A Flood Is Coming. Here's How to Level Up and Be Ready For What's To Come.
Jensen says AGI is here. Claude can now use your computer. SXSW field notes, a growing conviction, and why Applied AI Live #3 (Thursday at 5:30pm at Antler VC) might change your life forever.
Quick Links
In this issue: why applied AI literacy is “learn to read” (not just “learn to code”), SXSW field notes including the Mayor of Austin and a panel on self-improving businesses, and what we’re building next.
RSVP for Applied AI Live #3 this Thursday (March 26, 5:30 PM, Antler VC HQ, Austin). Space is limited. Stacked speaker lineup including Travis Oliphant. Register here.
Watch the Applied AI Society SXSW panel on self-improving businesses as the north star of applied AI. Full video.
Start a chapter in your city or campus. You don’t need our permission. Playbooks are ready.
A Growing Conviction
When we launched Applied AI Society in January, the mission was to illuminate the opportunity. Help people see that there’s real money to be made applying AI to businesses.
Two months in, the conviction has sharpened into something more urgent.
The difference between success and failure over the next two years is whether or not you learn how to apply AI. As a practitioner serving businesses, or as a business owner transforming your own.
This isn’t hype. This is what we’re seeing on the ground. The pace of acceleration in the tools coming out is going to completely disrupt every primarily digital industry. And then it will evolve to disrupt every other industry, because every industry has digital components. At minimum, every industry has a marketing function.
This is also what global company leaders are saying publicly. Jensen Huang sat down with Lex Fridman yesterday and said five words: “I think we’ve achieved AGI.” When asked how long before AI could start, grow, and run a billion-dollar company, his answer was: “I think it’s now.”
That same day, Anthropic announced that Claude can now operate your computer autonomously: opening apps, navigating browsers, filling in spreadsheets, completing tasks you would do sitting at your desk. The reactions, each with millions of impressions, said what every white-collar worker was thinking. One tweet with 2.4 million views simply said: “R.I.P. college kids who wanted jobs.”
And it’s not just words. Dell, Block, Atlassian, and others are laying off tens of thousands of people. Executives I’ve spoken to are very resistant to hiring junior employees unless those people have strong applied AI skills. The restructuring is already happening.
The disruption is coming. It doesn’t help to beat around the bush.
A conversation I had recently with Ian Newell from OpenTeams really crystallized it for me. We’ve been saying applied AI literacy is “the new learn to code.” But it’s bigger than that. Applied AI literacy is learn to read. It’s that foundational. Not understanding what AI can do for your business, your career, your community is the new illiteracy. I’m obviously biased because that’s why I founded this organization. But I believe it with my whole chest.
That’s what Applied AI Society exists to do: give hope. And tangible steps for how to stay relevant and thrive in this new economy.
SXSW 2026: With Mayor Kirk Watson at Meta’s Austin office, and various talks and panels at SXSW
SXSW: Field Notes from the Front Lines
A lot happened at SXSW this year. Three moments stood out.
The Mayor Gets It
I spoke at the Meta SXSW event at their Austin office. The Mayor of Austin, Kirk Watson, gave a keynote right before me. We’d connected beforehand about the applied AI vision for Austin, and in his keynote he mentioned Applied AI Society multiple times.
One thing he said that stuck with me: “You say AI to people and their knee-jerk is ‘we’re gonna have more data centers.’ They don’t know what the application is.”
That’s the whole problem. And the whole opportunity.
The Colombia Question
After the Meta event, a leader from Colombia came up to me and said: “How do we work with government and business leaders to raise awareness? People in Colombia are simply not talking about what’s about to come.”
That really concerns me. But it also really motivates me. The applied AI literacy problem is global, and it’s urgent.
Self-Improving Businesses: The North Star
I moderated a panel at RedThreadX House at The LINE Hotel called “How To Apply AI To Solve Valuable Business Problems.” The panelists: Michael Daigler (AITX Community, Apify), Rostam Mahabadi (AI consultant), Ryland Beard (Switchbooks), and Jordaaan Hill (Organized AI).
The conversation kept circling one idea: the basic unit of value in the applied AI economy isn’t the software. It’s the business itself.
A few highlights:
Ryland went from 100,000 lines of agent code to 200 lines. It performed a thousand times better. His takeaway: “No one wants to be overloaded with instruction. We want a clear set of instruction and then to use our own brains to determine the best result.” That applies to humans and AI equally.
Rostam is building an autonomous consulting pipeline. Clients submit tickets through Linear. Agents pick them up, write code, open PRs. He reviews and merges. Under the hood: a front-end engineer, a backend engineer, security, an architect. A full engineering team. All agents.
When I asked how far we are from self-running businesses, Ryland said: “I think we’re here. For certain businesses I think we’re already here.”
Full panel: Watch on YouTube
What We’re Building
Demand has gone through the roof. Here’s where we are.
We’re in conversations with universities about applied AI literacy strategies for their students. We’re talking to community organizations and workforce development groups. We’re soon piloting a new series in Austin focused specifically on business owners integrating AI: a mix of office hours and hands-on instruction. And we’re working on a course that anyone can take from anywhere in the world.
We will also be doubling down on Austin as our proud HQ. After connecting with the mayor and seeing the density of talent and conviction in this city, it’s clear: Austin should be the applied AI capital of the nation (maybe even the world). And we intend to help make that real.
We’re also hiring soon. Looking for someone who is generally very capable, comfortable with AI tools, high-leverage, and willing to travel. If that sounds like you, reach out.
Applied AI Live #3: This Thursday
Thursday, March 26 at 5:30 PM
Antler VC HQ | 800 Brazos St #340, Austin, TX
Space is limited. Sign up now.
We’ll be discussing Jensen’s AGI statement, Claude Computer Use taking the world by storm, and what it all means for practitioners.
Travis Oliphant (creator of NumPy, founding advisor of Applied AI Society) is presenting on Nebari, the open-source AI platform being incubated at OpenTeams that lets organizations fully own and control their infrastructure. Travis was also at NVIDIA’s GTC 2026 and we’ll be sitting down to get his thoughts on Jensen’s AGI statement, what he saw at GTC, and what it all means for the future of applied AI.
Michael Daigler from Apify is breaking down OpenClaw x Apify for building business automation agents.
Jordaaan Hill is showing how to set up production-grade OpenClaws and sharing the super learner mindset that took him from zero tech background to paid AI engineer in months.
Co-hosted with AITX Community.
Start a Chapter
You don’t need our permission.
If you feel compelled to bring applied AI literacy to your city or your campus, the playbooks already exist. With just a little vetting, we’re happy for you to use our branding. That’s the whole point. We’re doing the hard work on playbooks and brand recognition so that you can focus on building the community.
All it takes is one to three local leaders who are well-trusted in their community, or at minimum very hungry to bring their city up to speed.
Learn more about starting a chapter
Know Someone Who Should Be Here?
Forward this to anyone building an applied AI career, running a business that needs to adapt, or trying to figure out what this moment actually means for their work.
Our Founding Sponsors
Own what you build. OpenTeams gives Applied AI practitioners the infrastructure and open-source network to make it real. They’re also incubating Nebari, an open-source data science and AI platform that organizations fully own and control. Architect with us.
Building something great? OT Incubator accelerates the creation of amazing companies that contribute to open source. If you have a company you want to build with the team that has incubated unicorns, reach out.
Thank You
Applied AI Society was founded by Gary Sheng with Travis Oliphant (creator of NumPy, co-founder of Anaconda) as founding advisor. We launched with the support of OpenTeams and OT Incubator, who believed from day one that the applied AI economy should be legible to and benefit everyone.
To the practitioners showing up and sharing field notes. To the chapter leaders already forming in other cities. To everyone in Austin and beyond who believes this work matters.
The moment is now. The tools are here. The community is growing. Let’s go.
Gary Sheng
Director, Applied AI Society
appliedaisociety.org | X | LinkedIn | Substack | YouTube
Great writeup!
Strong piece !