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Not every tech investment leads to innovation, but it should... Join your hosts, Alex Galbraith and Jason Gray for the new Optimise to Innovate podcast from SoftwareOne. SoftwareOne helps organisations maximise the value from investments in technology. Over this podcast series, Alex, Jason and guests explore how technology investments, that are designed to solve business problems and drive innovation, can often transform from enablers to obstacles, and what you can do to navigate this challenge.. Together with industry experts, they will examine challenges in cloud investment, AI innovation, software estate management, cloud cost control and much more, providing practical advice and guidance on how these challenges can be overcome and how you can transform your technology investments into power drivers for business acceleration. Want to suggest a topic for discussion on a future episode? Simply email Alex and Jason on [email protected]. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button on your favourite platform to get the latest episodes first.

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Check latest episodes from Optimise to Innovate podcast

Slop Grenades and Other Agentic AI Scaling Problems

2026/10/22

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! What happens when AI stops being an experiment and starts becoming part of how the business actually runs? In this episode, Alex and Jason are joined by Simon Tracy from AWS to look at the realities of scaling AI beyond pilots and individual productivity. They discuss why measuring tokens is a poor substitute for measuring outcomes, how AI changes team structures and operating models, and why governance, context and human accountability become more important as adoption grows. Along the way they get into AI “slop grenades”, the cost of hallucinations, semantic layers, model switching, guardrails, human-in-the-loop design and why the organisations getting the most value from AI are often doing the least glamorous work behind the scenes.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Do Agentic AI Without Context

2026/09/25

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! AI has changed the rules for data. You may not need perfectly clean data, a huge data lake, or months of preparation before you can start getting value from it. In this episode, Alex and Jason are joined by Ehsan Emamirad, data and agentic AI expert, to challenge some of the assumptions that still shape Data & AI projects. They discuss why context matters more than ever, how unified data platforms and semantic models are changing the route to value, and why your organisation’s real advantage may not be the data it owns, but what that data actually means. Book Recommendation: AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI's Future and Save Our Own by Verity Harding

Keep Calm and Carry On Sovereign

2026/08/27

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! Who really controls your data? As digital sovereignty moves from policy circles to the boardroom, organisations are facing tough questions about control, compliance, resilience and innovation. In this episode, Jason and Alex are joined by digital sovereignty specialists David Schneider and Nelson Herrera to unpack one of the most talked-about topics in technology today. They explore what digital sovereignty actually means, why it matters to both governments and enterprises, and how organisations can balance regulatory requirements with the need to innovate. From sovereign cloud and workload placement to vendor choice, risk management and the future of European technology, this episode cuts through the hype to provide practical guidance for leaders navigating an increasingly complex digital landscape. You'll learn why digital sovereignty is not about choosing sides. It's about understanding what matters most to your organisation and making informed decisions that balance control, resilience and innovation.

Vibe Coding for Grown-Ups - AI in Professional Software Development

2026/07/22

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! What happens when professional developers stop just writing code, and start leading teams of AI agents? In this episode, Alex and Jason are joined by Sebastian Brandt and Paweł Stuczyński to explore how AI is changing software development beyond the vibe-coding hype. From faster prototypes and AI-assisted reviews, to smaller pull requests, security scanning, QA, cognitive load, agent overload and token costs, this is a practical look at what happens when development gets faster, but the need for quality, governance and good engineering judgement becomes even more important... because AI can help you build more, but someone still needs to know whether what you’ve built is actually any good!

Agentic AI, Agentic AI, Agentic AI, and other things...

2026/07/01

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! AI used to chat. Now it’s starting to do the work. In this episode of Optimise to Innovate, Alex and Jason step back from the agentic AI hype and ask what happens when organisations actually start running this stuff at scale, because one agent is interesting, but a thousand agents is an operating model... We explore the real-world challenges behind agentic AI, from governance, control planes and non-human identities, to trust, explainability, token costs and FinOps. We also tackle a bigger question - if agents take on more entry-level work, how do we build the experienced people we’ll still need in five or ten years’ time? A practical, honest and occasionally sci-fi-adjacent conversation about where AI is heading, what organisations need to think about now, and how to separate the signal from the agentic AI noise. Further reading: https://www.softwareone.com/en-gb/blog/articles/2026/06/18/five-takeaways-from-the-ai-summit-london-2026

Feeling the Vibe? How Non-Developers Are Building Apps

2026/05/26

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! Vibe coding promises a tempting idea. Describe the app you want, let AI build it, and suddenly anyone can become a creator! Building something that works is one thing, but building something you can trust is another... In this episode, Alex and Jason are joined by Gio and Jacek to explore how non-developers are using AI to build apps, automate annoying tasks, and turn domain knowledge into working software. They unpack what vibe coding actually is, why “prompt and pray” only gets you so far, and how a more structured approach can turn AI from a clever toy into a genuinely useful collaborator. For anyone who has an idea, a problem to solve, or a recurring task they would love to automate, this episode might be what encourages you to stop waiting and start experimenting.

Are You Oversubscribed? The Hidden Costs of SaaS Sprawl

2026/04/22

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! We're back with a question every business should be asking right now: Are you oversubscribed? We're joined by Julian Kuiper and Robert Whyte to unpack the increasing challenge of SaaS sprawl. Whether it's hidden subscriptions, shadow IT, overlapping tools, or a myriad of other reasons, the uncomfortable truth is that many organisations are paying for far more software than they realise. Subscription software can be both a huge advantage and a serious management headache. If you've ever looked at a software bill and thought “hang on, what even is this?”, this one is for you! You can follow our guests on LinkedIn: Julien - https://www.linkedin.com/in/julienkuijper/Robert - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-whyte-a401b959/

Agentic AI Is not really about agents

2026/03/24

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! In this episode of Optimise to Innovate, we cut through the hype around agentic AI and ask the big question: is this the future of business process transformation, or just generative AI with a very enthusiastic to-do list? Expert guests Alex Waldhaus and Seva Shchepanskyi explore why agentic AI is not really about agents at all, but about better process design, stronger data foundations, sensible governance, and knowing when to keep humans firmly in the loop. From data platforms, governance, and change management to observability, human-in-the-loop design, and the risks of treating AI like magic instead of engineering it like a system, this conversation grounds the topic in real-world execution and practical examples. A great listen for anyone who wants smarter automation and fewer meetings where someone says the word transformation 14 times... You can follow our guests on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-waldhaus-5a5174115/https://www.linkedin.com/in/vsevolod-shchepanskyi/

FinOps - You can't tool your way out of bad cloud habits

2026/02/23

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! FinOps is not just spreadsheets and frowning, and this episode is proof! We dive into the people side of cloud cost control, the habits that actually work, and the common mistakes that quietly burn budget. This episode is very practical, with plenty to steal for your own teams. If your cloud bill has ever made you wince, this one will feel very familiar. Want to suggest a topic for discussion on a future episode? Simply email Alex and Jason on [email protected].

Making Workplace AI work for you.

2026/01/21

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! The brain in front of the computer is you... Join your hosts, Alex and Jason, and their guest Tomi Karafilov – expert in Workplace AI, as they discuss the value that AI can bring to your workplace. Enjoy a lively discussion on the value and pitfalls of investing in technology that can either supercharge efficiency if implemented and managed correctly, or the opposite if not. Understand how this technology can support and enable you – the brain in front of the computer… Want to suggest a topic for discussion on a future episode? Simply email Alex and Jason on [email protected].

Optimise to Innovate - What's coming up.

2026/01/21

Get in touch with Alex & Jason! Not every tech investment leads to innovation, but it should... Join your hosts, Alex Galbraith and Jason Gray for the launch episode of the new Optimise to Innovate podcast from SoftwareOne. SoftwareOne helps organisations maximise the value from their investments in technology. In this launch episode, Alex and Jason share detail on what you can expect to experience during this series. A series that will focus on how technology investments, that are designed to solve business problems and drive innovation, can often transform from enablers to obstacles, and what you can do to navigate this challenge. Want to suggest a topic for discussion on a future episode? Simply email Alex and Jason on [email protected]. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button on your favourite platform to get the latest episodes first.

Podcast reviews

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5 out of 5

1 reviews

★★★★★

April-in-November 2026/01/22

Great Podcast

Fantastic podcast for those in the industry and highly recommended. You get to hear from a variety of guests so each podcast feels new. Give it a try!...

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