Anthropic and OpenAI aren't embedding engineers at major firms because they want to do IT consulting they need to drive massive token consumption to pay for a trillion dollars in AI infrastructure. But while McKinsey guides the Fortune 500 through this shift, mid-market and SMB companies are being left completely behind.

In this episode, Kevin Williams and Matt Graham break down the "forward-deployed engineer" land grab, what it means for mid-market businesses, and the hidden cost of letting internal teams build fast without governance. They also dive into the technical realities of building agentic systems with precision, shifting from probabilistic outputs to deterministic reliability, and the true switching costs between major AI platforms.

Key Topics Covered:

The Token Economics Play: Why tech giants are embedding engineers it's a race for volume, not a consulting play.
The Mid-Market Gap: The structural divide leaving mid-sized companies without access to embedded AI expertise.
Vibe Coding vs. Governance: What happens when internal teams build fast without rails, and the hidden costs of cleaning up undocumented pipelines.
Deterministic AI: How to configure agentic systems to deliver reliable outputs for sensitive financial and operational workflows.
Platform Switching Costs: The real impact of committing to team-level platforms (GPT Teams vs. Anthropic Teams).
2026 Strategy: Why this is the official year organizations must stop piloting and start activating.

Resources & Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pneppalli_agentic-ai-adoption-is-on-fire-at-uber-and-share-7480367288781746176-Ji7t/
https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams

Check out Kevin’s stuff:

Website: Ascend Labs
LinkedIn: Follow Kevin on LinkedIn –
Free Tool: Take the AI Readiness Assessment
Deep Dive: Read the GPT Teams vs. Anthropic Teams comparison
Book a Call: Talk to Kevin on TidyCal

Check out Matt’s stuff:

LinkedIn: Follow Matt on LinkedIn
Company: Rapid Dev on LinkedIn –
Direct Email: Reach out to Matt at mgram@rapiddevelopers.com

Key Topics Covered:

Resources & Links:https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pneppalli_agentic-ai-adoption-is-on-fire-at-uber-and-share-7480367288781746176-Ji7t/https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams

Check out Kevin’s stuff:

Check out Matt’s stuff:

Resources & Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pneppalli_agentic-ai-adoption-is-on-fire-at-uber-and-share-7480367288781746176-Ji7t/
https://resources.ascendlabs.ai/openai-vs-anthropic-for-teams