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PODCAST

Zero Shot (Private)

Join Brady Ng, Praveen Gopal Krishnan, and Rohin Dharmakumar of The Ken as they discuss the big ideas in artificial intelligence. You’ll get the macro view, explore their experiments in practical applications, go deeper than the news coverage you’ve seen, and hear about the implications of the latest developments. Nothing is off the table.

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All Episodes

60:48

The AI agent era has started in China. It looks...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/03/24

Ever wondered what happens when AI agents are adopted at scale? Look no further than China.Over the last two months, people — yes, ordinary citizens — have been installing OpenClaw on their devices. Local governments are incentivising OpenClaw projects. Grandparents are lining up to get the software installed. And a cottage industry of "influencers" is telling people how to optimise their agent usage. It's a social and cultural moment as much as a technological one. How did China get here

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53:29

India’s biggest B2B marketplace takes OpenAI to court

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/03/18

Say you want a chunk of plywood. Or a passenger lift. Or a power cable. Or a corrugated packaging box. Chances are you will find yourself on IndiaMART, the country’s largest B2B marketplace connecting buyers with suppliers. With 60% of market share and a 12,000 crore market cap, the company essentially commands this space. There is one major problem though: ChatGPT. In December, IndiaMART filed a petition against OpenAI in the Calcutta High Court for “selective discrimination” at the hands

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61:15

AI and the end of SaaS 'playbooks'

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/03/11

“We were so close to the finish line and boom ‘SaaS is dead’. We are restarting…. There is one more round to run.”That’s an honest admission from Avinash Raghava, the founding volunteer and CEO of the pay-it-forward community SaaSBoomi. As someone who has spent years building networks and communities — at Nasscom, Accel, and Together Fund previously — Avinash has a full view of the inflection point that founders are at.They are having to reinvent themselves, change business models and pivot

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55:39

Engineers don’t want AI tool contracts. At least the...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/03/04

As enterprises make sure their employees use AI, integrate it into their workflows, track productivity, and highlight AI usage in their investor calls, a new kind of tension is emerging within organisations. Engineers are simply not happy with the tools they have been assigned. They want flexibility and deals with companies that make tools that actually work for them. Some are even ready to go back to no tools. Verifying AI-generated code, they say, is an extra layer that is only burdening

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47:35

A tale of two AI summits: Beyond the stolen robot dog

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/02/25

Here’s a fresh take on the India AI Impact Summit that took place last week in New Delhi: it was two events stitched together, happening at the same time. There was the expo, where companies and nations showcased their products and services to 250,000 visitors. And then there was a conference where the geopolitical effects of AI were front and centre.Inderpal Singh, one of The Ken’s reporters, was on site to find out where the action was. Hear his firsthand account about what really

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56:09

Voice AI startups are drawing in VC cheques fast....

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/02/17

“It’s a land grab market…” That’s how our guest Devyani Gupta, the founder of voice AI startup Arrowhead, describes the space she is operating in. A simple fact illustrates the competition she is stressing on: VC funding for Indian voice AI startups went from seven crore in 2023 to 280 crore in 2025. There is a lot to unpack in these figures. And Mrunmayee Kulkarni, The Ken’s AI reporter, followed the money to do just that. She found that the voice AI market is crowded, with many

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50:39

'Vibe coding lawyers': How AI is changing work at...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/02/11

"We have vibe coding and Biryani sessions on Fridays…”This is not a scene from a tech startup or a weekend hackathon. It is a statement by Nikhil Narendran, a partner at Trilegal who heads the firm’s digital innovation group.Naturally, our host Praveen Gopal Krishnan was taken aback. Lawyers who are coding away? Who could imagine?Praveen was even more surprised when Nikhil said he almost never types and only uses Wispr Flow now. “You are the first non-tech person to say that,” he

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51:10

Will Sarvam be to AI what PhonePe became for UPI? No.

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/02/04

Pick any conversation on AI in India, one project keeps coming up again and again: UPI. Every major stakeholder — across government and industry — seems to be interested in replicating the success story of the payments interface. Praveen Gopal Krishnan argues that Sarvam AI — the startup that is a VC darling and government favourite at once — is at the heart of this narrative.Here is the catch. The UPI moment came to India in very specific circumstances. We did catch the “lightning in the

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50:18

Google has the driver’s seat in the AI race. Who will...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/01/28

“Imagine the AI race is a giant F1 race where the biggest AI companies are driving in their souped-up racing vehicles around the track again and again…”Rohin Dharmakumar sets the scene. Who’s winning this? Google, he argues. OpenAI and Anthropic are on the cusp of their IPOs and are doing whatever they can to generate revenue. Microsoft is trying to integrate Copilot into everything and is primarily in the enterprise game. Meta’s AI efforts are stuck in a loop of ads and more ads. That

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52:50

Perplexity’s rug pull in India, AI PCs are the new...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/01/21

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin discuss and analyse major developments related to artificial intelligence every week.Praveen kicks off this episode with a look at Perplexity’s changes to its Pro plan’s free trial. Perplexity has changed its terms and conditions, and now requires users who signed up for a 12-month free subscription to put a credit card on file. The hosts of Zero Shot discuss why this is happening now.Then, Rohin tells everyone about AI PCs, the

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61:44

Infosys and Cognizant's message to Microsoft: Thanks,...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/01/14

“Everyone is ignoring the 800 pound gorilla in the room. The truth is that the tool doesn’t matter unless the IT company adopting them cannot translate it into increased revenue or reduced cost. And that’s the problem”That’s Sidu Ponappa, our first guest on Zero Shot. Sidu is CEO and co-founder of Realfast, a company that uses AI to accelerate Salesforce implementations.Today’s Zero Shot episode is about a simple question – why are India’s IT majors bypassing Microsoft’s Copilot and instead

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74:45

Anti-AI backlash aids big tech, CEOs and...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2026/01/07

Welcome to Zero Shot, a weekly podcast by The Ken where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin ponder the latest developments in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world.This week, Brady starts by considering how backlashes against AI—whether it stems from job displacement, data centre construction, or general unease and uncertainty—gives major tech companies the conditions to centralise the internet even more. This is particularly true in the US, in contrast to a regulatory regime in China

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2:02

Taking aim for 2026

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/12/31

It’s the end of 2025, so we don’t have a full episode of Zero Shot for you today.This podcast launched in September, and we’ve produced 14 episodes for you so far. We’ve covered a wide range of topics, and our conversations—between Praveen, Rohin, and Brady—only work because you’re willing to sit with the complexities we wade into. We know artificial intelligence will move fast in 2026, so we’ll keep asking the questions that matter in this AI hype cycle. We’re glad you’re coming along with

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49:54

Habitually outlandish valuations, AI’s trough of...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/12/24

Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly podcast that interprets the latest big moves in artificial intelligence—in India and around the world.This week, Praveen is on leave, but our two other co-hosts held down the fort. Brady took inspiration from the tagline of a game show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, to consider some of the wild claims and projections made by OpenAI. Aside from CEO Sam Altman’s public statements, he considered CFO Sarah Friar’s past professional moves, where she made

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53:26

Energy engineers, SaaS prices and the moment of AI...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/12/17

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin take on the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday.This week, Praveen looks at a new future career in India—the energy engineer. With Amazon and Microsoft committing to a combined $52.5 billion of investments in India, these tech giants’ data centres will require immense power. India currently doesn’t produce enough renewable energy to service this demand, and even if there were enough power,

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58:09

People evaluating people, AI’s changing seasons,...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/12/10

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady deliver their takes on new developments in artificial intelligence every Wednesday.This week, Rohin considers how AI will change the way employers hire. With AI-generated responses being the norm, hiring managers see a larger variation between the quality of submitted materials and in-person interviews than ever before. Applicants might need to “show and tell” to demonstrate their expertise. The importance of strong verbal

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52:50

One-human unicorns, Suno’s musical future, ‘back to...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/12/03

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin discuss the biggest moves in artificial intelligence.This week, Brady mulls over the possibility of running a one-human unicorn—an idea whose most vocal proponent is Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO. He references the second season of Shell Game, a podcast where the host is experimenting with building a startup involving AI agent co-founders and colleagues. This brings about larger ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether humans

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54:17

Perplexity kills student incentives, moving past peak...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/11/26

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin offer their perspectives on the latest developments in artificial intelligence.This week, Praveen describes how Perplexity aborted its Campus Partner Programme in India after allegations of fraud surfaced. In a bid to drum up usage for its Comet browser, Perplexity had rolled out a referral-for-pay system, enticing students to convince others to download the AI browser… except they may have been legions of bots. If living, breathing

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55:00

Threat models, using taste to defend margins,...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/11/19

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady discover new ideas and interpretations of the latest developments in artificial intelligence.This week, Rohin wonders what the threats are in our regular usage of AI tools and platforms. Conventional ways of safeguarding against exploits work to an extent, but new vectors are emerging for those who are criminally inclined.Brady encounters an ad for Anthropic’s Claude in one of the least likely of places, then examines how the

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50:13

‘Made by humans’, Perplexity says the quiet part out...

Zero Shot (Private) ·

2025/11/12

Welcome back to Zero Shot, The Ken’s weekly discussion where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin go beyond the headlines to probe the major shake-ups in artificial intelligence.This week, Brady notices how media producers and creators emphasising how their work is “made by humans”. This type of disclaimer looks like the beginning of a bifurcation of content into AI-generated output and “handcrafted” media. Take a few steps further and there are consequences for education, contractual agreements, and

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28 results

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