The Prime Minister will announce plans to help around one million school-age children gain skills in technology under a new TechFirst scheme to help them learn AI and computing skills

Is AI really causing mass layoffs or are CEOs just using AI as a convenient excuse? Both are pretty easy to imagine as true. In this episode of TechFirst with John Koetsier, I talk with longtime te…

TechFirst is the government’s flagship tech skills programme opening pathways into the UK’s fast-growing tech sector, providing opportunities across all parts of the UK.

Some one million students will be given access to AI learning resources as part of the Government’s ‘TechFirst’ scheme, Number 10 said.

If the UK wants to succeed as a tech leader, then taking advantage of the two-fold opportunity of TechFirst.

Is your AI agent running a restaurant — or a factory — while you sleep? In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Jensen Teng, CEO and co-founder of Virtuals Protocol, to unpack one of the boldest (or craziest) visions in tech today: a hybrid economy powered by AI agents, humanoid robots, teleoperation, and blockchain coordination.

Podcast Episode · TechFirst with John Koetsier · 11/12/2025 · 23m

Can we really build a $10,000 humanoid robot on open-source AI? In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier talks with Chris Kudla, CEO of Mind Children, about a radically different approach to humanoid robots. Instead of six-figure industrial machines built for factories or war zones, Mind Children is building small, safe, friendly social robots designed for kids, classrooms, and elder care.

Is AI really the new UI, or is that just another tech buzzphrase? Or ... is AI actually EVERY user interface now? In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Mark Vange, CEO & founder of Automate.ly and former CTO at Electronic Arts, to unpack what happens when interfaces stop being fixed and start being generated on the fly.

Pupils across the country will be given the skills and tools needed to get the AI-powered jobs of the future thanks to a new skills… New £187m ‘TechFirst’ AI Skills Programme to Train 1m Students for Jobs of the Future was published on FE News by Department for Education (DfE)

Is AI in education a disaster ... or inevitable? We can easily see that AI is already changing education ... but is it making kids smarter, or just more dependent? In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier talks with Navin Gurnani, CEO of Code Ninjas, about how kids can learn to build with AI instead of simply asking ChatGPT for answers.

What does the agentic enterprise of tomorrow look like? What happens when AI can build software in hours and agents can run entire business processes? In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with UiPath CEO Daniel Dines and CMO Michael Atalla to unpack one of the biggest shifts in enterprise technology: the rise of the agentic enterprise.

YouTube video by John Koetsier (AI, robots, tech)

Are AI agents really the future of software — or just the latest wave of hype? In this episode of TechFirst, host John Koetsier sits down with Don Murray, CEO of Safe Software, to break down what’s actually happening with “agentic AI.” From AI-washing and “agent-washing” to real-world use cases in coding, automation, and enterprise software, we cut through as much noise as possible.

AI has mastered language, sort of. Mostly. With some occasional hiccups. But the real world is way messier. For the real world -- and robotics -- we need world models. In this episode of TechFirst, John Koetsier sits down with Kirin Sinha, founder and CEO of Illumix, to explore what comes after large language models: world models, spatial intelligence, and physical AI.

Is AI the secret sauce that lets the West deglobalize supply chains and bring factories back home? In this episode of TechFirst, I talk with Federico Martelli, CEO and cofounder of Forgis, a Swiss startup building an industrial intelligence layer for factories. Forgis runs “digital engineers” — AI agents on the edge — that sit on top of legacy machinery, cut downtime by about 30%, and boost production by roughly 20%, without ripping and replacing old hardware.