Bob and Randy caught up with returning guest Jason David of Gym Force, a platform that helps independent gyms with member acquisition, retention, and upselling — solving problems Jason ran into as a former CrossFit gym owner. The conversation covered how AI has accelerated his build, the realities of startup funding versus traditional business valuations, and lessons learned from years of testing and tough feedback. They also touched on the differences between Detroit’s startup scene and the IT community, plus the role community plays in gyms, martial arts, and entrepreneurship alike.

Bob and Randy took a break from AI conversations. This week the guest is Josh McDonald, Regional Sales and Business Development Manager of RC Mowers. He talks all about remote-operated and autonomous robotic mowers. These mowers are used for safety and efficiency. Have you ever seen a remote-operated mower trim along the highway?

Check out the size of this brush mower!

Zander Van Gogh, founder and CEO of No Translation, joins Bob and Randy to discuss his leap from a seven-year career at LinkedIn into entrepreneurship, sparked by a year spent traveling to 50 countries in a year. The conversation covers how Xander used AI tools to plan travel, learn languages, and build a global network, as well as his current work helping mid-market companies actually adopt AI rather than just buy licenses. They also dig into networking philosophy, prompt-writing tips, balancing authenticity with automation in content creation, and broader questions about which tech innovations are genuinely useful versus tech for its own sake.

This week, Paula Macpherson joined us to talk about two things:

First, she is the executive director of Velocity. Velocity is one of the Michigan SmartZones, and is a business incubator, accelerator, and coworking space in Sterling Heights, MI. They provide grant support, guidance from entrepreneurs, and monthly events for new startup business owners.

Second, she is the event chair of the Michigan Inventors Summit. This annual event provides education, networking and product discovery. Guests include entrepreneurs who appeared on “Shark Tank” and personnel from the US Patent and Trademark Office. There will also be a live pitch competition. It is on July 9, 2026 at Kellogg Center, East Lansing. Get tickets on EventBrite.

It’s the 13th anniversary of IT in the D!

Andy Saldaña, founder and CEO of Denovo Studios, is this week’s guest. He here to discuss the use of AI at small and mid-size manufacturers. First, we talk about the what the businesses lack—usually it’s the time, money, and/or expertise required to build or refine their processes. We also talk about the challenges that these businesses need to overcome to implement AI successfully.

This week, we welcome Adam Youngblood, AI strategist, to discuss how AI and agentic AI are becoming pervasive, why early “super Google” use is giving way to assistants that perform work, and how non-technical users can start by asking AI questions when they don’t know where to begin.

The conversation covers Claude (including Cowork) for research, costing, and spreadsheet creation; the lack of effective onboarding and growing privacy concerns; and frustration with AI bots conducting first-round job interviews. Adam describes agentic tools like OpenClaw and emerging offerings from Google, Amazon, and others, plus practical business opportunities (reducing waste, after-hours call handling, predictive maintenance, and camera-based visual inspection), while also addressing job displacement, data center power/water demands, and calls for ethics and guardrails.

Bob’s coworker Rayfield Johnson, US Data & AI Leader at Avanade, joins us to discuss all things data. He’s been in the industry for almost two decades, so he has a lot of insight into the data landscape. We explore how data moved from basic BI to a foundation for AI, emphasizing the need for trusted, governed data before advanced AI initiatives succeed. The conversation highlights manufacturing-focused applications such as quality improvements using IoT/streaming data, mixing IT and OT machine data, safety monitoring with sensors and alerts, and more proactive “agent” experiences that provide recommendations without user prompts. We also cover capturing veteran plant-floor expertise to address workforce turnover, plus vendor delay prediction and supply planning, and briefly touch on automation trends like lights-out factories and self-driving Waymo rides.

We are joined by two folks from Neuroaigent: Bob Skinner, and Justin Coleman to have a conversation about where AI is actually delivering ROI right now. Topics include the “it’s just a macro” debate, the manufacturing brain drain crisis, agentic AI and what agents actually are, getting found inside AI tools (AEO vs. SEO), the token bill nobody warned enterprises about, and who’s liable when AI gets it wrong.

We also get into Neuroaigent’s air-gapped private knowledge layer, the ClawCon competition where seven AI agents awarded a $50K investment with zero human involvement, AGI vs. domain-specific intelligence, and a live on-air moment where Claude confidently hallucinated a co-host named Doug Muth.