A Beginner's Guide to AI

Michael Sacca (Leadpages) on AI-powered landing pages, personalization, and the future of search 🚀

In this conversation, Michael Sacca shares how Leadpages is weaving AI landing page optimization into real marketing workflows - from personalization that actually moves the needle to what Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) means for search and conversions.

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💡 Highlights
How AI landing page optimization boosts conversion rates with smarter on-page decisions 🤖
Practical ways to implement AI-driven personalization without overwhelming your stack
Why AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) matters as search shifts to assistants and LLMs 🔎
Navigating privacy & data considerations when deploying AI
The future roadmap for AI inside SaaS marketing tools 🚀

⚡Quotes from the Episode
"Can AI be an analyzer of customer data, a designer, or even a generator of entire assets? That’s what we’re experimenting with—expanding from just a landing page builder into a conversion optimization platform, with AI at the heart of that story.” - Michael Sacca

“If we can get you the answer faster, we can increase conversions.” - Michael Sacca

“One exciting use case is syncing ad creative with landing page optimization. Imagine designing a page, having ads produced, and feeding both into a system that constantly optimizes them together. That’s where we’re heading.” - Michael Sacca

🧾 Chapters
00:00 Introduction – Dietmar Fischer welcomes Michael Sacca from Leadpages
05:17 Making AI accessible for SMBs in landing page optimization
10:28 Building an AI-first landing page builder
15:37 The exciting shift in Martech and AI adoption
20:59 Exploring personalization and customer experience challenges
26:09 Conversational landing pages and chatbots in Beta
31:19 The cusp of transformation: AI’s role in marketing workflows
36:39 Lessons from 13 years of Leadpages and the future outlook
41:45 Closing remarks and where to find Michael Sacca

Where to find Michael Sacca:
🔗 Website: leadpages.com
🧑‍🦰 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michaelsacca
🙅 X/Twitter: x.com/michaelsacca
🎙️ "On the Record" Podcast: lp.leadpages.com/podcast/

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Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads
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In this episode of Beginner’s Guide to AI, host Dietmar Fischer sits down with Jeetu Patel, one of the most respected voices in enterprise technology, to explore leadership and innovation in the age of AI.

From his early journey at Box to his executive leadership at Cisco, Jeetu shares a unique perspective on how leaders can adapt, inspire, and build AI-first organizations that thrive in times of rapid change.
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Whether you’re an executive, innovator, or simply curious about the future of leadership with AI, this episode will challenge your thinking and spark new ideas about the future of work.

🔑 Episode Highlights
AI Leadership Strategies: How leaders can empower people, not replace them.
Innovation in the Age of AI: Opportunities and challenges for executives.
Building AI-First Organizations: Why starting today is critical for tomorrow.
Future of Work: Leadership lessons from tech executives who’ve lived digital transformation.

💬 Quotes from the Episode
“Leadership in the age of AI isn’t about replacing people — it’s about empowering them to innovate faster and smarter.” — Jeetu Patel

“If you’re not building your organization to be AI-first today, you’ll be playing catch-up tomorrow.” — Jeetu Patel

🎬 Podcast Chapters (experimental feature)
00:00 Introduction and Welcome with Jeetu Patel
00:21 Why Jeetu Patel Chose AI
02:56 Cisco, Infrastructure, and the AI Rush
09:02 AI Education and Adoption at Scale
16:18 How Jeetu Patel Personally Uses AI
26:46 Leadership Lessons and Transformation
28:12 Meta-Prompting and Asking Better Questions
42:15 Innovation and Leadership in the Age of AI
54:33 Personal Reflections and Closing Thoughts

🌐 Where to find Jeetu Patel
You can find Jeetu on LinkedIn
And, you can find Cisco at, yes, Cisco.com 😉

🎧 Tune in to get my thoughts, and don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter: beginnersguide.nl

🎵 Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads
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Europe has brilliant researchers, ambitious founders, and world-class industry. Yet the AI race is being dominated elsewhere. In this episode, Dietmar Fischer talks with Fabian Westerheide, founder of Rise of AI, about why Europe is struggling with AI sovereignty, infrastructure, and execution, and what entrepreneurs can do right now to stay competitive.

Fabian explains how Rise of AI grew over a decade from early community meetups into a curated conference and ecosystem hub where Europe’s most relevant AI leaders meet. He also makes the case that Europe’s biggest strategic risk is dependency on American GPUs, hyperscalers, and cloud platforms, while policy, capital allocation, and digital administration move too slowly for exponential change.

You will learn what a GDPR compliant AI stack can look like, why EU AI Act compliant implementation is becoming a competitive advantage, and why Europe’s research-to-startup transfer remains painfully inefficient. This is a practical and provocative conversation about AI infrastructure, venture capital incentives, European-first tech choices, and the mindset shift required in 2026: stop waiting, start building.

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Chapters
00:00 Welcome and why Fabian chose AI
01:55 Rise of AI turns 10 years: from meetups to a curated conference
03:19 Europe’s biggest AI challenge: dependency on US cloud and GPUs
10:05 Optimists in a dystopian world: why Rise of AI exists
11:22 European AI champions and the sovereignty problem
16:45 Why Europe struggles to turn research into AI companies
19:40 2026 outlook: stop waiting, take responsibility, use AI
23:00 Where to find Fabian and Rise of AI

About Dietmar Fischer
Dietmar is a podcaster and AI marketer from Berlin. If you want to know how to get your AI or your digital marketing going, just contact him at argoberlin.com

Quotes from the Episode
“We are living the dystopia. But within this, I’m an optimist.”
“The whole stack is running on American GPUs, it’s running on American hyperscalers.”
“If you run a company, use AI, no excuses.”
“I realized back then AI will change the world.”
“You can’t put me in any box, but overall I’m dedicating 12 hours of a day for AI within Europe.”
“Don’t play the capitalistic game anymore… figure out what you want to do meaningful with your life.”

Where to find Fabian and the Rise of AI Conference:
Fabian Westerheide: Website fabian-westerheide.de
Rise of AI: Official site riseof.ai
Rise of AI Ticket Shop: riseof.ai/ticket-shop
LinkedIn: Fabian Westerheide

Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads
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Hollywood loves a good AI apocalypse—but how likely is a real-life Skynet scenario? In today's episode of A Beginner's Guide to AI, Professor GePhardT takes you on an entertaining yet eye-opening journey into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).
From understanding why films like The Terminator shape our deepest AI anxieties, to real-world safety measures inspired by these sci-fi nightmares, this episode breaks down exactly how humanity can steer advanced AI towards a beneficial future—rather than a robotic uprising.
Expect to hear why a smart kitchen assistant could unintentionally cause chaos, how fictional tales are influencing actual AI research, and what top thinkers like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have warned us about. It's a conversation packed with fascinating examples, practical tips, and an honest look at how we're preparing for AGI today.

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Want to get in contact? Write me an email: [email protected]

This podcast was generated with the help of ChatGPT, Mistral and Claude 3. We do fact check with human eyes, but there still might be hallucinations in the output. And, by the way, it's read by an AI voice.

Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads
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In this episode, Yvette Schmitter unpacks the uncomfortable truth about modern AI: how convenience turns citizens into data points.
We go deep on AI privacy, data ethics, and the industry incentives that drive data brokers, invasive biometrics, and “consent theater” in Terms of Service.
Yvette blends engineering chops with no-nonsense clarity to show what needs to change—and what you can do today.

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Key highlights:
AI privacy explained in real-world terms—what you trade away when you click Accept

Data brokers 101: how your info is collected, bundled, and resold

The “action figure” experiment: a vivid story about bias and representation in AI imagery

Biometrics and identity: faces, voice prints, and why “frictionless” can be risky

Regulatory theater vs. meaningful guardrails—and where pro-innovation actually fits

Banks, voice recognition, and moving money: the security-privacy tradeoff

Quotes from the Episode
“Pro-innovation. I love innovation. I’m anti-bullshit.”

“Since we don’t buy votes, why would we buy people’s data?”

Chapters
00:00 Introductions and Setup
03:27 The Consent Illusion & Data Brokers: Turning People into Data Points
04:40 The “Action Figure” AI Fail & Biometrics and Identity
12:59 Terms of Service – Read Before You Play
19:59 Regulatory Theater and Real-World Harms
24:03 Pro-Innovation vs Guardrails – Finding the Line
45:59 Banks, Voice Recognition, and Moving Money
56:49 Final Thoughts – Sensible Guardrails for AI Startups

Where to find Yvette Schmitter
You can contact her via LinkedIn, or the Fusion Collective website 🚀

post⁠ on being “Huang’d” by ChatGPT when she asked it to turn her into a “Cloud Jedi." Also a recent Substack ⁠article⁠ that takes it a step further. 
- EU AI Code of Conduct: 26 companies signed, META did not 
- Layoff data, the numbers:
Microsoft laid off 19,175 people  

IBM was refreshingly honest about replacing 200 HR employees with chatbots 

Intel cut 33,900 jobs, 20% of their workforce, while pivoting to AI services. 

- The Register: Attributed by Hood to 'go-to-market execution challenges'
- Channelweb: "Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said that non-AI Azure sales saw 'go-to-market execution challenges' in the vendor's 'scale motion"
- SiliconANGLE: "causing the Microsoft stock price to fall more than 4% in extended trading"
- Yahoo Finance: "Microsoft shares tumbled as much as 5% in extended trading Wednesday"
- Check out this graphic depicting tech companies with the largest layoffs in 2025
- Microsoft: Amy Hood's "Go-to-Market Execution Challenges" Quote:$22.6 Billion Capital ExpenditureGeekWire: "For the quarter, Microsoft reported capital expenditures of $22.6 billion, a new record high"Stock Drop & Market Reaction."
 ---Tune in to get my thoughts, and don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter!

Music credit: "Modern Situations" by Unicorn Heads
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.