A week in AI is like a year in other industries. I hope these issues become your weekly source of AI information, inspiration, and ideas. If we haven’t met before, I’m Amanda Smith. I write about AI and the fascinating folks who are building in this brave new world.
Good morning. Over the past few months we’ve covered founders using AI to rethink everything from business phones and real estate to filmmaking, creative workflows, and the group chat. That’s one of my favorite parts of this beat — seeing how quickly AI moves from abstract hype to very real products in very specific industries.
In case you missed them, here are some of the founder stories readers spent the most time with 👇
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Mahyar Raissi is rethinking the business phone for the AI age. His company, Quo, started by making VoIP simpler for small businesses, then layered in AI where it actually mattered. Their receptionist, Sona, now answers calls, qualifies leads, and routes conversations, helping small teams capture revenue that would have otherwise slipped through the cracks. It’s a grounded reminder that AI doesn’t have to replace people to be transformative.
Zeev Farbman started Lightricks long before AI became the center of the tech world. Now the company is building one of the strongest multimodal video models on the market, competing with much bigger labs while operating from Jerusalem. Their model, LTX-2, reflects a bigger thesis: open ecosystems may end up shaping the future of AI more than closed stacks.
Weber Wong built FLORA after realizing most generative tools were optimized for novelty, not real creative work. His bet is that workflows, not prompts, will become the durable unit of value in AI. Now used by teams at brands like Levi’s and Pentagram, FLORA is emerging as a creative operating system for professionals who want speed without giving up control.
David Petrou spent nearly two decades at Google before leaving to build Continua, an AI agent that lives inside group chats. It helps people coordinate trips, organize family logistics, surface forgotten details, and generally make life less chaotic without forcing anyone into another app. His biggest insight? The best AI might be the kind that fades into the background.
Lynn Rogoff has built a career across theatre, TV, games, and now AI-enhanced filmmaking. Her series Bird Woman: Sacajawea uses tools like Runway, Sora, and Veo, but keeps human actors, historians, and Indigenous elders at the center. The result is a new kind of production model — one that treats AI as infrastructure, not authorship.
Biju Ashokan looked at real estate and saw an industry drowning in repetitive workflows and thin margins. Radius, his answer, layers AI into everything from compliance and lead follow-up to customer communication and research. The result is a system that helps brokerages run more profitably while giving agents the feel of an independent business. In his words, it’s “Shopify for real estate agents.”
How's the depth of today's edition?
If one of these stories stuck with you, I’d love to hear which one.
Speak soon,
Amanda
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