3, why bits and atoms are cool again and how AI and energy are reshaping the world as we know it.

Transcribed - Published: 10 April 2025

Anthropic's co-founder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan discusses AI's rapid evolution, the shorter-than-expected timeline to human-level AI, and how Claude's "thinking time" feature represents a new frontier in AI reasoning capabilities.

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2025

Anthropic's co-founder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan discusses AI's rapid evolution, the shorter-than-expected timeline to human-level AI, and how Claude's "thinking time" feature represents a new frontier in AI reasoning capabilities.

Transcribed - Published: 1 April 2025

Kevin Kelly is a co-founder of Wired Magazine and a renowned author and futurist. Decades ago, Kevin predicted much of today's technological and cultural landscape. In this discussion, he presents his new bold vision for what’s coming next: The Handoff to Bots.

Transcribed - Published: 19 March 2025

Kai-Fu Lee joins me to discuss AI in 2025. Kai-Fu is a storied AI researcher, investor, inventor and entrepreneur based in Taiwan. As one of the leading AI experts based in Asia, I wanted to get his take on this particular market.

Transcribed - Published: 2 January 2025

Nathan Benaich, Founder and General Partner of Air Street Capital, joins me to discuss AI in 2025. From runaway consumer adoption to evolving enterprise moats, from still-elusive AI-driven drug breakthroughs to the renewed vigour in robotics, several core themes stood out.

Transcribed - Published: 26 December 2024

Dylan Patel, founder of SemiAnalysis and one of my go-to experts on semiconductors and data center infrastructure joins me to discuss AI in 2025. Several key themes emerged about where AI might be headed in 2025: (1) The hyperscalers are racing ahead in capital expenditure, (2) The expected explosion in AI workloads is drawing in a wave of new specialized GPU cloud providers, (3) By 2027, AI data centers alone could account for 10% or more of total US electricity consumption, straining America’s aging infrastructure, (4) Open-source variants like Llama 3.1 are driving commoditization at speed, slicing away the profit margins of plain-vanilla model-serving.

Transcribed - Published: 23 December 2024

Transcribed - Published: 28 November 2024

Azeem Azhar is joined by Richard Socher, CEO and founder of You.com, an AI chatbot search engine at the forefront of truthful and verifiable AI. They explore approaches to building AI systems that are both truthful and verifiable. The conversation sheds light on the critical breakthroughs in AI, the technical challenges of ensuring AI's reliability, and Socher's vision for the future of search.

Transcribed - Published: 7 February 2024

As 2024 begins, leaders are facing increasing uncertainty and a host of difficult decisions. Azeem Azhar returns to bring clarity amid a complicated information landscape, with his analysis of 12 core themes that will shape the year ahead, including AI adoption, geopolitics, decentralization, the energy transition, and more.

Transcribed - Published: 31 January 2024

Generative AI has a lot to offer health care professionals and medical scientists. This week, host Azeem Azhar speaks with renowned cardiologist, scientist, and author Eric Topol about the change he’s observed among his colleagues in the last two years, as generative AI developments have accelerated in medicine.

Transcribed - Published: 17 January 2024

In this conversation, Azeem Azhar speaks with climate lead at Hugging Face, Sasha Luccioni, to shed light on the environmental footprint of AI, the pressing issues in AI deployment, and the potential paths to a more ethical and sustainable AI future.

Transcribed - Published: 10 January 2024

AI is enabling new strides in autonomous driving. In this episode, Azeem Azhar joins the co-founder and CEO of Wayve, Alex Kendall, to explore how the AI revolution is opening new market opportunities for the auto industry. Wayve is a UK-based start-up that makes AI technology for self-driving vehicles.

Transcribed - Published: 27 December 2023

Organizations across the world have been grappling with the opportunities and challenges of generative AI. In this episode, Azeem Azhar joins AI pioneer and entrepreneur Andrew Ng to debate whether we’re at an inflection point in the AI revolution.

Transcribed - Published: 20 December 2023

Azeem Azhar speaks with Aravind Srinivas, the co-founder and CEO of Perplexity.ai, about the looming challenges in AI research and product development, such as user-centric design and the importance of open-source models.

Transcribed - Published: 13 December 2023

The upheaval at OpenAI sent shockwaves through the tech world. Karen Hao, a contributing writer who covers AI at The Atlantic, joins Azeem Azhar to break down the ideologies and power struggles within OpenAI and their implications for the development of artificial intelligence. She also explains how these internal conflicts reflect broader challenges in AI development and governance.

Transcribed - Published: 6 December 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem Azhar picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s 2020 conversation with the pioneering AI scientist Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science at Stanford University and the founding co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute.

Transcribed - Published: 29 November 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s 2021 conversation with veteran AI scientist Murray Shanahan, professor of cognitive robotics at Imperial College London and principal scientist at DeepMind.

Transcribed - Published: 22 November 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Joanna Bryson, a leading expert on the questions of AI governance and the impact of technology on human cooperation.

Transcribed - Published: 15 November 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation. Meredith is a co-founder and chief advisor of the AI Now Institute, an independent research group looking at the social impact of artificial intelligence.

Transcribed - Published: 8 November 2023

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is on every business leader’s agenda. How do you ensure the AI systems you deploy are harmless and trustworthy? This month, Azeem picks some of his favorite conversations with leading AI safety experts to help you break through the noise. Today’s pick is Azeem’s conversation with Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, a pioneer in the field of applied algorithmic ethics. She runs Parity Consulting, the Parity Responsible Innovation Fund, and she’s a Responsible AI Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

Transcribed - Published: 1 November 2023

As exponential technologies like artificial intelligence march on, the ability to make future-proof decisions is all the more important for leaders. Azeem Azhar’s new TV show and podcast, Exponentially with Azeem Azhar, goes beyond mainstream conversations about technology to explore new ways of thinking about our collective future. Guests include: Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Vinod Khosla.

Transcribed - Published: 7 September 2023

In his brief commentary, Azeem Azhar discusses the increasing complexity and capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and the transformative potential they hold.

Transcribed - Published: 26 May 2023