DevReady Podcast

Kevin Surace on The Future of Generative AI and QA Testing | Ep 270 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis is joined by Kevin Surace, CEO and CTO of Appvance.ai and one of the original pioneers of voice AI and virtual assistants. Kevin’s work dates back to the early days of AI driven speech interfaces, and his career spans innovations in semiconductors, aerospace, building materials, cybersecurity, and generative AI. Together, Anthony and Kevin unpack how generative AI is reshaping the software development lifecycle, especially enterprise QA testing, and why AI literacy has become a defining advantage for developers and teams.
Kevin begins by reflecting on his early role in building voice AI long before it became mainstream, and on how inventions can create unexpected ripple effects, including job displacement in customer support. He frames this not as a reason to slow innovation, but as a reminder that technology must be developed responsibly and used thoughtfully. Drawing on experience across semiconductors, aerospace, building materials, cybersecurity, and AI, Kevin positions curiosity and problem solving as the through line of his career. That mindset now drives AI-Driven Autonomous Software Testing Tools | Appvance ’s mission to automate end to end testing against business requirements, tackling one of the most expensive and disliked bottlenecks in modern software delivery.
A central theme of the conversation is the hidden scale and cost of enterprise QA. Kevin explains that most organisations test only a small fraction of real user flows, often around 10 percent, because thorough coverage is too slow and costly for human teams. The result is that customers regularly uncover bugs in common scenarios that were never validated across the many states of complex applications. Appvance’s AI script generation tackles this gap by producing thousands of meaningful tests in hours and identifying the vast majority of defects, which Kevin argues will soon make AI the dominant force in regression and end to end testing. They also discuss resistance inside organisations, where fear of change can lead to quiet sabotage of AI tools, echoing the historical backlash against automation.
From there, Anthony and Kevin broaden the lens to AI adoption across industries and business models. They note rising client scrutiny around pricing when AI is used, using the Deloitte Australia fake citation incident as a cautionary tale about choosing the wrong model and skipping basic human verification. Kevin stresses that AI value comes from pairing the right tool with expert oversight and points out that some models are far better than others at tasks like citation accuracy. He predicts that AI will keep pushing costs down towards near zero, making hourly labour based outsourcing models increasingly untenable, especially in QA and customer support. Appvance’s use of digital twins, instant simulation environments that generate scripts at machine speed before validating on real systems, is presented as a practical example of where autonomous testing is heading.
The conversation closes on a pragmatic and motivational note about skills, productivity, and the future of work. Kevin argues that AI is not replacing good developers so much as accelerating what they already do, like adapting open-source solutions, and that the real differentiator is how well you can direct AI with clear context and outcomes. He cites productivity gains of around 55 percent for developers who embrace these tools and warns that entry level roles are shrinking unless graduates are genuinely GenAI literate. Anthony agrees, highlighting the lag in education and the risk of training people on outdated workflows. Their shared message is simple: AI will not take your job, but someone who uses AI expertly will, and the best way forward is consistent, curious, hands-on adoption.
#DevReadyPodcast #AITesting #SoftwareQA #DigitalTwins #GenerativeAI #AerionTechnologies

How AI Is Transforming Product Management with Eric Neuman | Ep 269 | DevReady Podcast

Eric Neuman, Co Founder and CEO of Dotted, joins the host Anthony Sapountzis, CTO and Co-Founder of Aerion Technologies and DevReady.Ai on the DevReady Podcast to explore the future of product management, AI driven strategy and enterprise decision making. Eric, whose background spans engineering, product leadership and multiple startup exits, has built a career at the intersection of technology and organisational efficiency. After formative roles at Amazon, Microsoft and Digital Domain, he founded Dotted to solve a challenge he experienced repeatedly in big tech: product managers drowning in communication, reporting and alignment work instead of focusing on genuine innovation. This episode is ideal for technology leaders, product managers, founders and anyone looking to understand how AI is reshaping strategic work, product delivery and enterprise culture.
Eric reflects on his journey from childhood coder to serial founder, eventually discovering that his greatest value lay in product management. His time at Amazon revealed just how fragmented and decentralised large enterprise environments can be, where every visual element on Amazon.com. Spend less. Smile more. is treated as a standalone product owned by its own team. This scale creates a system driven not by strict processes but by persuasion, negotiation and meticulously structured documents. At Microsoft, he encountered similar challenges, where each team follows its own communication expectations and templates, making alignment far more complex than it appears from the outside.
These experiences led Eric to build Dotted, an AI powered platform designed to reduce the heavy reporting load placed on product managers and strategic leaders. He explains that while AI has accelerated coding dramatically, most strategic work still exists in PowerPoint, Excel and manual status reports. Dotted aims to bring a continuous integration style workflow to strategic decision making, automating up to 90 percent of repetitive reporting tasks and generating virtual stakeholders that offer predictive feedback on documents before they reach real executives. This shift enables teams to focus on what truly matters: deciding what to build and aligning effectively across the organisation.
Anthony and Eric also unpack the current AI landscape, arguing that many AI initiatives fail due to unrealistic expectations, poor understanding of the technology and misaligned use cases. They discuss the overlapping hype cycles of chatbots, agents and multimodal capabilities, as well as the rise of “vibe coded” software built quickly but without architectural discipline. While senior developers with AI tools can perform like entire teams, juniors and no code builders often produce fragile, inconsistent systems due to limited context and lack of foundational engineering practices. They expect AI assisted code quality checks and guardrails to become standard as development speeds continue to accelerate.
Despite the rapid pace of AI driven execution, both Anthony and Eric reinforce that successful products still rely on focus, clarity and genuine business value. DevReady’s planning framework helps teams avoid building the wrong solution faster by defining the vision, requirements and outcomes before a single line of code is written. Eric compares today’s feature explosion to the fashion industry’s experimental eras, where possibilities grow faster than purpose. In the end, they agree that the products that win will be the ones grounded in real human needs, helping people save time, save money or create more value, rather than simply generating features for the sake of speed.
#DevReadyPodcast #AIInnovation #AerionTechnologies #Leadership #AIinResearch #PaperLab #Automation #TechLeadership #ScientificDiscovery

How Audience Intelligence and Data Innovation Are Shaping the Future of Marketing with Tyler Lubben | Ep 268 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Andrew Romeo, CEO and Co-Founder of Aerion Technologies, sits down with Tyler Lubben, Founder of Relentless Labs, to discuss how data, analytics and authentic audience insights are reshaping the future of marketing and sales. Tyler introduces the concept of audience intelligence, which focuses on analysing genuine online conversations across platforms like Reddit and TikTok, where people share their honest opinions and frustrations. By drawing from unfiltered discussions instead of curated professional personas, Tyler believes businesses can uncover deeper emotional drivers and more accurately predict market opportunities.
Tyler explains how he uses Reddit as a key source of raw, authentic data to identify audience pain points and competitive gaps. He shares how he applies sentiment and language analysis to online comments and discussions to build marketing messages that resonate more naturally with real audiences. However, he notes the growing challenge of achieving authentic engagement in today’s noisy digital landscape, where platforms like LinkedIn have shifted from social interaction to self-promotion. Andrew agrees, observing that genuine conversations are rare online, making insight-led communication even more valuable.
Expanding on this, Tyler details his data-driven outreach techniques, including personalised cold emails with embedded dashboards and AI-generated insights tailored to each recipient’s needs. Despite the technological sophistication, he acknowledges that breaking through the overwhelming digital noise remains a major hurdle. Andrew suggests that such audience and data insights can have greater impact when applied to targeted advertising, where audiences expect to see offers and are more open to engagement. The pair emphasise the importance of aligning data strategy with real-world communication to create meaningful marketing impact.
Tyler also discusses his innovative use of podcasts as a marketing tool, creating targeted episodes that address specific industry pain points and using them as conversation starters rather than sales pitches. Yet, he highlights the difficulty of building genuine relationships in an era of constant cold outreach and overselling. Andrew contrasts this with the effectiveness of ad-based marketing, noting that people are more receptive when they choose to engage with a message rather than being approached unexpectedly.
The episode closes with a look into Relentless Labs’ internal technology, designed to scrape and analyse online data for insights, particularly in the Amazon marketplace. Tyler outlines how this evolved into intelligent lead magnets that offer sellers competitive dashboards and tailored recommendations. Reflecting on past lessons from his earlier SaaS ventures, he stresses the need to balance technical innovation with market understanding and effective packaging. Andrew ties this back to Aerion Technologies’ own journey in AI-assisted software development, emphasising how contextual AI and strategic framing can transform both marketing and product development. Together, they highlight how blending creativity, analytics and human insight will define the next evolution of tech-enabled marketing.
#DevReadyPodcast #AI #DataAnalytics #Innovation #TechLeadership #RelentlessLabs #AerionTechnologies #Podcast #MarketingIntelligence

AI in Research: How PaperLab Helps Scientists Accelerate Innovation | Ep 267 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis, CTO and Co-Founder of Aerion Technologies and DevReady.Ai, speaks with Antonios Meimaris, Founder and CEO/CTO of PaperLab. Antonios shares how his company is redefining AI in research by giving scientists and professionals tools to speed up innovation. PaperLab automates the labour-intensive process of literature review, analysing millions of academic papers to extract insights that traditional databases often miss. This breakthrough allows researchers to focus less on manual research tasks and more on experimentation and discovery.
Antonios explains how PaperLab dramatically improves the efficiency of research and peer review by using advanced AI to analyse academic papers and complex data sources. Researchers can now process thousands of references in minutes, significantly reducing project timelines and improving the quality of their work. Beyond academia, PaperLab’s intelligent automation has broad applications in fields like consulting and law, where professionals must analyse extensive documentation. Unlike general-purpose AI tools such as ChatGPT or Gemini, PaperLab’s technology can accurately interpret formulas, tables, and technical structures, ensuring reliable and contextually accurate outputs that professionals can trust.
At the core of PaperLab lies a custom-built AI system designed to process research documents securely and accurately. Rather than relying on off-the-shelf tools, PaperLab converts PDFs into markdown format, maintaining equations, special characters, and tables for precise understanding. Antonios explains that the platform integrates diffusion models and large language models (LLMs) to ensure both accuracy and depth of insight. Diffusion models refine data iteratively, mimicking how humans think and write by forming an idea and improving it over multiple passes. This enables faster, more accurate text and data processing while maintaining security, as all files are stored privately on PaperLab’s servers, critical for unpublished or sensitive research.
Antonios’ passion for diffusion models began during his undergraduate studies in Greece in 2013, long before the explosion of AI tools like ChatGPT. His academic research focused on creating faster and more efficient algorithms without the need for extensive computing resources. He recalls how the release of Google’s 2017 “Attention Is All You Need” paper introduced transformer architecture, which revolutionised modern AI. However, Antonios believes the industry is reaching a scaling plateau, adding more data and compute power is producing diminishing returns. The next leap forward, he says, will come from smarter, more efficient AI frameworks that prioritise algorithmic innovation over brute force scaling.
As AI adoption surges globally, Antonios urges business leaders to take a more strategic approach. He points out that most organisations should first establish strong automation processes before integrating complex AI systems. Both Antonios and Anthony highlight the risks of premature AI implementation, including higher costs, inefficiencies, and potential data security issues. They emphasise that not every problem requires an AI solution—sometimes, simple automation achieves better outcomes. As Anthony notes, using AI for basic processes is like “hiring Picasso to paint your walls”, technically possible, but an inefficient use of resources.
Antonios closes by sharing his vision for PaperLab as a catalyst for global scientific progress. He hopes the platform will empower researchers to accelerate discoveries in fields such as healthcare, environmental science, and technology. By dramatically reducing the time spent on literature reviews and data processing, PaperLab enables scientists to focus on innovation and experimentation. Antonios envisions a future where AI not only enhances efficiency but also fuels groundbreaking advancements that change lives. As Anthony summarises, giving researchers better tools means accelerating the path to the next generation of breakthroughs.
#DevReadyPodcast #AIinResearch #PaperLab #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence #ScientificDiscovery #AerionTechnologies #ResearchAutomation

Matt Allen on Sustainable Startup Funding, Angel Investing and Smarter Capital Strategies | Ep 266 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Andrew Romeo speaks with Matt Allen, Head of Capital & New Markets at Tractor Ventures, about building sustainable startups, navigating investment options and leveraging non-dilutive funding to scale responsibly. Matt shares his evolution from software engineer to angel investor and venture leader, exploring how modern AI-driven tools have reshaped his technical and financial perspective. He reveals how Tractor Ventures is helping founders grow without losing equity or control, redefining how startups fund long-term success.
Matt began his career as a self-taught software developer in Sydney, running startups and a hosting company before moving into tech recruitment and later joining Amazon Web Services (AWS). At AWS, he supported founders through the startup and venture capital ecosystem, helping them scale with cloud infrastructure and early-stage resources. His entrepreneurial mindset, however, led him away from corporate life and towards creating something new, a journey that would ultimately lead to Tractor Ventures.
Matt shares how his first successful investment in Xero gave him the foundation to become an angel investor, backing startups that built tools for developers. By connecting with startup communities and Blackbird Ventures, he learned that angel investing is about conviction, people and execution, not just technology or spreadsheets. He also realised that sustainable growth comes from founders who understand their customers deeply and can sell beyond their network, not from chasing “unicorn” valuations.
Inspired by his time at AWS, Matt saw a gap for tech founders running profitable businesses that weren’t eligible for venture capital or bank loans. Tractor Ventures was built to bridge that funding gap, providing revenue-based, non-dilutive financing to founders with recurring income and high gross margins. Matt explains how Tractor’s credit engine analyses real business data to lend responsibly, helping founders scale without sacrificing ownership or personal assets. This model creates a new category of funding that sits between equity and traditional debt.
Matt and Andrew discuss when startups should consider debt financing versus equity investment. Debt suits businesses with proven, predictable revenue streams, while equity is better for companies seeking rapid expansion in large markets. Matt advises founders to view customer revenue as the best source of capital, followed by grants and borrowing, since selling equity often dilutes ownership and slows growth. The key, he says, is building a profitable, sustainable business before chasing external capital.
Modern founders, Matt explains, can blend debt and equity to fuel growth without over-reliance on either. Raising equity can take months and distract teams from building products or generating revenue, whereas private credit or revenue-based finance offers faster, flexible solutions. Matt urges founders to calculate the true cost of capital, considering how each choice affects control, growth speed and long-term outcomes.
In closing, Matt highlights how interest rates directly influence startup funding cycles. When rates are low, investors chase higher returns through startups; when rates rise, safer investments like term deposits become more appealing, drying up venture capital. This affects both investor sentiment and founder confidence, reducing risk appetite across the ecosystem. Matt’s insights reveal how macroeconomic factors shape access to capital and underline the importance of resilient, adaptable business models.
#DevReadyPodcast #MattAllen #TractorVentures #StartupFunding #SustainableGrowth #AI #SaaS #Founders #Entrepreneurship #AerionTechnologies

How Leah Houston is Using AI to Fix Healthcare’s Broken Credentialing System | Ep 265 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host  Anthony Sapountzis, CTO and Co-Founder of Aerion Technologies and DevReady.Ai, speaks with Leah Houston, Founder of evercred, about her remarkable journey from emergency medicine to healthtech entrepreneurship. Leah reveals how a case of identity theft and Medicare fraud exposed deep flaws in the medical credentialing system, sparking her mission to build a secure, AI-powered platform that eliminates friction and protects professional identities. Her decade-long medical experience gave her unique insight into the inefficiencies and risks of the existing 4–6-month verification process, inspiring her to leverage technology to transform how doctors manage credentials and compliance.
After discovering that many other doctors faced similar issues, Leah harnessed her Silicon Valley network to design and build evercred, a platform that simplifies credential management and safeguards data integrity. Through an SEC-approved crowdfunding campaign, she raised capital from 600 physician investors, creating a community-driven approach to innovation in healthcare technology. Despite launching during the COVID-19 pandemic, Leah successfully led a distributed team, building evercred from concept to functional product while learning the fundamentals of software development and startup leadership along the way.
Leah opens up about the hard lessons of her early startup journey, from hiring the wrong technical co-founder to rebuilding an entire product that was poorly architected. Comparing software development to “building a house without blueprints,” she and Anthony discuss the importance of planning, technical accountability, and recognising the difference between genuine full-stack expertise and overconfidence. Today, Leah’s team leverages modern tools like DevSwarm and PostHog, using AI-driven parallel development and analytics to accelerate delivery, ensure scalability, and gain real-time visibility into user experience. She also shares her first-hand experience learning to code through platforms like Cursor and Vercel, deepening her understanding of workflows, prototyping, and product communication.
 
As evercred grows, Leah remains focused on aligning technical innovation with business goals. She explains how the platform manages both medical and personal identification data under HIPAA-level compliance, with new features like advanced OCR for credential detection, expiry notifications, and upcoming AI-powered agent automation. Through practical analogies, such as Heinz’s multi-million-dollar investment in designing its iconic ketchup cap, Leah underscores the importance of knowing when to prioritise design, usability, and iteration. The conversation highlights how startups must balance ambition, design precision, and resource constraints while maintaining long-term strategic vision.
Leah also reveals the broader mission behind evercred—to build a decentralised network of physicians that empowers doctors to collaborate, coordinate care, and receive fair compensation through direct payment engines and AI-enabled autonomy. Her long-term vision is to tackle the inefficiency of healthcare systems where up to 70% of funding is lost to waste and administration. By combining decentralisation, automation, and collective intelligence, Leah aims to redefine how healthcare operates, creating a transparent, efficient, and equitable future where physicians regain control of their data and their profession.
#DevReadyPodcast #LeahHouston #evercred #AIinHealthcare #MedicalCredentialing #HealthTech #Automation #DecentralisedHealthcare #AerionTechnologies

AI Innovation & Startup Growth with Nikos Patsis | Ep 264 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzisspeaks with Nikos Patsis, CEO of DisruptIQ, about his journey from engineering to AI entrepreneurship and building global technology ventures. Nikos shares insights from his studies at Harvard and his experience in financial innovation before founding VoiceWeb, one of the early pioneers in conversational AI. He discusses how he scaled his companies across 30+ countries, navigated investor challenges, and built adaptable teams. This conversation explores real-world lessons in AI innovation, startup funding, leadership, and sustainable business growth.
Nikos began his career studying engineering at the National Technical University of Athens and later specialised in financial engineering at Harvard University. His research on exotic options pricing led to a role at a private equity fund in New York, where he applied his models to real-world investments. After gaining international experience in Bermuda’s financial sector, he returned to Greece to launch his ventures, including a successful mobile value-added services company across Central America. Eventually, his passion for technology and innovation led him to found VoiceWeb, a company that would reshape the future of customer service through AI.
Founded in the early 2000s, VoiceWeb was one of the first companies to automate customer care using voice and chatbot technologies. The company worked with major banks and telecoms, transforming call centres through voice recognition long before AI became mainstream. Nikos reflects on the challenges of educating a sceptical market and how perceptions of automation have evolved. He also emphasises the need for governments and businesses to prepare for AI’s societal impact as the technology continues to accelerate globally.
VoiceWeb’s commitment to local market understanding helped it expand into over 30 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, partnering with industry giants like Vodafone, Raiffeisen Bank, and MTN. Nikos explains how cultural sensitivity and adaptability allowed them to outperform larger competitors like Google and IBM. He also shares lessons from securing Series A funding, warning founders about the “time tax” that comes with institutional investors and the need to choose backers who offer strategic support rather than just capital.
Nikos distinguishes between passive investors and operational VCs: those who bring value through experience, networks, and practical guidance. He stresses that scaling from 0–1 is very different from scaling from 1–3, and operational expertise can make or break a company’s growth. As an investor himself, Nikos looks for teams who build businesses, not just products. He believes that successful startups combine strong distribution, cultural intelligence, and the ability to adapt quickly to changing markets.
To close, Nikos offers actionable advice for founders navigating today’s competitive talent market. He advocates hiring based on results rather than résumés, setting clear performance milestones, and making fast decisions when hires do not work out. Loyalty, he warns, cannot replace competence. Poor hiring decisions can weaken culture, reduce morale, and hinder scalability. For Nikos, the foundations of long-term success are decisive leadership, outcome-driven teams, and a clear focus on business results.
#DevReadyPodcast #AIInnovation #StartupGrowth #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #DisruptIQ #VoiceWeb #AerionTechnologies #AI #Founders #TechLeadership

AI Roundup with Gareth Rydon: How AI Is Redefining Creativity and Productivity | Ep 263 | DevReady Podcast

In this AI Roundup episode of the DevReady Podcast, Anthony Sapountzis, CTO and Co-Founder of Aerion Technologies and DevReady.ai | AI-Powered App Planning for Non-Tech Founders , is joined by Gareth Rydon, Co-Founder of Friyay.ai, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity, collaboration and productivity. Together they discuss OpenAI’s Sora app, the future of AI filmmaking, the evolution of AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, and how teams can integrate AI more effectively. This episode offers actionable insights for creators, developers and business leaders looking to embrace the power of AI tools in smarter, more intentional ways.
Anthony and Gareth begin by examining the cultural impact of OpenAI’s Sora app, which has sparked a flood of low-quality, AI-generated videos across social media. Gareth calls this “AI slop”, highlighting the danger of creativity being replaced by noise and spectacle. Anthony likens it to “TikTok at its worst”, questioning whether such platforms can sustain meaningful content or ethical monetisation. Both agree that while AI tools can unlock creativity, their true potential lies in empowering skilled creators and storytellers rather than fuelling superficial trends.
The discussion turns to how AI could make filmmaking more accessible to creators with big ideas but limited resources. Gareth believes AI will open the door for new creative voices, while Anthony notes that truly exceptional work will still stand out. They reference OpenAI’s $10 million investment in an AI-made film, debating whether it will be seen as “an AI-made film” or simply “a great film that happens to use AI.” Both agree the future of AI in creative industries depends on how well these tools integrate into authentic storytelling and artistic expression.
Gareth and Anthony explore the evolution of AI assistants across major tech platforms. Gareth discusses Apple’s upcoming Apple Intelligence update that connects Siri to ChatGPT, while Anthony notes Microsoft’s integration of Claude into Copilot, showing a clear trend toward flexibility and model diversity. They also unpack the latest ChatGPT Teams features, praising its project-sharing improvements but highlighting the ongoing lack of true team collaboration. For AI to thrive in enterprise environments, they argue, it must evolve from personal tools to shared digital teammates that enhance productivity and transparency.
Anthony and Gareth dive into OpenAI’s Agent Builder, assessing its impact on existing automation platforms like n8n, Zapier and Make. Gareth stresses that learning how to design and optimise workflows is more valuable than jumping from one platform to another. They discuss combining AI agents with simpler automations to improve reliability and debugging. The pair also touch on voice-driven workflows using tools like WhisperFlow, praising its creative potential but acknowledging privacy considerations. Their advice is clear: the future belongs to those who understand processes, not just prompts.
Gareth shares his daily “AI stand-up” ritual, where he briefs tools like Claude, Gemini and Activity to plan his day before team meetings. This structured approach helps him maintain focus and efficiency. Anthony compares it with his own spontaneous use of AI and introduces ChatGPT Pulse, a new feature that proactively updates users on ongoing tasks. They explore how AI is moving from reactive to proactive assistance, signalling a shift toward intelligent automation that anticipates user needs.
In the final segment, Gareth explains how prompting styles should adapt to different contexts. When using AI within apps like Google Sheets or Docs, he recommends being more precise and task-specific, treating AI as a contextual assistant rather than a general chatbot. Anthony shares his “keyword-first” prompting strategy, shaped by years of expert Googling, and praises its clarity and speed. Together, they discuss how voice feedback tools such as WhisperFlow improve real-time collaboration, and they highlight the need for better task management in AI platforms. Until then, Anthony uses Trello as a practical workaround to keep track of open AI projects.
#AIConversations #AIPodcast #ArtificialIntelligence #Automation #AIWorkflows #DevReadyPodcast #AerionTechnologies

Joe Woodham on Building Torii Consulting and the Future of UX Design | Ep 262 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis sits down with Joe Woodham, CEO and Founder of Torii Consulting. Joe shares his entrepreneurial journey from door-to-door sales and recruitment to building one of Australia’s leading UX and service design consultancies. He reflects on the lessons learned from failed ventures, like importing kitchen sinks from China, and how he leveraged those experiences to successfully pivot into recruitment and later into human-centred design. Today, Torii Consulting partners with some of the biggest enterprise brands in Australia, including Australia Post, NAB, Telstra and Coles, helping them improve digital experiences, streamline customer journeys, and maximise ROI through thoughtful design.
Joe explains how his recruitment business evolved into a consultancy by spotting gaps in the market and staying ahead of industry trends. Unlike large consultancies that dominated the development space, he recognised that design remained relatively under-served and offered opportunities to deliver more tailored value. By building strong connections and maintaining a people-first approach, he positioned Torii as a specialist in UX and service design. He emphasises that design is not just about aesthetics but about improving usability, reducing friction, and creating digital products that deliver measurable business outcomes.
A key theme in this conversation is how poor design drives dependency on customer support and chatbots, while great design eliminates these problems entirely by enabling users to self-serve. Joe illustrates this with examples such as Amazon’s one-click purchase, which removes friction in the buying journey and boosts conversions at scale. He contrasts the rapid but often short-sighted approach of startups, which rush products to market without sufficient design research, with enterprises that eventually circle back to fix these gaps. Both he and Anthony agree that designing upfront is far more cost-effective than retrofitting fixes later in the process, which is also the foundation of the DevReady methodology.
The discussion also explores the role of AI in design and product development. Joe highlights how many enterprises treat AI as a tick-box exercise, adding tools like chatbots without a real strategy or measurable value. To address this, Torii Consulting has partnered with Gen AI Labs to provide AI-led training for design teams, giving them the knowledge and confidence to integrate AI effectively into workflows. He argues that without training and proper adoption, businesses risk falling behind, as employees cannot deliver meaningful results with AI. This focus on education, accessibility, and adoption reflects Torii’s commitment to preparing both enterprises and smaller businesses for an AI-first future.
Finally, Joe shares how he personally keeps up with the pace of AI innovation by actively learning, experimenting, and cascading insights to his team. He acknowledges that resistance to change is common but stresses the importance of fostering a culture of continuous upskilling. Anthony reinforces this point by describing his own approach to consuming hours of AI content each week and using automation to share key takeaways with his team. Together, they underline the urgency for businesses to adopt AI thoughtfully and train their teams effectively. Torii Consulting’s strategy of evolving with SMEs and scale-ups ensures they stay ahead of enterprise adoption cycles, positioning themselves as trusted partners when larger organisations inevitably accelerate their AI adoption.
#DevReadyPodcast #UXDesign #AI #HumanCentredDesign #Entrepreneurship

Emma Lo Russo on AI Marketing, Digivizer and Sustainable Growth | Ep 261 | DevReady Podcast

In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, host Anthony Sapountzis welcomes Emma Lo Russo, CEO of Digivizer and Founder of goto.game, for a candid conversation about AI marketing, the creator economy and sustainable growth. Emma shares how Digivizer helps brands measure and improve performance across social, search, web, organic and paid channels for clients including Lenovo, Barilla, and major banks. She also explains how goto.game helps endemic and non-endemic brands build authentic engagement in gaming and esports communities.
Emma traces her journey from senior corporate marketing roles to building data-driven businesses. She highlights Twitch as a rare live medium where creator-led, long-form streams cultivate loyal audiences, noting that genuine influence cannot be scripted or bought. The lesson for marketers is clear. Work with creators as partners, respect their voice and lean into improvisation and roleplay that audiences return to week after week.
Emma then unpacks the leap from corporate to founder. As social, mobile and cloud converged, she saw a gap for real-time digital insight, completed an MBA to rebuild her Australian network and applied every subject directly to the venture. Early traction followed. A $1.5 million Sensis contract, focus on Digivizer and a $2.1 million raise off her MBA strategy paper helped the company serve B2C and B2B brands at global scale.
Emma and Anthony compare founder realities with salaried certainty. Launched in 2010 among 87 local social analytics startups, Digivizer is one of two that remain from that cohort, with Local Measure acquired by Zendesk and Digivizer continuing as the independent survivor. Culture, hiring and the ability to sell into enterprise became foundations for growth, while Emma echoes Mike Cannon-Brookes’ advice that financial pressure never stops, it simply scales.
On funding, Emma prioritised control and customer value over reporting theatre. She raised selectively, provided investors read-only access to Xero for transparency and kept conversations focused on advice that moved the business forward. That discipline underpinned profitability and self-funded growth through changing market cycles, from growth at all costs to today’s profit first reality.
Looking ahead, Digivizer is growing at around 30% year on year and expanding a hybrid model of SaaS reach plus agency expertise, supported by top-tier partnerships such as LinkedIn Marketing Partner in Australia and premier badges across Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft. Emma sees AI opening new possibilities but says winners will combine AI with human storytelling that is authentic, contextual and useful. Measure everything, learn what resonates and double down on content, formats and timing that create real value.
#AIMarketing #DigitalMarketing #Leadership #SaaS #CreatorEconomy #EsportsMarketing #DataDriven #ScaleUp