Introducing: Future Proof from Semafor Technology

Marissa Mayer has had a long career in tech: Employee number 20 at Google, the CEO and president of Yahoo, and now a board member for AT&T, Walmart, Starbucks, and more. Now, she’s back to the startup life — building a new venture in the AI age, and taking on the consumer lane others have overlooked. Mayer joins Reed on this week’s Future Proof from Semafor Technology to talk about Dazzle AI, and make the case that the ultimate context layer for an AI agent is sitting on your phone right now. “Email is somebody else’s to-do list for you,” she argues. “What’s interesting about your camera roll is you decide what you put there, and you have for as long as you had a phone.” They also discuss why she thinks Google is well-positioned to weather its current market troubles, why no one else seems to be taking on the consumer angle of AI — and she explains the real story behind that New York Times article. Subscribe to get the Semafor Technology briefing delivered to your inbox. Future Proof is presented by Google Cloud. Don't let agents make more work for you. Gemini is a single agent that knows all parts of your business - data, code, apps - so it actually gets stuff done. And it runs on the most secure cloud, so you can relax. Make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud.

Driverless cars are a routine sight in San Francisco, but the current robotaxi model may actually require more humans than the system it was meant to replace — with armies of workers inspecting, cleaning, and charging the autonomous vehicles in centralized depots at the end of every day. Aseon Labs wants to solve the problem by distributing robotic pods across cities to autonomously service the vehicles throughout their day, during downtime they’d otherwise spend on the side of the road waiting for another ride. Co-founder George Kalligeros joins Reed on this week’s Future Proof from Semafor Technology to talk about the problem, their first pod — and why real estate, not the robotics, is the real bottleneck. Future Proof is presented by Google Cloud. Don't let agents make more work for you. Gemini is a single agent that knows all parts of your business - data, code, apps - so it actually gets stuff done. And it runs on the most secure cloud, so you can relax. Make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud.

Four years on from the launch of ChatGPT, AI’s impact on the world — outside of software development — has been incremental, not exponential. And Microsoft is less about making competitors like Google dance than it is about getting down to the nitty gritty of making AI work predictably and reliably. At Microsoft’s CISO summit, Reed sat down with Satya Nadella, who has gone back to being the CEO of a company that is building a sturdy dance floor. “We, as an industry, have to wake up to this,” Nadella said. “It’s not about the shiny object and FOMO.” They also discuss whether “superintelligence” is a good rebrand, whether alignment is still possible, and if the 59-year-old Microsoft CEO has started thinking about succession.Subscribe to get the Semafor Technology briefing delivered to your inbox. Future Proof is presented by Google Cloud. Don't let agents make more work for you. Gemini is a single agent that knows all parts of your business - data, code, apps - so it actually gets stuff done. And it runs on the most secure cloud, so you can relax. Make work less work with Gemini on Google Cloud.

Reflection AI co-founder and former Google DeepMind researcher Ioannis Antonoglou thinks that for companies to take full advantage of the power of AI, they'll need to rethink their businesses from the ground up, and that's why it could take decades before AI becomes fully integrated into the fabric of the economy. On this week’s Future Proof from Semafor Technology, he joins Reed Albergotti to talk about this, the geopolitically linked open-weight AI battle, and how the world will eventually stop worrying and learn to trust AI models — even if it can't fully understand them. Future Proof is presented by Google Workspace with Gemini. Get personalized AI built into premium versions of Gmail, Docs, Drive, and more to help you tackle daily tasks—all in one plan. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini.

In the debut episode of Future Proof from Semafor Technology, Cognition CISO and former Facebook security chief Alex Stamos goes off on the “nihilism” ripping through Silicon Valley. He joins Semafor San Francisco Bureau Chief Reed Albergotti to discuss the very real risks of AI, and the wholly imagined ones shaped by “almost religious beliefs” held by people at AI companies. “These things are not conscious, they do not have souls,” he says. Stamos says he plans to “work the problem” to help shorten the inevitable “dark age” of cybersecurity. “What you should not do is just quit your job and freak everybody out,” he says. Plus, why nobody would work for Mark Zuckerberg if he resembled Aaron Sorkin’s celluloid version in the upcoming film The Social Reckoning. Future Proof is presented by Google Workspace with Gemini. Get personalized AI built into premium versions of Gmail, Docs, Drive, and more to help you tackle daily tasks—all in one plan. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini.

Technology is at an inflection point. From AI to the forces reshaping business, science and daily life, the pace of change is accelerating. Future Proof from Semafor Technology offers a direct look at the breakthroughs, risks and questions defining what comes next. Hosted by Semafor’s San Francisco Bureau Chief Reed Albergotti, each episode features conversations with the builders, policymakers and industry leaders shaping how technology is developed, adopted and governed.