After The Magic

Universal opt-out signals (e.g., Global Privacy Control) have gained momentum on both sides of the Atlantic, with California, Colorado, or Connecticut enforcing them and the EU recently endorsing them, but they do not solve for consent opt-in requirements still applicable in many cases. Meanwhile, privacy policies and notices remain cryptic and challenging for anyone to read or understand. They pay little attention to an individual’s real preferences or needs and sit at the opposite side of agency or the often empty statement “we care about your privacy”. A brand new IEEE standard (7012, or “MyTerms”) could bring about the most important change to the current power imbalance. Iain Henderson is a long term marketer and CRM professional who long since concluded that if the ‘customer side’ had equivalent relationship and data management tools then things would work a lot better. His day job is with JLINC as the architect for personal data solutions, and through that he is also part of the DataPal team in the UK. He is also a Board member of Customer Commons, and has been a core member of the team developing IEEE 7012/ MyTerms. References: * Iain Henderson on Substack * Iain Henderson on LinkedIn * MyTerms * JLINC * DataPal * MyData Global * EU Digital Omnibus: EDPB and EDPS support simplification and competitiveness while raising key concerns This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

The Agentic AI revolution is marching forward at full speed. What should humans invest in in the face of some much change? How do we discern reality? Why do we get the impression that the role of the “AI Ethicist” is in fast decline? Dr Joanna Michalska is a strategic advisor, researcher, and senior executive who works with boards and executive teams on how AI-enabled systems are reshaping how organisations operate. She is passionate about the science of decision-making in complexity and about helping leaders step up accountability as authority shifts into algorithms and infrastructures. She brings senior leadership experience from global financial services and holds a PhD in Enterprise Risk Management, focusing on building real intervention capability so responsibility does not become symbolic in the rapidly accelerating reality of AI-driven organisations. References: * Dr. Joanna Michalska on LinkedIn * Ethica Group: Effective Authority under Automation * AI Ethics, Risk and Governance Research Centre * Joanna Michalska at Fintech Connect * GAEA Talks - Who’s Accountable When AI Decides? Balancing Risk & Innovation with Dr Joanna Michalska This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

An improvised exchange covering a wide range of topics, including: the pace of technology, Agentic Commerce, bias, AI judges, Empowerment Tech, MyTerms, AI Ethics and the environment. With Gam Dias and Sergio Maldonado References: * EU Commission opens antitrust investigation into Meta’s new policy regarding AI providers’ access to WhatsApp * MyTerms Agreement - PDC AI, Iain Henderson This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

Is it possible that, for all the talk about AI adoption and its impact (despite a few good studies proving the opposite), organizations are not at all able to cope with any of it until we solve essential structural issues? Could it be that optimizing for efficiency and effectiveness proves to be the wrong model as we move forward? Tony Fish is an investor, author and self-confessed maverick. He has been building digital businesses since 1990, with a first exit in 1995 and many businesses founded, co-founded, sold and listed after that. He thrives in complex, groundbreaking and uncertain environments, being currently focused on rethinking corporate governance models, ethics and AI, data policy and evidence-based decision making in volatile situations. He is a speaker and author of four books, as well as a visiting fellow for entrepreneurship and innovation at Henley Business School has taught at London Business School in A and Ethics, the London School of Economics and Sydney Business School. His latest book is “Decision-making in uncertain times”. References: * Tony Fish, “Decision-making in uncertain times: How can we become more aware of the consequences of our actions on tomorrow?” (Jan 2024) * Navigating How to Cross the Chasm: AI Governance (Tony Fish on Medium) * Tony Fish on LinkedIn * Simon Wardley, “Wardley Mapping, The Knowledge: Part One - Topographical intelligence in business” (Nov 2020) * Tony Fish, Why is data eating your culture before breakfast * My Digital Footprint, a blog by Tony Fish * Open Governance (Tony Fish on Medium) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

Jason Rebholz was born and raised in incident response, where he spent over a decade responding to cyber attacks from nation-states, hacktivists, and financially motivated criminals. After hanging up his IR hat, he was the CISO at Corvus Insurance for four years, where he ran internal security, threat intelligence, and risk services that built innovative ways to protect tens of thousands of policyholder networks. He is now the co-founder and CEO at Evoke Security, where he is focused on helping companies secure AI in their environments. Jason has a strong YouTube following and is a Top LinkedIn Voice. References: * Jason Rebholz on LinkedIn * Jason Rebholz: AI: Security & Privacy Risks (Evoke Security) * Jason Rebholz’s YouTube channel * The Jason Lemkin and Replit experience: vibe coding fiasco (PC Magazine) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

How will AI Agents affect Ecommerce and the Retail sector? Have LLMs reshaped keyword-based product search? How can leading retailers ensure proper governance of their AI stack while maintaining their competitive advantage? We have asked Angel Maldonado Angel Maldonado is founder and CEO at Empathy Holdings, home of Empathy.AI, MotiveMarket, VisiblePrivacy and the Search & Discovery products Motive.co and Empathy.co that power over 3000 small and large shops worldwide. Angel started his career working for Autonomy where he helped clients on pioneering enterprise search projects for seven years before founding Empathy.co. He is currently based in London. (Disclaimers: Angel is Sergio’s brother. Sergio is an investor in Empathy.) References: * Angel Maldonado on LinkedIn * Empathy Holdings * Maxi-Cool: a cooling system for self-hosted AI models This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

What is the gap between the hype and reality? Are we merely rebranding basic workflows as ‘agentic’ simply because we’ve added a layer of LLM outputs? In this episode, Gam and Sergio speak to Eduardo Ordax, Generative AI Lead at Amazon Web Services. With Eduardo, we have tried to understand what companies in the real world are doing about Agentic AI today. We have also discussed practical steps to extract tangible value from Agentic AI deployments with the tools available to us today. Other concepts have been mentioned along the way, such as the NLWeb protocol. References: * Eduardo Ordax on LinkedIn * Introducing the Model Context Protocol (After The Magic) * Gam Dias: Agents Unleashed (Masters of Privacy, April 2025) * NLWeb (GitHub) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com

In this first episode Gam and Sergio will introduce the concept of the Model Context Protocol, which they believe is an essential first step to understanding AI Agents. They will also lay the groundwork for the conversations that will follow. References: * Anthropic: Introducing the Model Context Protocol * Gam Dias: Agents Unleashed (Masters of Privacy, April 2025) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.afterthemagic.com