Pragmatic AI with Matt Stauffer
Pragmatic AI is a podcast about practical AI for business leaders, developers, and thinkers—the stuff that actually works, not the hate or the hype. We cover using AI tools day-to-day across the spectrum of human experience.
Episodes
Ghost.org’s John O’Nolan on How AI Helps Small Teams Win Against Giants
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer sits down with John O'Nolan, founder of Ghost, the open-source publishing platform he runs as a nonprofit that's deliberately capped at 50 people
AI and Geopolitics: Building Agents That Think Like World Powers
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer talks with Lauren Dueck, SVP and Director of Communications at The Asia Group, a geopolitical consulting firm advising the world's top companies.
AI for Virtual Assistants: Skills, Automations, and the Human-in-the-Loop
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer sits down with Kayla Helmick to talk about her journey from traditional virtual assistant work to leveraging AI for automations, podcast editing,
The Conversations AI Forces Us to Have
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer talks with Justin Jackson, co-founder of Transistor.fm, about what AI is really doing to creators, careers, and company culture — and why so littl
Relevance Engineering: How to Show Up in AI Search
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Michael King, founder and CEO of iPullRank, about what he calls relevance engineering — the work of getting brands and people seen inside AI search engi
Building a Self-Directed PhD With Claude AI
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer talks with software engineer and self-described "Renegade Historian" Dave Stanton, who has built an entire AI-driven workflow that lets him progra
Human Marketing in an AI Search World
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer sits down with Meg Clarke, owner of Clapping Dog Media, to talk about how getting found online has shifted from gaming search engines to being dis
Using AI As a Thinking Partner, Not a Vending Machine
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer talks with Greg Storey — author of Creative Intelligence: Don’t Ask AI, Think With It — about why most people are using AI like a productivity ven
AI Researcher Michelle Yi on Watson, World Models, and Why AI Should Be for Everyone
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer is joined by Michelle Yi — co-founder of Generationship, board member of Women in Data, and AI Researcher at Basis Research Institute — who shares her 20-year jour
AI in Elementary Schools: A Principal’s Take
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer is joined by Amie McCaw, an elementary school principal in Southwest Michigan with 19 years of experience leading K-5 buildings. Together they exp
Teaching Non-Developers to Build Real Apps With AI
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Brian Casel about what it means to be a “builder” in 2026—and how that definition is rapidly expanding beyond traditional developers.They explore Brian’
Is AI Replacing Developers or Just Changing the Job?
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Ian Landsman — 20-year SaaS founder, bootstrapper, and the person many credit with making the Laravel ecosystem possible — about what it actually looks
Kent C. Dodds on MCP and How Product Engineering Might Outlast Coding
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Kent C. Dodds — educator, JavaScript expert, and creator of Epic Web, Epic React, and Epic AI — about what it actually looks like to use AI at the front
Creating AI Workflows for Designers
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Steve Schoger, designer and partner at Tailwind Labs, shares how he’s actually using AI in his day-to-day work, including tools like Claude in his design workfl
Advocating for more AI Governance
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Karen Maria Alston, a 20-year communication strategist turned AI governance advocate, about why AI is impacting everyone, whether they use it or not.The
The Nexus of Technology & Theology
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Nick Peterson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Homiletics at Christian Theological Seminary, ordained AME minister, executive pastor, and grant director, ab
A Framework for Approaching Worrying Technology
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer talks with Reuben Johnson — aka YoBigRube — founder of Fly Duo, a storytelling studio specializing in high-trust narratives for complex and sensitive messaging. Re
Beyond “Spicy Autocomplete”: What AI Models Actually Do
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.Matt Stauffer sits down with Sam Rose, developer educator at ngrok, to unpack what’s actually happening inside the AI models we use every day. Sam breaks down ideas like paramet
Understanding, and Automating, Business with AI
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer talks with AI strategist Blessing Richardson about how businesses can use AI in practical, responsible ways. They explore the importance of data l
How AI Is Changing Writing and Creative Work
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode of Pragmatic AI, Matt Stauffer and Jordan Keller discuss how AI is reshaping writing, content creation, and the people who make their living with words.They unpa
The Education Business in an AI World
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode of Pragmatic AI, Matt Stauffer interviews Jeffrey Way, the creator of Laracasts, to talk about what AI is really doing to developer education. They explore how A
AI’s Impact on Open Source Funding
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode, Matt Stauffer sits down with Adam Wathan, creator of Tailwind CSS, to talk about the very real impact AI is having on product companies, open source communities
Dreaming Bigger With AI - Aaron Francis
The Pragmatic AI Podcast is sponsored by Tighten. T-I-G-H-T-E-N. We will take your AI ideas, prototypes or even vibe-coded apps, and we'll take them to production. Scalable and secure. Check us out at tighten.com.In this episode of Pragmatic AI, host Matt Stauffer interviews Aaron Francis, a Laravel developer and co-founder of Try Hard Studios. They discuss Aaron's journey from being a s
Pragmatic AI Season One Trailer
AI is *everywhere*, like it or not. Everyone's either hating or hyping. But where do you find the middle?New podcast alert! First episode drops 2/10/26. Short, practical interviews w/builders, founders, & researchers using & studying real-world AI.
