Ep 2: Second-Best Model, No Jargon Required

Anthropic shipped their best public model this week. In the same breath, they said it's their second best. The best one is gated to 50 enterprises. Human In the Loop is a weekly podcast where two builders cut through the AI hype cycle. No hype, no doomerism, no surface-level recaps. SIGNAL OR NOISE The week's AI headlines, filtered: - Claude Opus 4.7 ships with a 1M context window at standard pricing - OpenAI's updated Agents SDK (sandboxed agents, Python first) - AI on the desktop (Google's Gemini Mac app + Perplexity Personal Computer) - Stanford's 2026 AI Index: 10% of Americans are more excited than concerned vs. 56% of experts - Allbirds pivots from sneakers to AI, stock up 582% then crashing NO JARGON REQUIRED Three AI concepts decision-makers need to make real calls on this quarter. Plain English, then a decision framework. 1. Context Engineering. The successor to prompt engineering. 2. Agentic AI. What it actually is, and why Gartner says 40% of projects will be canceled by 2027. 3. Frontier Model Tiering. Why the best model is one you probably cannot buy. HOT TAKES Oscar: Context engineering is "write good internal documentation" rebranded so consultants can charge for it. Matt: Every executive asking "what's our agentic AI strategy" is two years from being replaced by one who already shipped something. Key links: - Opus 4.7 release: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/about-claude/models/whats-new-claude-4-7 - OpenAI Agents SDK: https://openai.com/index/the-next-evolution-of-the-agents-sdk/ - Stanford AI Index: https://spectrum.ieee.org/state-of-ai-index-2026 - Gartner forecast: https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-06-25-gartner-predicts-over-40-percent-of-agentic-ai-projects-will-be-canceled-by-end-of-2027 Hosts: Oscar Gallo (AI Engineer & Entrepreneur) and Matt Wozniak (Builder, Operator). New episodes every week.