Ep41 Bryan Dennstedt of AIWithBry—2026 Trends: Trust in AI, Healthcare, College, AGI & more
Episode Summary
Todd and Bryan Dennstedt review their 2025 AI predictions and discuss 2026 trends including agentic AI workflows, SaaS pricing disruption, trust verification systems, and the transformation of software development through AI-powered rapid prototyping. They explore how AI is enabling low-capital entrepreneurship, challenging traditional venture models, and requiring fundamental shifts in business planning and execution.
Key Quotes
"We've been installing the AI light bulbs the past two years, but the bigger companies are building these automations, these big machines—rolling in factory assembly lines that leverage LLM and practical AI. That's light bulbs to motors."
"I can have you in business in two days and you can be selling, but you got to prove to me you can sell this stuff. It's no longer about investing 50 grand on juniors at Georgia Tech. It's about finding somebody mid-career with a burning desire to solve a problem who knows a lot of people."
"There's going to be this whole new business empire created out of trust verification. Was this real? Was this a human? That is a core product category that's going to bloom in 2026."
Transcript
Hi, welcome to Tales from the Sky Lounge. It's a podcast about business consulting and venture investing. We get out there in the world, we talk to people who are making it happen, and we get their stories. This podcast episode is a special dual broadcast with awithbri.com, Brian Deadstat. Hey, Brian. Welcome back. It's been another year and it's been a crazy year. How have you been? What's been going on in your world?
Yeah, Todd, thanks for having me back. This is a blast to be back. I can't believe it's been a year and we haven't done a podcast since then. So much has changed. So much is growing and going on. I'm just excited to be back to unpack how 2025 went and look at 2026 with you.
It really is crazy, isn't it? So much. Well, how do you want to start? Do you want to look at our last year's predictions here and see how we did and then maybe move on from there?
Absolutely. I mean, I've got a burning topic to jump into, but let's maybe look through the predictions first, pull out the magic envelope, and let's see how we did last year.
Okay. Yeah. And then we'll get to your topic right after we kind of see how we did. We used AI to score. So first, the things we absolutely nailed. I don't know if we nailed all this stuff or it's more subtle than that. I'm going to take the win. Let's take the win.
Want to go deeper?
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