AI Agents: Mirage Or Real Revolution? — With Dmitry Shevelenko
5/7/20261 hr 2 min
Dimitri Shevelenko is the chief business officer of Perplexity. Shevelenko joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss whether the AI industry’s shift toward agentic 'super apps' and computer-using assistants will become a real business. Tune in to hear why Perplexity believes computer use is a durable productivity tool, how it thinks about consumer AI’s growth slowdown, and why multi-model orchestration could be a competitive advantage. We also cover AI search, enterprise adoption, trust and permissions, Chinese open-source models, pricing, and the economics of AI demand. Hit play for a sharp conversation on where AI products are heading next. Join Big Technology's AI Summit In San Francisco: https://summit.bigtechnology.com/ ——— Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack + Discord? Here’s 25% off for the first year: https://www.bigtechnology.com/subscribe?coupon=0843016b Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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First 90 secondsAlex Kantrowitz· Host0:00
Is the near uniform move of AI companies to agent super apps going to pay off? Let's ask Perplexity's chief business officer right after this. This week, I'm live at Knowledge 2026, ServiceNow's annual conference in Las Vegas, where enterprise AI moves from promise to production. I'm sitting down with ServiceNow's president and CPO, Amit Zavery, on the platform strategy powering it all, their people and technology leaders on what AI means for the workforce, the engineering team behind ServiceNow's NVIDIA partnership on what it really takes to ship AI at scale, and Ultra Beauty on deploying AI across 1,300 stores. These are the conversations you won't hear anywhere else, and new episodes are dropping this week on my YouTube page. We've all heard the stat, 95% of AI initiatives fail. It's not because the technology isn't ready. It's because you don't have the right process or the right partner. Meet Aboard. Aboard is your partner for AI transformation, which means they listen, use their very own powerful software tools, and deliver exactly what your company needs to thrive in the age of AI. Working with big and small clients, Aboard always delivers in weeks, not months. Your AI revolution is just beginning. Visit aboard.com to get your AI rollout right. Welcome to Big Technology Podcast, a show for cool-headed and nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We have the chief business officer of Perplexity here with us. Dmitry Shevelenko is here with us in studio. And Perplexity, as you may know, is one of the many companies moving towards this agentic super app