Beth opened episode 601 with Andy joining early and Karl arriving later. The show kicked off with browser based agents, Google’s Nano Banana expansion into Workspace, and a live demo of Slides using AI to beautify content. From there, the conversation shifted toward the limitations of Gemini generated infographics, the need for human oversight, the rise of agent powered browsers, and early signals about OpenAI’s new hardware team. The hosts explored cultural pushback against wearable AI, the gap between real world adoption and tech hype, and the long term impact of AI on management skills, jobs, and public trust.
Key Points Discussed
Perplexity’s Comet agent comes to mobile with full web action support
Google rolls out Nano Banana AI in Docs, Slides, and Notebook LM
Gemini 3 image models still make factual mistakes in diagrams and labels
Google confirms layered image editing is on the roadmap
Manas launches a browser operator extension that turns Chrome into an AI agent
OpenAI builds a hardware division and hires dozens of Apple engineers
Public resistance grows against AI wearables like the Friend pendant
Western media messaging reinforces AI as a threat, slowing adoption
Singapore’s AI rollout reveals a management and leadership gap
Human interpersonal skills emerge as a key competitive advantage
Robotics accelerates as Google DeepMind hires Boston Dynamics’ former CTO
Visionary hardware concepts likely push toward AI native devices with voice first design
Sora, agent tools, and multimodal models still struggle to break into mainstream awareness
Timestamps and Topics
00:00:00 👋 Opening, Thanksgiving week, Andy joins
01:01:00 🤖 Perplexity Comet mobile agent overview
02:21:00 📝 Nano Banana comes to Google Workspace
03:12:00 🎨 Slides demo with AI generated infographics
05:04:00 🚗 Andy reviews Nano Banana Pro car diagrams and labeling errors
08:43:00 🧩 Discussion on image limitations and lack of editable text layers
11:49:00 💬 Community notes, Google confirms layered images are coming
14:07:00 🧭 Karl joins, new browser operator from Manas
16:00:00 🛠️ OpenAI’s hardware division poaches Apple engineers
17:40:00 📱 What an AI native device might look like
21:08:00 🚇 Anti AI backlash, Friend pendant ads defaced in Chicago
22:52:00 🌍 Western fear framing versus Asian AI optimism
24:01:00 📉 Media narratives shape public adoption and trust
27:03:00 🇸🇬 Singapore as a case study in AI driven workforce disruption
29:15:00 👔 Management skills become a rare and valuable human advantage
33:23:00 🤝 Interpersonal skills and face to face client work outcompete automation
34:59:00 🔄 AI agents cannot replace real rapport and live collaboration
38:59:00 🤖 DeepMind hires Boston Dynamics CTO to build robot capabilities
41:12:00 🗣️ Future devices shaped around voice first AI
45:15:00 ❓ Growing public “why would you build this” skepticism
48:34:00 🧩 Designing use cases that actually solve problems
52:28:00 📰 Upcoming stories this week: OpenAI internal memo, Meta updates
