Welcome to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin comment on the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence for The Ken.

This week, Brady unpacks how two popular agents for software engineering represent opposing visions of working with AI. Claude Code’s more human-like way of engaging gives users a vastly different experience from the “all business, all the time” approach in OpenAI Codex. Find out how this divergence reflects Anthropic and OpenAI’s different goals.

Also narrating how the two companies are locking horns, Praveen talked about OpenAI going after government partnerships and consumer adoption in India, while Anthropic is pursuing contracts with enterprises and startups. Anthropic, in particular, has been on a charm offensive in the country, but one public event led to backlash.

Rohin picked up a listener’s suggestion to explore whether OpenAI can weaponise its 800 million active users and Apps SDK to become a distribution channel for everyone else. Listen to the hosts analyse the situation from different perspectives.

This episode of Zero Shot was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, The Ken’s resident sound engineer.

Send us your critiques and ideas, or just say hi by dropping a note at zeroshot@the-ken.com.

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Fancy yourself joining the Zero Shot team?

Brady, Praveen, and Rohin are looking for a researcher-producer to join Zero Shot. You must be super interested in AI, business, and tech. You need to be incredibly intellectually agile. You should be comfortable working with all three of us, each with our own interests and idiosyncrasies. You would help us research, schedule, produce, and even publish columns and podcasts. You should forecast the puck even better than us.

We’re looking for young and ambitious people with 1–3 years of experience. Write to zeroshot@the-ken.com with a note introducing yourself and why we should email you back for a conversation. If you don’t hear from us, it’s because we weren’t convinced.

The role will be full-time and based in Bengaluru.

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Bonus Reading:

Inside Nandan Nilekani’s exclusive Koramangala dinner for Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei
https://www.moneycontrol.com/artificial-intelligence/inside-nandan-nilekani-s-exclusive-koramangala-dinner-for-anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-article-13611458.html

Vibe engineering
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Oct/7/vibe-engineering/

“Maybe this could be the topic of your next zero-shot?”
https://x.com/lazy_proc/status/1975808361917784168

How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong
https://www.wired.com/2008/03/how-apple-got-everything-right-by-doing-everything-wrong/

OpenAI offers free ChatGPT licences. Schools see hidden costs
https://the-ken.com/story/openai-offers-free-chatgpt-licences-schools-see-hidden-costs/

Radhika Dani's post
https://x.com/theproductwoman/status/1976235987736092963

"It would have been a different story saying that it was a game of luck to get in but that wasn’t the case here"
https://x.com/zaidmukaddam/status/1977061060525129827

"This guy's so bored he's watching Cricket at the Anthropic Accel event in BLR."
https://x.com/1littlecoder/status/1977002078490042375

Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s podcast where Rohin, Praveen, and Brady connect from Bengaluru and Hong Kong to cover the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence.

This week, Brady discussed how even though Claude Sonnet 4.5 caught attention by autonomously building an application similar to Slack or Microsoft Teams in 30 hours, an overlooked aspect of the model’s rollout was the way it works with and creates documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. It isn’t far-fetched to expect Anthropic wooing users in non-tech roles—people whose toolkit comprises Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and therefore have to live with Copilot—giving Microsoft a run for its money,

Praveen covered how vibe coding may be losing its shimmer, since these platforms’ annual recurring revenue and web traffic are in a nosedive. One reason could be the changes in pricing, which was a response to counter power users who are getting way more out of their subscriptions than any service provider had anticipated.

Finally, Rohin muses about Perplexity’s strategy of giving away its Pro subscription for free via telco partnerships around the world. Perplexity needs to pay OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google to use their models. It pays telcos to distribute its product. And it now pays publishers through a revenue-share scheme. But who’s paying for a Perplexity Pro subscription (aside from Brady), and what is the company’s endgame?

This episode of Zero Shot was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, The Ken’s resident sound engineer.

Send us critiques and ideas, or just say hi by dropping a note at zeroshot@the-ken.com

*

Fancy yourself joining the Zero Shot team?

Praveen, Brady, and Rohin are looking for a researcher-producer to join Zero Shot. You’d have to be super interested in AI, business, and tech. You’d need to be incredibly intellectually agile. You should be comfortable working with all three of us, each with our own interests and idiosyncrasies. You’d be expected to help us research, schedule, produce, and even publish columns and podcasts. You’d need to forecast the puck even better than us.

We’re looking for young and ambitious people with 1–3 years of experience. Write to zeroshot@the-ken.com with a note introducing yourself and why we should email you back for a conversation. If you don’t hear from us, it’s because we weren’t convinced.

The role will be full-time and based in Bengaluru.

*

Bonus Reading:

Anthropic releases Claude Sonnet 4.5 in latest bid for AI agents and coding supremacy

The Rise and Fall of Clippy: From Microsoft’s Bold Vision to Internet Legend

AI vibe coding tools may be going from boom to bust, new data shows. Here's why.

Perplexity launches AI subscription revenue-share scheme for publishers

Clip from My Best Friend's Wedding

Welcome to Zero Shot, The Ken’s podcast where Praveen, Brady, and Rohin connect from Bengaluru and Hong Kong to dive into the big ideas and latest developments in artificial intelligence.

In this episode, the hosts attempt to figure out whether AI companies can truly differentiate their products when interfaces look identical, and whether the launch of OpenAI’s Pulse feed and Perplexity Search API matter to these strategies.

Hear about how AI is moving off the screen and into physical space via humanoid robots. This isn’t the development of just another product category; it’s a solution to a demographic time bomb.

Find out about world models, which are supposed to help artificial intelligence understand and interact with the physical world. They’re meant to lead to the next big breakthrough in AI—going from “book smart” to “street smart”—but the road ahead is long.

Finally, financial commitments in the AI sector are staggering and depend on immensely optimistic revenue projections. Hear how wild the numbers are.

This episode of Zero Shot was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, The Ken’s resident sound engineer.

If you want to send us critiques, ideas, or just want to say hi, write us at zeroshot@the-ken.com.

*****

Fancy yourself joining the Zero Shot team?

Praveen, Brady, and Rohin are looking for a researcher-producer to join Zero Shot. You’d have to be super interested in AI, business, and tech. You’d need to be incredibly intellectually agile. You should be comfortable working with all three of us, each with our own interests and idiosyncrasies. You’d be expected to help us research, schedule, produce, and even publish columns and podcasts. You’d need to forecast the puck even better than us.

We’re looking for young and ambitious people with 1–3 years of experience. Write to zeroshot@the-ken.com with a note introducing yourself and why we should email you back for a conversation. If you don’t hear from us, it’s because we weren’t convinced.

The role will be full-time and based in Bengaluru.

*****

Bonus Reading:

There Are More Robots Working in China Than the Rest of the World Combined
China has embarked on a campaign to use more robots in its factories, transforming its manufacturing industries and becoming the dominant maker

What Are ‘World Models’? The Key to the Next Big AI Leap
To develop knowledge beyond text and videos, AIs must have realistic virtual playgrounds where they can make mistakes and learn

AI groups bet on world models in race for ‘superintelligence’
Google DeepMind, Meta and Nvidia are developing systems that aim to better understand the physical world

Debt Is Fueling the Next Wave of the AI Boom
For aspiring AI players like Oracle, much rides on debt and hope

Spending on AI Is at Epic Levels. Will It Ever Pay Off?
Tech companies pour hundreds of billions into data centers, taking on heavy debt, but current revenue is relatively tiny; echoes of dot-com bubble

$2 trillion in new revenue needed to fund AI’s scaling trend
Bain & Company’s 6th annual Global Technology Report

The AI boom is unsustainable unless tech spending goes ‘parabolic,’
Deutsche Bank warns: ‘This is highly unlikely’