The Neuron: AI Explained

Corey talks with Napster CEO John Acunto about the company’s pivot from music into AI agents and what Napster calls “streaming intelligence.” Acunto lays out a four-part customer-data framework, capture, learn, act, own, and argues that companies should use conversational agents to learn directly from customers while keeping control of the resulting data and models. The conversation covers photorealistic video agents, edge compute, Microsoft Azure / Foundry, robotics, data portability, customer conversion, and Napster’s broader bet that the next interface for AI will feel more like talking to a person than typing into a box.

Learn more: https://napster.com

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Sponsored by Outshift:
“Scaling Out Superintelligence” Vijoy Pandey, January 2026. The technical whitepaper detailing the Internet of Cognition architecture, three-layer stack, and cognition state protocols. https://outshift.cisco.com/internet-of-cognition/whitepaper?utm_campaign=fy27q1_outshift_ww_paid_ioc-neuron-wp_podcast&utm_channel=podcast&utm_source=podcast

Internet of Cognition Interactive Demo Clickable walkthrough showing per-agent activity, intent, context, and collective reasoning across a multi-agent SRE system.https://outshift.cisco.com/internet-of-cognition/explore?utm_campaign=fy27q1_outshift_ww_paid_ioc-neuron-explore_podcast&utm_channel=podcast&utm_source=podcast

Standard Bots CEO Evan Beard explains why industrial robots are finally starting to move beyond brittle point-by-point programming. Instead of teaching a robot one exact path, teams can increasingly describe a task, demonstrate it through teleoperation or guided motion, and let the system learn how to handle variation in the real world.

The conversation covers natural-language robot programming, learning by demonstration, ugly factory edge cases, the reliability bar for production, and why the most important robotics progress may look less like a humanoid stunt and more like a machine that can handle a shifted part without calling an engineer.

Relevant Article Links:
https://standardbots.com/

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

Sponsored by Outshift by Cisco. Learn more: https://outshift.com

Sponsored by Origin. Learn more: https://originhq.com/AIexplained

Neurosurgeon-scientists Alex Ksendzovsky and Jon Pomeraniec explain how The Biological Computing Company uses living neurons as a research platform for AI. Their team grows roughly 150,000 cells on a 4,096-electrode array, sends in patterns such as handwritten digits, records how the neurons respond, and models useful computational behaviors in software. They say those neuron-inspired techniques are already helping GPU-based video-generation systems run about 5x faster with roughly 80% lower inference cost, while their longer-term work explores robots, world models, and real-time biological compute.

Relevant Article Links: https://app.tbc.co
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4eKRihw9f4

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

Sponsored by Mercor: Check out the AI Productivity Index (APEX) here: https://www.mercor.com/apex/?utm_source=neuron&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=apex&utm_content=10_7

Sponsored by Outshift:“Scaling Out Superintelligence” Vijoy Pandey, January 2026. The technical whitepaper detailing the Internet of Cognition architecture, three-layer stack, and cognition state protocols. https://outshift.cisco.com/internet-of-cognition/whitepaper?utm_campaign=fy27q1_outshift_ww_paid_ioc-neuron-wp_podcast&utm_channel=podcast&utm_source=podcast

Internet of Cognition Interactive Demo Clickable walkthrough showing per-agent activity, intent, context, and collective reasoning across a multi-agent SRE system.https://outshift.cisco.com/internet-of-cognition/explore?utm_campaign=fy27q1_outshift_ww_paid_ioc-neuron-explore_podcast&utm_channel=podcast&utm_source=podcast

OpenAI just dropped 20+ announcements at DevDay 2026, so... yeah, we have some things to talk about. 😺

We’re going to break down what OpenAI announced, what actually matters, and what could change how you use AI.

🤖 OPENAI DEVDAY 2026

OpenAI’s biggest reveal was Dots, always-on AI agents powered by GPT-6 Astra. They get their own cloud computer, connect to 4,000+ apps, learn how you work, and keep working in the background.

OpenAI also unveiled ChatGPT Space, collaborative Pages and Slides, Codex in the cloud, the Decisions API, plugin extensions, a $500 Pro plan, and more.

DevDay recap:https://openai.com/index/devday-2026-recap/

Then there’s GPT-6.1 Sol, which OpenAI says gets close to Astra-level performance on coding, computer use, and professional work at roughly one-fifth of Astra’s standard token price.

https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-6-1-sol/

📰 AND THAT’S NOT ALL...

We’ll also get into:
⚡ Claude Sonnet 5.5, Anthropic’s faster, cheaper Sonnet update.
🌎 AMD buying Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2B.
🛡️ NVIDIA’s new agent safety system with hardware-level monitoring.
🏢 Meta’s new enterprise AI business around Muse, Muse Code, Business Agent, and more.
🤖 Manus 2.0 + Cue, including personal agents with their own computer, phone number, email, and wallet.

🔥 Plus whatever AI news happens before we go live.

What happened? What can you actually use? And are we about to have tiny armies of AI employees running around the internet for us?

Come hang, ask questions, and disagree with us in chat. 👇

🤖 OpenAI DevDay 2026:https://devday.openai.com/

🎥 Official DevDay keynote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fls_onRviPM

😺 Get The Neuron:https://www.theneuron.ai/

Runway co-founder Anastasis Germanidis explains Solaris, an “interface world model” that generates software frame by frame instead of rendering a traditional interface from HTML and CSS.

The model reacts directly to clicks, drags, and keyboard input, while language models or agents can still handle logic and tool calls behind the scenes. The conversation explores personalized interfaces, local-versus-cloud world-model architecture, robotics simulation, and Runway’s longer-term bet that world models could become a new foundation for software, games, and physical AI.

Relevant Article Links:
• Runway Solaris: https://runway.com/news/research/introducing-solaris
• Solaris paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00776
• Runway GWM Worlds: https://runway.com/research/introducing-gwm-worlds-2
• Robot policy evaluation: https://runway.com/research/accelerating-robot-policy-evaluation

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

Sponsored by Dell Technologies and NVIDIA. Learn more at techrepublic.com/hubs/the-enterprise-guide-to-scalable-ai/.