Position2 Inc

05/07/2026

Is "Empathy" a red herring in the AI era?

We're told that as AI takes over technical tasks, humans need to lean into "soft skills." But Neil Shepherd argues that leaning solely on empathy is a trap. In 2026, AI agents are already proving to be better at unbiased performance feedback and conflict resolution than many human managers.

So, what is actually left for the leader?
Amit Malhotra suggests a shift in mindset:

- Treat agents like interns: Be a "dictator" to your AI agents—give clear, concise, and lawful orders focused on intent.

- Be a "human" to your team: Use reclaimed time not for more "decks," but for high-stakes psychological mediation and solving "unsolvable" human problems.

Leadership in the age of AI isn't about being "nice"—it's about applying judgment with tacit information that a model simply doesn't have.

Check out the episode: https://bit.ly/4tgOz7N

So I actually think that for some of the really advanced high IQ jobs, they're going to get a hit a lot faster because the arbitrage between the labor cost of skilled labor and what a model can do is going to be so visible.

05/05/2026

The "Unlock of the Curious": Why the tinkerers are winning the AI race.

In the latest episode, Amit Malhotra and Neil Shepherd discuss a strange phenomenon: People who are sophisticated AI users in their personal lives (planning vacations) often have a "mental block" against using it at work.

The winners of the next five years aren't necessarily the ones with the most technical degrees—they're the 'tinkerers.'

Why does tinkering matter now?

▪️The "Individual Contributor++": You aren't a "doer" anymore; you're an orchestrator of agents.

▪️Reclaiming the 20%: AI takes care of the "build systems" and "make-files," allowing experts to go back to what they love—solving the actual problem.

As Neil puts it, "Don't chase what peer pressure brings you to, chase what's true to you."

Full episode here: https://bit.ly/4tfh2uy

So I actually think that for some of the really advanced high IQ jobs, they're going to get a hit a lot faster because the arbitrage between the labor cost of skilled labor and what a model can do is going to be so visible.

04/30/2026

Will AI agents replace the CMO by 2026?

The latest Spark of Ages podcast featured a "hot take" session with Nicole Fuselier and Randi Barshack, and their perspective on autonomous marketing was a much-needed reality check.

The prediction: AI will research, create, and deploy campaigns without humans.
The verdict: A hard "No."

Why?

▪️The "Vanilla" Trap: Randi warns that without human intervention, AI outputs tend to fall toward the middle. Great marketing requires taking risks and going to "the edge"—something AI isn't yet programmed to do.

▪️The Fact-Check Gap: Nicole emphasizes that while AI removes the "simple tasks," humans are still required for strategic sourcing and factual accuracy.

▪️The "Cute Robot" Factor: In physical AI (like Dusty Robotics), storytelling is about humanity—packaging technology so it isn't threatening. You can't prompt "human empathy" into a vacuum.

AI is the engine, but the "spark" still belongs to us.

Listen to the episode here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H0595dn0

Great marketing, in my opinion, is sort of about the magic when creativity and process come together. So it's great storytelling and creative ideas and thinking that will gain you attention combined with the rigor of revenue marketing and the metrics.

04/28/2026

Great marketing is a Rube Goldberg machine.

We hosted an incredible roundtable on the Spark of Ages podcast with Nicole Fuselier (SambaNova) and Randi Barshack (Dusty Robotics). They hit on a tension every marketer feels: the struggle between "the magic" and "the metrics."

Randi put it perfectly: Great marketing in 2026 isn't about new attributes—it's about the efficiency of the "What if?"

We often try to pigeonhole marketers into "Brand" or "Demand," but the truth is:

- Creativity gains attention.
- Process provides the rigor.
- Efficiency (powered by AI) accelerates the experiment.

If you're waiting for a "new" set of rules, you're missing the point. The core remains storytelling; the superpower is how fast you can iterate on that story.

The takeaway? Don't be a vitamin. Be a painkiller. 💊

Watch the full episode: https://na2.hubs.ly/H0593P60

5 likes, 1 comment. "Brand & Demand: The Marketing-Sales Marriage - Alignment, MQLs, Creativity ~ Spark of Ages Ep 61"

04/22/2026

Stop trying to manage AI governance, piece by piece.

The current approach to AI security is broken because companies are forced to manage visibility and governance separately for every individual tool they implement.

Current vendors push users into rigid, closed application structures, creating a management burden that most teams simply don't want to deal with. With the rapid launch of new AI models and applications, no business can afford to lock itself into a single ecosystem.

The future of AI governance is about centralized control that allows you to:

- Pick the right tool for the job.
- Implement granular permissions.
- Manage everything in one place.

Stop letting your AI stack become a governance nightmare. It's time to enable innovation through trusted, centralized control.

Watch the full episode: https://bit.ly/4cDcVSM

04/20/2026

Why is Enterprise AI ROI lagging?

The conversation around AI often focuses on the "chat" experience, but for many businesses, the results haven't quite lived up to the hype.

The problem?

Most AI products were designed as if we spent our entire day chatting with PhDs. That's not how the rest of us do our jobs. To truly see AI succeed in the enterprise, there are two missing pieces that must be addressed:

- Connectivity: Early AI lacked the ability to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.

- Trust: Without a foundation of trust, enterprise adoption remains a significant challenge.

This gap is similar to the early days of API management, where technology was "stuck in the data center" and inaccessible to the people actually running the business.

Watch the full episode: https://bit.ly/4cC9k7w

04/16/2026

2026: The Year of the AI Ultimatum.

Oren Michels issued a bold prediction on the Spark of Ages podcast: Every C-Suite will soon face a binary choice:

Keep AI read-only - miss out on massive ROI versus giving AI write access and face unprecedented risk.

The Solution? Purpose-built workflows with "Human in the Loop" (HITL) checkpoints.

A personal use case from Oren: Use an agent to summarize 100+ customer follow-ups, check Salesforce opportunities, and draft emails—all in 90 minutes.

That's not just automation; it's scalability.

How is your organization giving agents the "keys" to the database? Please feel free to drop a comment below.

https://apple.co/4tN0NFF

Podcast Episode · Spark of Ages · March 30 · 51m

04/15/2026

We spent 3 days in Park City with 30 Marketing Leaders.

No fluff. No surface-level trends. Just honest conversations about what’s actually changing.

The takeaway: the companies pulling ahead aren’t doing more, they’re pairing AI with human expertise and moving beyond the old model.

Swipe to see what we learned. →

04/14/2026

Why Enterprise AI ROI is failing (and how to fix it).

According to Oren Michels, founder of Barndoor AI, most enterprises are stuck in "Glorified Enterprise Search" mode.

The problem? The Trust Gap. When companies don't trust their security controls, they water down AI use cases until they are "safe"—meaning they stay in read-only mode.

The Insight: "If they're not allowed to write anything, they can't do anything terribly useful."

To unlock true ROI, we have to move from:
1. Who are you? (Identity-based access)
2. What are you trying to do? (Context & intent-based governance)

The future of the enterprise isn't just chatting with a PDF; it's giving agents "write access" to move needles, manage workflows, and execute tasks—all within a programmatic control plane.

Watch the full episode: https://bit.ly/4sF1RdX

Rajiv talks with Oren Michaels about why enterprise AI ROI stalls when tools live in chat and stay stuck in read-only mode. We break down how a control plane...

04/09/2026

Is it an apocalypse, or just a long-overdue right-sizing?

We just wrapped an incredible roundtable on the Spark of Ages podcast with Ankur Srivastava of Flywheel and Priya Ramachandran of Foster Ventures, and one word kept coming up: .

But here's the twist—it's not about software dying. It's about the "wild west" of AI costs finally meeting a savvier, more empathetic procurement process.

Key takeaways from the session:

▪️The FinOps Paradox: Traditional practices are failing because AI "inference costs" are volatile. We're moving from static licensing to a world of "token-metered economics."
▪️The FUID Solution: Ankur shared how Flywheel is cleaning up "F-dubbed" data (yes, he said it!) with their Universal ID to make cloud buying actually transactable.
▪️The Human Element: Despite the rise of "agentic buying," Priya reminded us that brand affinity and empathy can't be automated. People still buy from people.

The industrial revolution of our time is here, and it's being built on better data and better relationships.

Catch the full episode to hear Ankur and Priya battle it out over Indian food history in our "Spice Protocol" game! 🌶️🌶️🌶️(Link in comments)