CxC Ep43: The AI Industry Enters Choppy Waters - with Anand Pant
October 20, 2026 · 51 min
Why listen
The AI boom has a money problem, and this episode breaks down who pays when it all gets expensive.
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In this episode
- Why financial cracks in the AI industry put vendor promises at risk
- How smaller open-source models are changing the cost calculation for businesses
- What vendor lock-in and AI sovereignty mean for companies building on AI today
- Why adding AI agents to business processes can reduce reliability, not improve it
About this episode
This week on Code x Connor, we’re joined by Anand Pant, Founding Partner and Builder at Codestrap, to discuss the growing financial risks facing the AI industry, the challenges of AI shopping agents and business automation, and what companies should consider when it comes to AI costs, reliability, and control over their technology. Also, a look at why companies are turning to cheaper AI models, how AI is changing the way businesses work, and whether the industry can afford to keep growing at this pace.
Be sure to follow this channel for insights and perspective from industry leaders, and schedule a meeting with us through www.codestrap.com to learn more about our offering.
In this episode, we discuss:
→ Why Anthropic’s slowing revenue growth could affect its plan to go public
→ How smaller and open-source AI models are making AI cheaper
→ The growing competition over how AI agents make payments and online shop
→ How AI shopping agents could make expensive mistakes for shoppers and businesses
→ Why CoreWeave’s stock price causes concerns about the AI boom
→ The risks of private credit, rising interest rates, and borrowing money to build data centers
→ Why Amazon, Microsoft, and Google could benefit most from the AI boom
→ What AI sovereignty means for companies and control over their data and technology
→ How AI providers are creating vendor lock-in
→ Why companies may be choosing to run their own AI to save money
→ What to expect from the upcoming Future Ops conference in Dallas
→ Why connecting multiple AI agents can make business processes less reliable
→ The importance of measuring existing business processes before adding AI
→ Why needing human oversight could limit the financial benefits of AI
→ How enterprises could evaluate AI investments to determine the cost and risk
Codestrap
Codestrap (X): https://x.com/Codestrap_ai
CodeStrap (LI): https://www.linkedin.com/company/codestrap
Codestrap (Substack): https://codestrap1.substack.com/
Codestrap (Medium): https://medium.com/codestrap
Join FuturOps 2026: The Palantir User Conference!
Register Now: https://www.futurops.com/e/u/checkout/futurops/tickets/order
Date: October 26–27, 2026 (Kicks off Oct 26 @ 12:00 PM)
Location: Dallas, TX
About Code and Connor
Code & Connor is where Connor Deeks and Dorian Smiley ask the questions most AI podcasts won't. Two founders — one strategist, one engineer — in honest conversations with executives, builders, and practitioners about what's actually happening at the intersection of AI and the enterprise.
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