Reporting live from the Vienna Calling unconference: five conversations from the only European FileMaker unconference, recorded on the ground in Vienna. Organizer Philipp Puls on why the format works, Charles Delfs on rebranding to Klai and what an actual AI strategy looks like, Johan Hedman on the next big European conference, Vincenzo Menanno on technical debt and using AI to analyze your code, and a turnabout where Javier Durá puts Matt in the hot seat.

⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 — Welcome: what is the Vienna Calling unconference
0:24 — Philipp Puls (72solutions): inside the unconference format
13:50 — Charles Delfs (Klai): the rebrand & an AI strategy that isn't just "chat"
36:42 — Johan Hedman (Square Moon): EngageU goes three days
41:33 — Vincenzo Menanno (Beezwax): technical debt, iteration & AI code analysis
1:00:52 — The tables turn: Javier Durá interviews Matt Navarre

🎙 IN THIS EPISODE
• Why an unconference is capped at ~100 people, and the "if three people care, make a session" ethos
• FileMaker's collaborate-over-compete culture
• Charles on why "code as product" is fading in the AI era, and governed, observable AI access for non-technical staff
• Semi-deterministic / hybrid apps, FileMaker as a scalable backend, and the new Klai Run (on-prem, partly open source)
• Johan on EngageU expanding to three full days in Malmö with a business track
• Vincenzo on defining technical debt, putting complexity at the right layer, and recursively analyzing whole script trees with an MCP
• Measuring real performance: the hidden cost of open-record and set-field steps
• Javier interviews Matt: the Navarre.ai rebrand, free weekly AI classes, and why insert-from-URL + the web viewer are the real AI unlock
• What's next: OpenClaw / Hermes as an "ultra robot" with a FileMaker database as its memory

Links
72solutions (Philipp Puls): https://www.72solutions.eu
Klai (Charles Delfs): https://klai.studio
Square Moon (Johan Hedman): https://www.squaremoon.se
EngageU conference (Malmö, Sept 30 – Oct 2): https://engageu.eu
Beezwax (Vincenzo Menanno): https://www.beezwax.net
Afterdata (Javier Durá): https://www.afterdata.es
FileMaker Magazine ES: https://www.filemakermagazine.es

Cris Ippolite is in San Francisco at the live AI conference, joined by Ronnie Rios and Michael Wallace for an informal, practical conversation about personal AI agents. The discussion centers on what happens when developers move beyond demos and actually give agents real jobs: research, calendar planning, email, home automation, coding coordination, context management, and communication through tools like Slack.

Ronnie describes his agent Sarah (She/Her/Bot) as a working personal assistant built around OpenClaw-style tooling. He talks about giving Sarah her own accounts and carefully scoped access, using her for tasks he does not want to do manually, and even having her evaluate other Claw-style frameworks against the way he actually works. Michael describes Nova, his Linux-based assistant, and explains why he treats her as a manager rather than a direct coder. Nova delegates coding work to sub-agents or executors, while Michael keeps visibility into those sessions through tmux.

A major theme is that these systems become more useful when they are treated less like chatbots and more like coworkers with boundaries. The group talks about the importance of separate accounts, explicit permission rules, cost management, and choosing the right model for the right job. High-end models may make sense for direct conversation, while cheaper or local models can handle background jobs, heartbeats, and routine tasks.

One of the most memorable stories is the moment when Ronnie’s agent Sarah helps Cris’s agent TARS get set up with email. TARS receives a message from Sarah, verifies whether it is legitimate, asks for approval, and then starts corresponding with her. The story is funny, but it also illustrates a serious point: agents will increasingly need identity, communication channels, verification, auditability, and clear rules about what they can do on behalf of their humans.

Cris Ippolite is in San Francisco for AI Dev Day 2026, joined by Chris Moyer, Vince Menanno, Marcus Swift, and Kate Waldhauser for a live conference debrief. The conversation captures the mood coming out of the event: software development is changing fast, but the group is not buying a simple “developers are dead” story. Instead, they talk through a more nuanced shift where developers increasingly become managers, editors, architects, and reviewers of AI-generated work.

“Developer as manager” – is this a destination or just an awkward transitional phase? The panel compares today’s AI tooling to an early car: clearly transformative, but still missing some of the infrastructure, safety, polish, and shared expectations that would make it feel mature. That framing keeps the conversation grounded. Everyone can see the direction of travel, but the day-to-day reality is still early, uneven, and full of judgment calls.

The discussion also keeps returning to what FileMaker developers already understand well: data structure, full-stack thinking, business logic, interface design, and the ability to see how information moves through a system. Those skills become more valuable, not less, when AI can generate code or suggest architectures. The group talks about learning by taking apart AI-generated work, much like earlier developers learned by dissecting HyperCard stacks or FileMaker examples.

The conference itself seems optimistic about the future of software engineering, with panelists rating the outlook high rather than doom-filled. But the conversation does not ignore real concerns. The group talks about local models, hybrid cloud/edge architectures, latency, trust, cost, and the need for deterministic infrastructure around probabilistic models. “Responsible AI” is treated less as a special category and more as something that should become table stakes.

The takeaway is not that AI replaces the developer, but that it changes the developer’s leverage. (and then, eventually, I suppose, AI takes over the entire world)

The people who understand systems, data, users, and business processes are still needed; the tools are just giving them a much larger, stranger, faster team to manage.

Apologies for my audio!! Somehow, Zoom lost the setting and nice quality Mic was off, and the awful mic in my monitor took over, so there is a ton of room noise. Jonathan sounds great though.

--

Jonathan Stark is an author and expert that helps developers (and others) think about pricing projects and helping clients differently than the usual hourly billing approach. Now that AI tools like Claude Opus 4.7 and OpenAI Codex allow app creation in tools other than FileMaker at vastly increased rates of speed, what does it mean for FileMaker developers who work with clients?

https://jonathanstark.com

Matt and Dimitris talk about a new tool for the community that allows coding FileMaker scripts in an IDE. It's a totally different dev environment, and also completely familiar.

Matt talks with Stathis Askaridis (We Know Data and Pineapple.gr) about his method of developing with FileMaker. Stathis shows examples of this workflow, which is a very simple FileMaker database with just a few scripts, NO RELATIONSHIPS, and a layout with a WebViewer. All the dev is done/assisted by Claude Code, Codex, etc. which delivers HTML / CSS / JavaScript.

Data edits? Easily done with FileMaker card windows, or also in JavaScript.

But this isn't the cool part (well, it's kind of cool) It's the logging and bug tracking that are amazing. Stathis uses a tool that captures the user session and actually contains more metadata by far than the FileMaker database. This allows him and his team to see exactly what a user did when the bug (like writing data to a locked or invalid field, or any error at the UI or data level).

What impressed most is that the possibility exists for this bug to be routed to a tool that analyzes the layout, the data, the bug experienced, and actually fixes it! This is perhaps then deployed to the dev server and tested by a meat puppet (that's how SciFi AI thinks of humans) can review and confirm before putting into production – also with automated tools.

Stathis is an Otto evangelist, and rightly so. For any type of deployment that uses this level of sophistication, it's a must.

Ian Jempson demonstrates an immediately usefully AI tools for FileMaker developers that transcribes video and audio files.

Maybe even bigger: Ian shows his workflow for not only writing script with complex code that can be pasted into Script Workspace (close to the Holy Grail here). Also he shows a way to prompt-into-existence entire database files with tables, layouts, scripts and relationships. Our world has changed!

Key Tools & Resources
1. Transcribr - Local AI Transcription Tool (Price TBD)
Download: transformingdigital.AI/transcriber
100% local Mac application (Linux version in development)
Single-file Swift executable - drag and drop installation
Features: Real-time transcription, batch processing, folder watching
Uses Whisper models (version 1.1 will add Nvidia Parakeet for 90x real-time speed)
Multilingual support with speaker separation coming in v1.1
Webhook functionality for automated notifications
Returns structured JSON data to FileMaker via insert from URL

2. Extractr – Document Data Extraction Tool (Preview)
Extracts structured data from PDFs, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and images
Uses JSON schema to define output format
100% local processing, similar flow to Transcribr

3. AI-Assisted FileMaker Script Generation
Uses Claude Code in terminal for script development
Custom skills for handling FileMaker's XML script format
Automated script creation from API specifications using FM upgrade tool
Generates complete database schemas including tables, fields, relationships, and layouts
Installation & Setup
Claude Code Terminal Setup:
brew install --cask claude-code
or
curl -fsSL [https://claw.ai/install.sh](https://claw.ai/install.sh) | sh
MBS Plugin: Required for copying FileMaker script steps in pasteable XML format

Key Techniques Demonstrated
Using Claude skills to improve FileMaker insert from URL scripts
Generating FileMaker databases from ERD diagrams
Creating complete FileMaker patch schemas from Swagger documentation
Automating error handling and code quality checks
Using context windows and hooks in Claude Code
System Requirements
Recommended: Mac M1 or newer with 16GB+ RAM
Large Whisper models may require more RAM than available on 8GB systems

Links & Resources
Transcriber Tool: transformingdigital.AI/transcriber
FileMaker Upgrade Tool: Official Claris developer tool
Saliant Patch Lab: GitHub repository for FileMaker patch format research
Free AI Training Classes: Weekly Thursday sessions with Matt Navarre
GitHub: Ian will share the fminsert from URL skill on GitHub
Production Deployment Considerations
Mac app runs locally on developer machines
Linux version can run on servers for batch processing
Webhook integration enables automated workflows
Watch folder functionality for asynchronous processing

Note: The above was AI generated.

Something is shifting in software.

We’re not in a moment of collapse. We’re in a moment of re-architecture. Agents, persistent memory, autonomous workflows, database acceleration, and AI-native software creation are all converging at once.

This episode connects those signals — from legacy database platforms potentially getting a new engine, to developers building production-grade software in hours, to AI agents that don’t just respond but operate. The tools are changing. The leverage is changing. The interface is changing. Something big is happening.

This episode explores the signals suggesting we’re not just seeing incremental AI progress — we’re witnessing a structural change in how software is built, operated, and experienced.

A Big Signal for the FileMaker World?
We discuss recent news that could have major implications for the FileMaker ecosystem.
Apple’s parent company made an acquisition that may signal faster, more flexible databases coming to FileMaker or iWork.
If true, this could represent one of the most meaningful infrastructure shifts for that world in years. Cris has the scoop.
Article discussed:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/26/02/11/faster-more-flexible-databases-could-be-coming-to-filemaker-or-iwork

How Software Is Being Built Now
A recent viral post sparked conversation across the tech world about how software creation is changing.
The idea: the way software engineering works today is fundamentally different than even a week ago.
Cris shares how he built https://www.isolutionsai.com in just three hours using modern AI workflows.
Not hype.
Not “replace engineers.”
But a real shift in leverage.
Viral post discussed:
https://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021256989876109403?s=20

OpenClaw, Agents & the Next Interface Layer
We break down what OpenClaw is, why it exploded, and what it signals about where AI is headed.
Not just chat.
Not just prompts.
But persistent, always-on AI operators.
In this segment, we cover:

What OpenClaw actually does
Why the Ralph Wiggum loop mattered
How persistence, cron jobs, and memory change everything
What happened when we ran it ourselves
What a potential OpenAI acquisition could mean
This isn’t doom.
It’s design evolution.

Links discussed:
OpenClaw: https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw
Ralph Wiggum repo: https://awesomeclaude.ai/ralph-wiggum

Connect with Cris
https://www.isolutionsai.com

Follow Matt
https://www.navarre.training

Cris' Stack
Convex: https://convex.dev/referral/CRISB43294
Reactive backend database that keeps app state synced in real time without managing servers.
Clerk: https://clerk.com
Authentication and user management for modern apps including sign-in, sessions, and roles.
Context7: https://context7.com
Context retrieval that helps developers understand and navigate codebases faster.
Vercel: https://vercel.com
Frontend deployment platform optimized for fast, scalable web applications.
Resend: https://resend.com
Developer-focused email API for sending transactional and product emails.
Supabase: https://supabase.com
Open-source backend platform providing Postgres, authentication, storage, and APIs.
Railway: https://railway.com
Cloud platform that simplifies deploying and managing backend services and databases.iSolutionsAIiSolutionsAI — Your Partner in the New Frontiers of AICustom AI solutions, machine learning models, and intelligent assistants.X (formerly Twitter)Matt Shumer (@mattshumer_) on XSomething Big Is Happeninghttps://x.com/mattshumer_/status/2021256989876109403?s=20Awesome ClaudeRalph Wiggum - Iterative AI Development LoopOfficial Anthropic plugin for iterative AI coding. Ship 6 repos overnight. $50k contract for $297 in API costs.