The Neuron: AI Explained

Carta CMO Nicole Baer joins Corey and Grant to break down the real state of startups in 2026. With half of all venture funding now flowing to AI-native companies and seed deals at a six-year low, the startup playbook has fundamentally changed. Nicole shares Carta’s data on solo founders, the new billion-dollar timeline, why the Bay Area’s grip is tighter than ever, and how AI is reshaping everything from marketing to fund administration.

Carta State of Startups 2025 Report: https://carta.com/blog/state-of-startups-2025/

Carta Data & Insights (free): https://carta.com/data/

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Recorded live at NVIDIA GTC 2026 in San Jose, Corey sits down with returning guest Kari Briski—VP of Generative AI Software for Enterprise at NVIDIA—to unpack their biggest open-source model yet: Nemotron 3 Super.

Kari breaks down why a 120B-parameter model runs as fast as a 12B one, how multi-agent systems are going from science fiction to production, and why Jensen Huang is calling this "a new operating system."

We also dig into NVIDIA's work on Open Claw security, the 35x explosion in open-model token generation, and where omni-modal AI is heading next.

Subscribe to The Neuron newsletter: https://theneuron.ai

Relevant links:
NVIDIA Build (try Nemotron): https://build.nvidia.com

Nemotron on Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/nvidia

Open Router: https://openrouter.ai

Kari's previous Neuron episode (Oct 2025): https://youtu.be/p0INn_w7TYo

Scientific discovery has always been slow. Until now.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Qichao Hu, CEO of SES AI, to reveal how they are using AI agents to turn a 8-year research cycle into a 2-week sprint. By combining autonomous "wet labs" with advanced AI models, they are solving one of the hardest physics problems in tech: the battery bottleneck.

We dive deep into how this "Molecular Universe" project isn't just about EV batteries—it's about unlocking power for data centers, robotics, and AR glasses. If you want to see a concrete example of AI agents working in the physical world to solve material science constraints, do not miss this conversation.

🔗 Learn more about SES AI: https://www.ses.ai/
🔗 Follow the Molecular Universe project: https://molecular-universe.com/about

Subscribe for more interviews with the people building AI’s next wave.

For more practical, grounded conversations on AI systems that actually work, subscribe to The Neuron newsletter at https://theneuron.ai.

In this episode, we sit down with Yaron Inger, co-founder of Lightricks and LTX, to explore the future of open-source AI video.

LTX-2 is currently the #1 ranked open-source audio & video model on Hugging Face — with over 4.5 million downloads in just two months.

But what makes it different?
It runs locally.

It can be fine-tuned on your own IP.

It integrates into real video workflows.

And it might change how filmmaking, education, and creative work evolve in the AI era.

We talk about:
• Why open models are catching up to Big Tech
• How smaller models are getting better through distillation
• Running AI video on consumer GPUs
• Infinite, autoregressive video generation
• AI teachers that change environments in real time
• Whether AI will replace filmmakers — or empower them

If you care about the future of creativity, open AI, or the economics of filmmaking… this one is worth your time.

Check out LTX: https://ltx.io
LTX-2 on Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co/Lightricks/LTX-2.3
LTX Desktop Repo: https://github.com/Lightricks/LTX-Desk

For more practical, grounded conversations on AI systems that actually work, subscribe to The Neuron newsletter at https://theneuron.ai.

You've probably used Canva—but you probably haven't seen what it can do with AI.

In this episode of The Neuron, we sit down with Danny Wu, Head of AI Products at Canva, to explore how the platform went from a simple design tool to a full-blown "Creative Operating System" powered by AI—serving 230+ million users every month.

Danny walks us through how Canva's MCP server lets you create fully editable designs from inside ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot, why their new Canva Design Model is fundamentally different from typical AI image generators (hint: layers), and why 24 billion AI tool uses later, the most surprising use cases are ones they never anticipated.

We also get Danny's take on whether AI will homogenize all design, his advice for freelancers who don't want to get replaced, and a live demo of Canva's AI design generation in action.

You'll learn:
• How MCP powers Canva inside ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot
• What the Canva Design Model understands that GPT-4 doesn't
• Why editable layers (not flat images) are the real AI design breakthrough
• Danny's advice for freelancers to become irreplaceable in an AI world
• How Canva uses AI internally on tens of millions of lines of code
• Why AI assistants are becoming "the new SEO" for user acquisition

Try Canva AI at https://canva.com/ai

Special thanks to the sponsor of this video, Cohesity: https://www.cohesity.com/ResilienceEverywhere/?utm_source=brand-ta-podcast&utm_medium=direct-publisher&utm_campaign=fy26-q2-01-amer-us-digital-awarewbpg-brd-genbr&utm_content=podcast

For more practical, grounded conversations on AI and emerging tech, subscribe to The Neuron newsletter at https://theneuron.ai.