In 2025, AI Snacks with Romy & Roby truly began to embody its mission: providing digestible discussions about AI while delving into core topics such as vectors, LLMs, geopolitics, creativity, and the complex realities of implementing AI in business. Founders, policymakers, researchers, and creators came together to explore what “AI in the real world” truly entails, moving beyond the hype of launch events and the anxiety of doom-scrolling headlines.
Season Focus: Transitioning from AI Theory to Practice
The overarching theme of 2025 was straightforward: shift from viewing “AI as a buzzword” to embracing “AI as infrastructure and practice.” Each episode consistently revisited four key questions:
- How can AI adoption be made manageable for non-technical leaders?
- How can we maintain human creativity and agency when models can replicate nearly anything?
- How do portrayals of AI in films and literature shape our perceptions of AI and our expectations of agents and robots?
- What defines human excellence in the era of AI?
Notable Guests and Conversations
Numerous discussions set the tone for 2025 and ignited ongoing conversations within your community and mentoring engagements:
- The former Minister of Education, now the Executive Director of IB Schools, discussed the impact of one individual who initiated the AI for All movement.
- A creative expert specialising in generative art and music shifted the narrative of the “AI vs. creativity” debate to a more positive perspective, emphasising “AI as a co-writer and co-director.” This approach highlights the importance of constraints and curation as vital creative skills.
- Additionally, various founders and operators in applied AI across sectors like healthcare, manufacturing, and education addressed essential yet mundane aspects: procurement, vendor lock-in, change management, and strategies to prevent the development of numerous proofs of concept that fail to reach production.
These guests solidified the show’s focus: AI Snacks is not centred on theoretical musings but on the tangible decisions that founders, executives, and educators must confront amidst uncertainty.
Recurring themes that resonated with listeners
Several themes repeatedly emerged in the feedback, direct messages, and follow-up conversations with your mentoring clients and community:
AI and Early Childhood Development: How can we utilise AI in relation to children? Experts in social policy, pedagogy, and the creative industry shared insights on effective and ineffective practices (e.g., #37 featuring Cecilia Vaca-Jones, former Minister of Social Affairs in Ecuador and now a Senior Advisor to the Abu Dhabi Early Childhood Authority, #34 with Mike Rizkalla, the creator of Snorble – an interactive robotic companion aimed at helping children cultivate healthy habits and enhance their educational experience).
Ethical AI: A discussion on unauthorised experiments involving chatbots and the concept of Artificial Consciousness with Rose Loops (#46).
AI in Healthcare and Medicine: Exploring how AI is transforming healthcare and drug development with Marshall Runge (#49) and Andrea Olsen (#43).
Human Excellence in the Age of AI: (#53 with Victor Varnado, #50, #45, #39 with Matthias Röder, #33 with Naomi S. Baron).
How AI Snacks fits into the broader AI Edutainment mission?
AI Snacks with Romy & Roby aligns seamlessly with the company’s overarching goal: to make AI, robotics, and data accessible to everyone by using storytelling grounded in science and practical applications. The episodes for 2025:
- Bridged boardroom concerns (governance, regulation, strategy) with hands-on experimentation (specific tools, workflows, and pitfalls).
- Connected European context (sovereignty, Mittelstand, regulation) with global AI dynamics, making the show relevant both to local decision-makers and international listeners who want a European lens.
- Showed, episode after episode, that AI literacy is not about hype vocabulary but about seeing how these systems actually influence work, power, and culture.
2026 is already shaping up with a clear agenda.
We will explore the impact of AI on the publishing industry and human authorship, delve into the essentials of establishing a successful AI business, examine what defines effective AI governance, discuss the application of statistical concepts to enhance AI technologies, and consider what lies beyond deep learning and conventional machine learning systems in the realm of AI.
I am truly thankful to my audience (6 tsd. people around the world are listening!) and to everyone who reached out to me on Instagram @romyandroby and LinkedIn. Thank you!