Best AWS Bites Podcasts (2025)

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146. The AWS Product Lifecycle page 15:49

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3d ago15:49

15:49

What if AWS had its own version of Killed by Google? Well… turns out it kind of does.In this episode of AWS Bites, we explore the AWS Product Lifecycle page, the official place where AWS quietly lists products and services that are being deprecated, shut down, or closed to new customers. If you rely on AWS in production, this is a page you’ll want …

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Keir's peer purge, how to pick an archbishop & is AI ruining sport? 44:28

4d ago44:28

44:28

This week: Peerless – the purge of the hereditary peers For this week’s cover, Charles Moore declares that the hereditary principle in Parliament is dead. Even though he lacks ‘a New Model Army’ to enforce the chamber’s full abolition, Keir Starmer is removing the hereditary peers. In doing so, he creates more room, reduces the Conservatives’ numer…

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Claws out for Keir, Mamdani’s poisoned apple & are most wedding toasts awful? 45:36

11d ago45:36

45:36

This week: one year of Labour – the verdict In the magazine this week Tim Shipman declares his verdict on Keir Starmer’s Labour government as we approach the first anniversary of their election victory. One year on, some of Labour’s most notable policies have been completely changed – from the u-turn over winter fuel allowance to the embarrassing c…

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076: AI rollups: all VC sizzle and no stake? Thoughts from a recent Fortune article. 22:38

13d ago22:38

22:38

Send us a text Fortune article: http://fortune.com/2025/06/27/ai-rollup-investment-strategy/ Nikola reflects on his recent Fortune commentary (above) into the transformative potential of AI rollup strategies in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). He and Damien discuss the concept of AI rollups (where private equity firms consolidate service compani…

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145. We Tried Amazon DSQL So You Don’t Have To (But You Might Want To) 28:34

18d ago28:34

28:34

Amazon Aurora DSQL promises to bring a truly serverless experience to SQL databases. But does it actually deliver? In this episode of AWS Bites, we put Aurora DSQL to the test. We explore what makes it exciting, how it compares to traditional Aurora Serverless, and where it falls short. You’ll hear what changed since our last Aurora deep dive, and …

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War and peace, why restaurants are going halal & the great brown furniture transfer 42:04

18d ago42:04

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This week: war and peace Despite initial concerns, the ‘Complete and Total CEASEFIRE’ – according to Donald Trump – appears to be holding. Tom Gross writes this week’s cover piece and argues that a weakened Iran offers hope for the whole Middle East. But how? He joined the podcast to discuss further, alongside Gregg Carlstrom, the Economist’s Middl…

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075: Human agent & AI cohesion in the contact center. What will it take? 23:11

24d ago23:11

23:11

Send us a text Nikola and Damien are back to discuss the ongoing evolution of AI in the contact center industry. We'll explore whether AI is truly replacing human workers or simply augmenting their capabilities, covering Klarna's automation efforts and recent Gartner predictions, and analyzing the challenges and opportunities in implementing AI sol…

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Starmer at sea, Iran on the brink & the importance of shame 45:57

25d ago45:57

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Starmer’s war zone: the Prime Minister’s perilous position This week, our new political editor Tim Shipman takes the helm and, in his cover piece, examines how Keir Starmer can no longer find political refuge in foreign affairs. After a period of globe-trotting in which the Prime Minister was dubbed ‘never-here Keir’, Starmer’s handling of internat…

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Porn Britannia, Xi’s absence & no more lonely hearts? 46:49

1M ago46:49

46:49

OnlyFans is giving the Treasury what it wants – but should we be concerned? ‘OnlyFans,’ writes Louise Perry, ‘is the most profitable content subscription service in the world.’ Yet ‘the vast majority of its content creators make very little from it’. So why are around 4 per cent of young British women selling their wares on the site? ‘Imitating Bon…

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074: AI and the State of Financial Services 20:11

1M ago20:11

20:11

Send us a text VP of Product Marketing Brian Thompson joins Nikola to discuss the current state and future prospects of AI in financial services, including banking and insurance. The chat covers the importance of human oversight in AI deployments, the evolving landscape in banking and FinTech, optimization of back-office processes, and how financia…

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Nigel wants YOU, secularism vs spirituality & how novel is experimental fiction? 51:41

1M ago51:41

51:41

How Reform plans to win Just a year ago, Nigel Farage ended his self-imposed exile from politics and returned to lead Reform. Since then, Reform have won more MPs than the Green Party, two new mayoralties, a parliamentary by-election, and numerous councils. Now the party leads in every poll and, as our deputy political editor James Heale reveals in…

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073: What are everyday people using LLMs for, really? 21:52

2M ago21:52

21:52

Send us a text Damien and Nikola are back to discuss the transformative impact of generative AI in our everyday lives. The conversation covers everything from the rise of LLMs in personal development and therapy to DIY projects and coding. Discover how generative AI is reshaping industries, solving everyday problems, and why it's gaining traction i…

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End of the rainbow, rising illiteracy & swimming pool etiquette 49:51

2M ago49:51

49:51

End of the rainbow: Pride’s fall What ‘started half a century ago as an afternoon’s little march for lesbians and gay men’, argues Gareth Roberts, became ‘a jamboree not only of boring homosexuality’ but ‘anything else that its purveyors consider unconventional’. Yet now Reform-led councils are taking down Pride flags, Pride events are being cancel…

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072: Introducing Owl: PolyAI's in-house speech recognition model 21:46

2M ago21:46

21:46

Send us a text Guest host Meghan Berton and VP of Engineering Razvan Kusztos cover the release of PolyAI's Owl ASR model, while dishing goss on the intricacies of developing high-performing speech recognition models. They discuss the significance of in-house SLU tech, the challenges of ensuring accuracy across different accents and environments, an…

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144. Lambda Billing Changes, Cold Start Costs, and Log Savings: What You Need to Know 13:22

2M ago13:22

13:22

Cost is always top of mind when building in the cloud, and recently AWS has introduced some changes worth paying attention to. In this episode of AWS Bites, we explore a shift that caught many by surprise: the “free” INIT phase for Lambda’s managed runtimes is going away. That cold start time that used to fly under the billing radar? It's now part …

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The real Brexit betrayal, bite-sized history & is being a bridesmaid brutal? 43:58

2M ago43:58

43:58

The real Brexit betrayal: Starmer vs the workers ‘This week Starmer fell… into the embrace of Ursula von der Leyen’ writes Michael Gove in our cover article this week. He writes that this week’s agreement with the EU perpetuates the failure to understand Brexit’s opportunities, and that Labour ‘doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t exist to make the lives…

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Why ChatGPT 4.1’s Web App Debut Matters 1:30

2M ago1:30

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OpenAI's recent release of ChatGPT 4.1 to its web app marks an exciting development in AI accessibility. Previously, this version was exclusive to API users, making its transition to the web app significant. The rollout not only broadens access but highlights 4.1's capabilities, particularly in code generation and comprehension. Testing reveals cle…

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Britain's billionaire exodus, Michael Gove interviews Shabana Mahmood & Hampstead's 'terf war' 41:53

2M ago41:53

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The great escape: why the rich are fleeing Britain Keir Starmer worries about who is coming into Britain but, our economics editor Michael Simmons writes in the magazine this week, he should have ‘sleepless nights’ thinking about those leaving. Since 2016, nearly 30,000 millionaires have left – ‘an outflow unmatched in the developed world’. Tax cha…

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071: Differentiation in a generative AI era 20:14

2M ago20:14

20:14

Send us a text Damien and Nikola discuss the brave initiatives taken by executives in the field of generative AI, their successes, and challenges. Nikola Mrkšić, CEO and co-founder of PolyAI, shares insights on differentiation in the generative AI space, the viability of build vs. buy decisions, and the importance of proof of concept in AI projects…

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070: The journey from digital-first to AI-first, and how to do it right 24:03

2M ago24:03

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Send us a text Damien and Nikola discuss the implications of AI-first approaches in industries, with a focus on how companies like Duolingo and Klarna are navigating the AI transformation. We explore the concept of an intelligent enterprise operating system and debate whether traditional companies can adapt quickly enough. Additionally, we examine …

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143. Is App Runner better than Fargate? 42:09

2M ago42:09

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Picture this. You’ve got a web app built with Rust and Solid.js. It started life running on a dusty on-prem server, but now it's time to move it to the cloud. The clock is ticking. You could take the well-worn AWS path: set up a VPC, configure subnets, attach an ALB, define IAM roles, and deploy with Fargate. Or you could try something different. I…

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Scuzz Nation, the death of English literature & are you a bad house guest? 40:39

2M ago40:39

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Scuzz Nation: Britain’s slow and grubby decline If you want to understand why voters flocked to Reform last week, Gus Carter says, look no further than Goat Man. In one ward in Runcorn, ‘residents found that no one would listen when a neighbour filled his derelict house with goats and burned the animals’ manure in his garden’. This embodies Scuzz N…

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Chambers of horrors, the ‘Dubai-ification’ of London & the enduring obsession with Diana 36:44

2M ago36:44

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This week: the left-wing radicalism of Garden Court Garden Court Chambers has a ‘reassuringly traditional’ facade befitting the historic Lincoln’s Inn Fields in the heart of London’s legal district. Yet, writes Ross Clark in the cover article this week, ‘the facade is just that. For behind the pedimented Georgian windows there operates the most rad…

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See change, A.I. ghouls & long live the long lunch! 37:44

3M ago37:44

37:44

This week: the many crises awaiting the next pope ‘Francis was a charismatic pope loved by most of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics’ writes Damian Thompson in the cover article this week. But few of them ‘grasp the scale of the crisis in the Church… The next Vicar of Christ, liberal or conservative’ faces ‘challenges that dwarf those that confront…

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Easter special: assisted dying, ‘bunny ebola’ & how do you eat your creme egg? 34:08

3M ago34:08

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This week: should the assisted dying bill be killed off? Six months after Kim Leadbeater MP launched the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a group of Labour MPs have pronounced it ‘irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law’. They say the most basic aspects of the bill – having gone through its committee stage – do not hold up to scrutin…

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069: Announcing Agent Studio, the world's only voice-first conversational AI platform 19:53

3M ago19:53

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Send us a text In this buzzy episode, Damien hosts PolyAI's Senior Vice President of Product, Devidas Desai, to announce the launch of Agent Studio, the world's only voice-first omnichannel CX platform for AI agents. Devidas provides an in-depth look into what Agent Studio is and discusses how the platform has been rigorously tested with live enter…

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Trump shock, cousin marriage & would you steal from a restaurant? 38:44

3M ago38:44

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This week: Trump’s tariffs – madness or mastermind? ‘Shock tactics’ is the headline of our cover article this week, as deputy editor Freddy Gray reflects on a week that has seen the US President upend the global economic order, with back and forth announcements on reciprocal and retaliatory tariffs. At the time of writing, a baseline 10% on imports…

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068: DOGE bites federal phone lines. Are Elon & Co. shutting down toll-free? 16:46

3M ago16:46

16:46

Send us a text Damien and Nikola are back to discuss the impact of removing toll-free numbers for government services, focusing on the DOGE/Social Security Administration's briefly considered decision. They explore the potential operational and cost-saving implications of voice AI in government services, the challenges of optimizing such large syst…

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142. Escape from S3 30:44

3M ago30:44

30:44

We discuss common use cases and challenges for copying data between S3 buckets and S3-compatible object storage services. We share our experience building an open source Node.js CLI tool called S3-Migrate to efficiently migrate data with separate source and destination credentials. We cover performance considerations like streaming, chunk sizes, co…

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Cruel Labour, the decline of sacred spaces & Clandon Park’s controversial restoration 50:51

3M ago50:51

50:51

This week: Starmerism’s moral vacuum ‘Governments need a mission, or they descend into reactive incoherence’ writes Michael Gove in this week’s cover piece. A Labour government, he argues, ‘cannot survive’ without a sense of purpose. The ‘failure of this government to make social justice its mission’ has led to a Spring Statement ‘that was at once …

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The age of the strongman, Tesla under attack & matinee revivals 34:37

4M ago34:37

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This week: welcome to the age of the strongman ‘The world’s most exclusive club… is growing,’ writes Paul Wood in this week’s Spectator. Membership is restricted to a very select few: presidents-for-life. Putin of Russia, Xi of China, Kim of North Korea and MBS of Saudi Arabia are being joined by Erdogan of Turkey – who is currently arresting his l…

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141. Step Functions with JSONata and Variables 15:43

4M ago15:43

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In this episode, we provide an overview of AWS Step Functions and dive deep into the powerful new JSONata and variables features. We explain how JSONata allows complex JSON transformations without custom Lambda functions, enabling more serverless workflows. The variables feature also helps avoid the previous 256KB state size limit. We share example…

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Labour’s growing pains, survival of the hottest & murder most fascinating 42:56

4M ago42:56

42:56

This week: why is economic growth eluding Labour? ‘Growing pains’ declares The Spectator’s cover image this week, as our political editor Katy Balls, our new economics editor Michael Simmons, and George Osborne’s former chief of staff Rupert Harrison analyse the fiscal problems facing the Chancellor. ‘Dominic Cummings may have left Whitehall,’ writ…

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Massacre of the innocents, saving endangered languages & Gen Z’s ‘Boom Boom’ aesthetic 37:21

4M ago37:21

37:21

This week: sectarian persecution returns Paul Wood, Colin Freeman and Father Benedict Kiely write in the magazine this week about the religious persecution that minorities are facing across the world from Syria to the Congo. In Syria, there have been reports of massacres with hundreds of civilians from the Alawite Muslim minority targeted, in part …

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067: Sonnet 3.7 + Orion, AWS goes agentic & the US Patent Office sets rules 20:30

4M ago20:30

20:30

Send us a text Nikola and Damien chew the fat about developments from AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI, comparing their new models: Claude 3.7 and GPT-4.5 Orion, and where they place in the consumer and enterprise markets. We also touch on OAI's specialized agents for hire, Amazon's new agentic AI division and the recent stance of the US Patent Offic…

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066: The anatomy of telephony, part 3 - Predictions 17:14

4M ago17:14

17:14

Send us a text In the closing episode of Deep Learning's deep dive on telephony, Nikola and Oisin discuss innovative ideas in telephony, especially the concept of using a universal AI ringtone to replace lengthy warnings and terms during calls. They debate the efficacy of this idea and its potential global impact on user experience. They also touch…

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Why Ukraine's minerals matter, the NHS's sterilisation problem & remembering the worst poet in history 42:20

4M ago42:20

42:20

This week: the carve-up of Ukraine’s natural resources From the success of Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington to the squabbling we saw in the Oval Office and the breakdown of security guarantees for Ukraine – we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of geopolitics in the last week, say Niall Ferguson and Nicholas Kulish in this week’s cover piec…

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065: The anatomy of telephony, part 2 - Evolution 22:06

5M ago22:06

22:06

Send us a text The second episode of a three-part miniseries sees Deep Learning with PolyAI continue exploring the intricate world of telephony and VoIP! Nikola welcomes back Oisin Glenn, VP of Solutions Consulting, to chat about the historical development, current technologies, and the complexities of modern telephony. They discuss everything from…

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Inside Nigel’s gang, my day as a ‘missing person’ & how to save James Bond 37:39

5M ago37:39

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This week: Nigel’s gang – Reform’s plan for power. Look at any opinion survey or poll, and it’s clear that Reform is hard to dismiss, write Katy Balls and James Heale. Yet surprisingly little is known about the main players behind the scenes who make up Nigel Farage’s new gang. There are ‘the lifers’ – Dan Jukes and ‘Posh George’ Cottrell. Then the…

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140. DuckDB Meets AWS: A Match Made in Cloud 17:38

5M ago17:38

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In this episode, we explore DuckDB, an open-source analytical database known for its speed and simplicity. Discover how DuckDB stands out in various applications and compare it to other tools like SQLite, Athena, Pandas, and Polars. We also demonstrate integrating DuckDB with AWS Lambda and Step Functions for serverless analytics. AWS Bites is brou…

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New world disorder, cholesterol pseudoscience vs scepticism & the magic of Dickens 48:23

5M ago48:23

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This week: the world needs a realist reset Donald Trump’s presidency is the harbinger of many things, writes The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove, one of which is a return to a more pitiless world landscape. The ideal of a rules-based international order has proved to be a false hope. Britain must accept that if we are to earn the respect of others …

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064: The anatomy of telephony, part 1 - Origins 23:06

5M ago23:06

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Send us a text Nikola welcomes Oisin Glynn, VP of Solution Consulting, to discuss the fascinating history and evolution of modern telephony. Going back to the inception of telephone systems, from their early manual connections to the adoption of the PSTN and the advent of private branch exchanges (PBX), the conversation touches on the impact of the…

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139. Building Great APIs with Powertools 24:32

5M ago24:32

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In this episode, we discuss using AWS Lambda Powertools for Python to build serverless REST APIs with AWS Lambda. We cover the benefits of using Powertools for routing, validation, OpenAPI support, and more. Powertools provides an excellent framework for building APIs while maintaining Lambda best practices.In this episode, we mentioned the followi…

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Britain’s bureaucratic bloat, debating surrogacy & is smoking ‘sexy’? 39:14

5M ago39:14

39:14

This week: The Spectator launches SPAFF The civil service does one thing right, writes The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons: spaffing money away. The advent of Elon Musk’s DOGE in the US has inspired The Spectator to launch our own war on wasteful spending – the Spectator Project Against Frivolous Funding, or SPAFF. Examples of waste range f…

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063: Surprising findings from PolyAI's recent CS trends report 25:02

5M ago25:02

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Send us a text ** Check out the report that inspired the episode ** Damien welcomes PolyAI's senior director of brand, Kylie Whitehead, to discuss the findings from two comprehensive surveys highlighting trends in customer experience (CX) and contact center leadership. Learn about the evolving roles of CX leaders and the increasing influence of AI,…

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Labour's Irish insurgent, Germany's 'firewall' falls & finding joy in obituaries 47:44

5M ago47:44

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This week: Morgan McSweeney, the insurgent behind Keir Starmer’s premiership As a man with the instincts of an insurgent, Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, has found Labour’s first six months in office a frustrating time, writes The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove. ‘Many of his insights – those that made Labour electable – appeared t…

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Migration mystery, Ipso’s trans muddle & are you a ‘trad dad’? 45:38

5M ago45:38

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This week: why don’t we know how many people are in Britain? How many people live in the UK? It’s a straightforward question, yet the answer eludes some of the nation’s brightest statistical minds, writes Sam Bidwell for the cover this week. Whenever official figures are tested against real-world data, the population is almost always undercounted. …

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062: AI's Sputnik moment? DeepSeek R1 has entered the chat(GPT). 18:47

6M ago18:47

18:47

Send us a text Bonus breaking news episode of the Deep Learning with PolyAI podcast! Hosts Damien and Nikola chat about the recent release of DeepSeek's open-source R1 model, which has sparked widespread reaction across the tech world. The R1 model, created with limited resources, has matched or exceeded benchmarks of leading models from OpenAI and…

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061: An early look at OpenAI's Operator 19:50

6M ago19:50

19:50

Send us a text Kylie takes the helm for this episode of Deep Learning with Poly AI, where she and PolyAI CEO Nikola Mrkšić chat(no GPT) about OpenAI's latest innovation: the Operator agent. From the concept of AI performing tasks such as ordering groceries, booking travel, and making restaurant reservations, to live demos of agentic requests, Kylie…

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Industry tragedy, Trump vs the Pope & the depressing reality of sex parties 42:01

6M ago42:01

42:01

This week: the death of British industry In the cover piece for the magazine, Matthew Lynn argues that Britain is in danger of entering a ‘zero-industrial society’. The country that gave the world the Industrial Revolution has presided over a steep decline in British manufacturing. He argues there are serious consequences: foreign ownership, poorer…