The Great Indoors

What do a telecom CEO serving millions of people and a startup R&D leader building a new platform from scratch have in common? More than you might think. Live from MWC Barcelona 2026, Matthew Roberts is back to kick off Season 12 of The Great Indoors. In this episode, two conversations come together to explore how leadership and invention are deeply connected. First, Matt welcomes Carl Raymond Cruz, President and CEO of Globe Telecom. Carl reflects on the responsibility of leading a company that touches everyday life across the Philippines, and shares how Globe is working to expand digital inclusion, modernize the customer experience, and protect people from digital harm. Then, Matt speaks with Val Gorokhovsky, VP of R&D at 31 Concept, whose team has spent the last year building a new telecom intelligence platform for Deep Packet Intelligence which ensures data transfer security. From nation-building to startup building, this episode shows that the future of telecom will not be shaped by technology alone, but by leaders who know how to turn invention into impact.

Returning to the podcast with host Matthew Roberts is Stephanie Ormston, AVP of Product Innovation at AT&T, to explore shifting narratives and public perception of AI in 2026. Starting with practical use cases, they examine how AI continues to impact both individuals and organizations. From there, the conversation expands into the themes still top of mind today: human–AI collaboration, real consumer value, mixed public sentiment, and whether we should be concerned that younger generations are developing an AI-native way of thinking.
Despite all this rapid change, Stephanie is adamant that storytelling and authenticity still reign supreme, because when technology companies lose sight of that fact, they risk repeating the failures of the past.

In this episode of The Great Indoors, Shelly Palmer, tech strategist and CEO of The Palmer Group returns for his third appearance to explain why the digital world has become unrecognizable in just two years since his last appearance. Listeners will gain an inside look at the brutal reality of the media business, where traditional purchase funnels have collapsed in favor of short-form video and zero-click AI search results. The conversation provides a roadmap for the transition from simple automation to agentic AI. Autonomous systems that can now plan and initiate tasks independently and explores the rise of vibe coding, where English becomes the new programming language. So if you’re fascinated by media, machine learning, and the conversations shaping what comes next, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

A modern AI education has to wrestle with more than just new tools. It has to ask deeper questions, like how do we understand the models we’re building? Who trains them? And who actually gets access to the results?

To explore those questions, Matthew Roberts is joined by Dr. Kiesha King, Head of Education Strategy, as they compare the classroom to the boardroom on technology readiness. With this in mind, they look at the ethics, equity, and access challenges of artificial intelligence, discussing the models that can both empower and exclude. And despite all the innovation, Dr. King makes it clear why the teacher still matters.

Finally, they look at both the promise and the pressure of AI in education, taking a close look at over-reliance, protection laws, and the other checks that need to be in place. If you want to understand how people are really learning with AI, let this episode be your lesson.

Are you ready for an uncomfortable question… What happens to your data after you die?

Buckle up — in this episode, Matthew Roberts is joined by Carl Öhman, Associate Professor at Uppsala University and author of The Afterlife of Data, to explore what becomes of our personal information after death and the ethical, political, and cultural consequences of our digital legacies.

Tune in as Matt seeks Carl’s perspective on what happens when today’s tech giants gain access to the data of millions of deceased users. Together, they dive into how “death data” might be regulated, monetized, and ultimately controlled. From advertising and memorialized profiles to data ownership and the recording of history, this episode opens Pandora’s box at the intersection of morality, business, and memory.

This episode may not have all the answers, but it undeniably has all the questions you should be asking.