Home Podcasts Inspire AI: Transforming RVA Through Technology and Automation
Inspire AI: Transforming RVA Through Technology and Automation

Inspire AI: Transforming RVA Through Technology and Automation

AI Ready RVA 94 Episodes Oct 12, 2026

This podcast focuses on cultivating AI literacy in the Greater Richmond Region through awareness, community engagement, education, and advocacy. It spotlights local companies and individuals who are pioneering the development and use of AI. The show aims to showcase innovations and inspire listeners to understand and embrace artificial intelligence.

Episodes

Ep 100 - Becoming America’s Most AI-Ready Region w/ Will Willis and Will Melton
Ep 100 - Becoming America’s Most AI-Ready Region w/ Will Willis and Will Melton Oct 12, 2026 3532 Send us Fan MailRichmond is growing, AI is accelerating, and the uncomfortable truth is that “being interested” is not the same as being ready. We sit down with Will Willis (Executive Director of AI Ready RVA) and Will Melton (Board Chair, entrepreneur, and University of Richmond instructor) to wrestle with a bold goal: turning Greater Richmond into the most AI-ready region in America without maki
Ep 99 - How To Lead When Everyone Has AI: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 99 - How To Lead When Everyone Has AI: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Oct 5, 2026 679 Send us Fan MailAI is making knowledge cheap. That’s the uncomfortable truth underneath the hype and the hopeful invitation underneath the fear. When everyone can access the same models, the same software, and the same automation, the advantage stops being “who has the best tech” and becomes “who learns best on purpose.”We zoom out from product launches and talk about transformational leadership i
Ep 98 - Frontline AI Leadership: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 98 - Frontline AI Leadership: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Sep 28, 2026 553 Send us Fan MailAI isn’t only transforming spreadsheets and slide decks. The biggest change is showing up where work is physical, immediate, and deeply human: retail floors, hospitals, classrooms, warehouses, construction sites, and manufacturing plants. That’s where customers feel your brand, where patients receive care, and where leadership gets tested in real time.We walk through what “frontlin
Ep 97 - The Middle Manager: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 97 - The Middle Manager: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Sep 21, 2026 613 Send us Fan MailMiddle managers have been “written off” for years, especially whenever a new wave of technology promises faster communication and smarter decisions. We disagree. When AI can summarize meetings, generate reports, and answer routine questions, the manager’s job does not disappear. It finally becomes what great management was always meant to be: helping people grow, making strategy us
Ep 96 - Workflow Redesign: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 96 - Workflow Redesign: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Sep 14, 2026 613 Send us Fan MailMost teams don’t fail with AI because they picked the wrong software. They fail because they drop powerful AI tools into workflows that were already overloaded, slow, and full of bottlenecks. That’s like building a race car and then driving it on a road full of potholes. The tool isn’t the problem. The system is.We dig into the difference between automation and transformation, and
Ep 95 - AI Literacy For Leaders: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 95 - AI Literacy For Leaders: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Sep 7, 2026 583 Send us Fan MailAI is moving into every corner of work, and it’s creating a quiet trap for leaders: the belief that we have to become deeply technical before we can lead. We push back on that idea and argue for something far more useful: AI literacy. For us, AI literacy isn’t about Python, model building, or chasing the newest tool. It’s the ability to make good decisions when AI is generating inf
Ep 94 - Building Trust With Responsible AI: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 94 - Building Trust With Responsible AI: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Aug 31, 2026 533 Send us Fan MailWant to join a community of AI learners and enthusiasts? AI Ready RVA is leading the conversation and is rapidly rising as a hub for AI in the Richmond Region. Become a member and support our AI literacy initiatives.
Ep 93 - AI Augmentation For Leaders: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI
Ep 93 - AI Augmentation For Leaders: Transformational Leadership in the Age of AI Aug 24, 2026 522 Send us Fan MailAI is moving into every workflow, but most teams are still treating it like a faster search bar. We take a different stance: the winners aren’t the organizations that simply adopt AI tools, they’re the ones that redesign work so humans and AI complement each other. If you lead people, run meetings, or make high-stakes calls, this matters because speed alone isn’t the goal. Better j
Ep 92 - Clarity Before Certainty: Transformational Leadership In The AI Age
Ep 92 - Clarity Before Certainty: Transformational Leadership In The AI Age Aug 17, 2026 592 Send us Fan MailAI is moving into your workplace whether leadership feels ready or not, and that reality creates a dangerous gap: employees are already experimenting while executives are still debating permission. We start a new Inspire AI series by naming the real challenge for leaders in the age of AI: learning how to lead while everything around you changes, and giving people clarity before cer
Ep 91 - How Artificial Intelligence Helps You Learn Faster And Build Better Habits
Ep 91 - How Artificial Intelligence Helps You Learn Faster And Build Better Habits Aug 10, 2026 768 Send us Fan MailAI headlines love extremes: total automation or sci-fi superintelligence. We take a different angle and ask a more personal, more practical question: can AI help us become better versions of ourselves? When you stop treating AI like a shortcut machine and start using it like a coach, tutor, analyst, and thought partner, the real value shows up in how you think, how you learn, and h
Ep 90 - Loop Engineering: When Intelligence Gets Cheap, What Still Wins?
Ep 90 - Loop Engineering: When Intelligence Gets Cheap, What Still Wins? Aug 3, 2026 678 Send us Fan MailPrompt tricks used to feel like the whole game. Now AI coding agents can run commands, inspect logs, edit multiple files, and stay on task for hours, and that changes what “good” looks like in AI-enabled software development. We dig into loop engineering, the idea that the biggest gains come from designing the system around the model: clear objectives, objective verification, struc
Ep 89 - Making the Invisible Visible: Enterprise AI Accountability w/ Ben Hawkins
Ep 89 - Making the Invisible Visible: Enterprise AI Accountability w/ Ben Hawkins Jul 27, 2026 2289 Send us Fan MailAI doesn’t fail in enterprises because the model isn’t impressive. It fails because nobody can answer the uncomfortable questions: who owns the data, who carries the liability, and what “trust” even means when software can hallucinate with confidence. We sit down with Ben Hawkins, a technology transactions lawyer working at the intersection of AI commercialization, enterprise softw

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