Kevin Surace | What’s Changed in AI, the Power Players, & Enabling Rochester to Build

Kevin Surace has a rule: use AI five times an hour. Not five times a day, five times an HOUR, whether he's building a spreadsheet, drafting a keynote deck, or writing a Broadway musical. He says 99% of people he talks to are nowhere close, and that one of their competitors already is.In this episode of The Wilmac Wire, hosts Emily McNulty and Steve McDonnell welcome back Kevin Surace — AI pioneer, inventor of the modern virtual assistant, and Chairman/CTO of Advanced.ai — for a wide-ranging conversation on the model wars between OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, why coding jobs are shifting instead of disappearing, and how his company Token is stopping AI-driven identity hacks with biometrics.Here's what you'll hear about:Kevin's "five times an hour" rule, and why most people are already behindInside the model wars: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and why Kevin calls foundation models a coming commodityWhy security awareness training barely moves the needle — and the biometric fix his company Token is building insteadThe real reason coding jobs aren't disappearing, and why nobody cares how you got the result anymoreThe Joy Success Cycle, Kevin's new book dropping September 1, and his one-complaint-a-day ruleWhether Rochester is actually building a real AI startup ecosystemEpisode Breakdown: 0:00 Welcome back, Kevin Surace 2:09 Introducing Kevin's background 3:56 Icebreaker: This or That 6:40 The model wars: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, and the "commodity model" debate 12:53 Kevin's path into virtual assistants and General Magic 27:09 How Nvidia stumbled into the AI chip business 31:05 Kevin's "five times an hour" AI rule 35:44 Claude Design and the disappearing "interim step" 41:23 Why coding jobs are changing, not disappearing 45:30 The Joy Success Cycle and the one-complaint-a-day rule 52:44 Is Rochester building a real AI startup ecosystem? 58:33 Token, biometric security, and stopping AI-driven hacks 1:04:05 Where to find Kevin, and his new bookConnect with Kevin on LinkedInListen to more episodes of The Wilmac Wire: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | iHeart | Riverside