Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews)

AI may make professional services faster, but Grant Thornton Advisors CIO Mike Kempe believes the bigger opportunity is to rethink what clients are actually buying.

In this episode of Technovation, Kempe joins Peter High to discuss how Grant Thornton is using AI to reimagine professional services from the ground up. He explains why simply automating individual steps leaves much of AI’s potential untapped, how the firm keeps human judgment at the center of AI-enabled work, and why trust and governance remain essential as adoption scales. Kempe also explores a larger shift in the industry: away from traditional time-and-materials engagements and toward a model built around outcomes, insight, confidence, and results.

The conversation also covers Grant Thornton’s AI investments, its GTAP audit platform, experimentation with AI agents, M&A integration, and the evolving role of the CIO.

This episode is presented by ElevenLabs — Bringing technology to life. Learn more at elevenlabs.io

This episode is also presented by Retool — Build internal software better, with AI. Learn more at retool.com

What separates an exceptional executive from an outlier founder? For Sequoia Capital partner Bogomil Balkansky, learning the difference required recalibrating his own definition of talent.

In this episode of Technoventure, Peter High speaks with Balkansky about how Sequoia evaluates founders when there is little data to rely on, why intuition matters in early-stage investing, and what his experiences at VMware and Bebop taught him about building enduring companies. They also explore the evolution of Wiz, AI’s impact on cybersecurity, and why the companies that define a technology era may not be the ones that first blaze the trail.

You’ll hear:

What makes a founder an “outlier”

Why great employees do not always become great founders

How Balkansky approaches high-stakes, one-way-door decisions

Why startups should earn the right to become platforms

How AI could create a new generation of cybersecurity champions

Listen to the full conversation for an investor-operator perspective on founders, markets, risk, and building through disruption.

The smartest AI model may no longer be the biggest constraint on enterprise AI.

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Retool Co-Founder and CEO David Hsu about why the next frontier is the “harness” around the model: the context, tools, governance, and human approvals that allow AI to do meaningful work inside an enterprise. David explains why knowledge workers are still too often acting as the API for AI, how enterprises can democratize software development without sacrificing security, and why model flexibility matters as costs and capabilities change rapidly.

The conversation also explores the future of SaaS, the growing cybersecurity implications of AI-generated code, and how David’s background in philosophy shapes his thinking about intelligence itself.

This episode is presented by ElevenLabs — Bringing technology to life. Learn more at elevenlabs.io

The next evolution of enterprise networks is not more automation, it is autonomy.

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with Verizon CTO Yago Tenorio about how Verizon is building toward Level 4 network autonomy, where AI agents operate as “digital colleagues” under human supervision. Yago explains how autonomous systems could reduce incident resolution from hours to seconds, identify customer experience gaps traditional network monitoring cannot see, and operate safely through observability, traceability, reversibility, and accountability.

They also discuss Verizon’s rollout of Claude Code to 33,000 technology employees, the changing skills required in an AI-first workforce, why data and domain expertise matter more than simply deploying the largest language model, and how AI could reshape the future of connectivity.

This episode is presented by ElevenLabs — Bringing technology to life. Learn more at elevenlabs.io

What drives someone to spend decades pursuing artificial general intelligence, not for wealth, but for scientific discovery?

In this episode of Technovation, Peter High speaks with bestselling author and financial historian Sebastian Mallaby about his new book, The Infinity Machine, which chronicles the remarkable journey of DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis and the global race to build artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Drawing on more than 30 hours of interviews with Hassabis and conversations with over 100 colleagues, competitors, and friends, Mallaby explores the leadership philosophy, scientific ambition, and organizational decisions that shaped one of the world’s most influential AI companies.

Listeners will also hear an in-depth discussion of Google’s acquisition of DeepMind, the evolution of AI from AlphaGo to Gemini, the competitive dynamics among OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google, and what the pursuit of superintelligence means for business leaders navigating the next era of technological transformation.

Key topics include:

Why Demis Hassabis devoted his career to AGI

The founding story behind DeepMind

Google’s AI strategy and the Innovator’s Dilemma

Leadership lessons from building world-class research organizations

The opportunities of increasingly capable AI systems

Listen to discover why the future of AI may depend as much on leadership and organizational design as on technological breakthroughs.

This episode is presented by ElevenLabs — Bringing technology to life. Learn more at elevenlabs.io