Practical AI · Episode 58

What’s in Your AI Stack?

Friday, September 25, 2026 · 11:00 AM CT · Olga + Chris
Working title. The name comes last. Funding and the tracker are live and verified. Live Flow, deep dive run sheet, viewer page and card go up tonight. The one call on show day is yours: start the StreamYard broadcast.
Things not to say, from the verify pass. The store breach: people used AI tools. Never “the AI attacked,” and name no victims. Model prices are 20% cheaper per token. The 40% is Anthropic’s own estimate. The pacing case: say “a lawsuit alleges.” Stanford’s jobs study is from this summer, July. There is no mid-career number yet. Claude was not in the Gemini side-door test.
11:00

Open

Chris opens, then your standing open. Worst case scenario, you’ll be the most interesting person at dinner this weekend.

11:02

News · 6 stories

1 $25 a store · 2 Amazon locked Meta’s agent out, then let Claude in · 3 the slowdown lasted ten days · 4 the AI that found the side door · 5 it reads your inbox, you still tap send · 6 71% think AI takes the jobs. Story 1 needs your one line: what should a store owner check this weekend? Hand off into the deep dive on the agent app stores.

11:25

Deep dive · What’s in your AI stack

Everyone opened an app store for agents this week. So what belongs in your stack? The six-point test, then your stack by department and Chris’s.

11:48

Funding · Week 43

Hook. The biggest deal in the world this week was not AI. Royal Caribbean paid $3B for half of Sandals, bigger than the five biggest AI rounds put together.
Turn. So AI’s share fell to 36.0%, and it means nothing. AI raised $5.33B across 85 companies with no round over a billion. Last week without Motive was $4.81B. Fewer companies, bigger checks: the typical round went $13.2M to $18.0M. No giants. A heavier middle.
Number. Seventeen AI companies raised $100M or more, three quarters of all the AI money.
Closer. Heidi, Melbourne, writes the doctor’s notes. $340M, but only $100M is a normal round. The other $240M is General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund, the same money behind Motive last week. $471.4B, 43 weeks, the tracker is in the description.
Say “reported” for EVAS Intelligence. TEKEVER’s $580M is a first close.

11:56

Close

Three things, in this order. Join the email list. Next week: a guest who built with AI. And one thing to try this weekend, taken from the deep dive.

Close script · coming tonight
Every link on this panel verified 200 at publish. Pieces marked “coming tonight” get their links when they are built.