The AI Drop

Unlock the future of artificial intelligence with The AI Drop, a podcast dedicated to delivering cutting-edge insights on how AI is transforming industries worldwide. Each episode features expert interviews and actionable strategies to help you harness AI, drive business value, and navigate evolving legal challenges. Fresh drops every week so you never miss a beat.

The AI Drop is a technology podcast hosted by Freshfields, with 18 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Freshfields hosts The AI Drop, a technology show with 18 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #19

  The AI Drop #18: What's a Robot Worth? Valuation, Data & the Power of Physical AI with Shenwei Zhu and Lauren Schwartz

  Aug 18, 202630 min

  Is physical AI ready for primetime? Recorded live at Citi's Robotics and Physical AI Conference, this episode captures a market at an inflection point, maturing in "dog years" as it accelerates from demo to deployment at breakneck speed. Host Anna Gressel is joined by Shenwei Zhu , a Citigroup managing director covering industrial technology and robotics, and Lauren Schwartz , CISO and General Counsel of Centific , a global data and AI solutions company. Together they explore why data has become both the bottleneck and the moat in physical AI, how investors evaluate robotics companies on unit economics and customer value, and why the winning proposition is to sell measurable outcomes. Shenwei and Lauren also weigh liability gaps and offer founders hard-won advice on capital and data strategy. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Lauren Schwartz | LinkedIn ☑️ Shenwei Zhu | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

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  Episode #18

  The AI Drop #17: Delegate the Decision, Not the Liability — How the SEC Views Agentic AI with Melissa Hodgman

  Aug 11, 202618 min

  In this episode, host Anna Gressel is joined by Freshfields Partner Melissa Hodgman , a former SEC enforcement official, who traces that arc from the SEC’s interest in pattern-spotting tools built after the 2008 crisis to today's "AI washing" disclosure cases and other areas of SEC enforcement interest. As Melissa puts it, “you can delegate decision-making to a machine, but you can't delegate liability.” For years, enforcement turned on what a single person knew — knowledge firms could contain with walls, locked doors, and policies. Melissa explains why a learning system that moves information across an organization makes that a far harder question: what did the system know? From there she unpacks how investor protection shapes the agency's interest in agentic AI, and what belongs on a general counsel's hit list. Her closing advice — engage regulators early, and treat securities law as principle-based. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Melissa Hodgman | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

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  Episode #17

  The AI Drop #16: The AI Race: China's Open-Source Play for Global AI Adoption with Beth George

  Aug 4, 202622 min

  In this episode of The AI Drop, Anna Gressel sits down with Beth George (Freshfields Partner, Head of US Litigation and Global Co-Head of Strategic Risk Management) to discuss the geopolitical implications of China's latest AI advances, including Kimi K3, and what they signal for the global AI race. Rather than focusing solely on who builds the most powerful model, they explore why the real competition may be over AI infrastructure, trust, and global adoption. The conversation examines China's open-source AI strategy, the limits of export controls and bans as policy tools, and why accessibility, reliability, and safety may become the defining differentiators in the next era of AI. They also discuss the growing role of robotics, AI agents, and cybersecurity risks as AI systems become more deeply embedded in everyday life.

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  Episode #16

  The AI Drop #15: Designing the Future: How Kohler Is Building an AI-Enabled Enterprise with Eric Tabor and Megan Belcher

  Jul 28, 202627 min

  Kohler's approach to enterprise AI starts with a simple bet: teach every employee to build and manage their own agents rather than bring in consultants. Eric Tabor , Kohler's chief digital officer, and Megan Belcher , the company's chief legal officer, join host Anna Gressel to explain how that philosophy has shaped both the 153-year-old design company's technology roadmap and its governance model. Eric details Kohler's "two-in-a-box" model, pairing associates with technical partners, and the recent rollout of 3,000 AI agents across the company. Megan explains how legal meets clients' risk tolerance while moving with speed, and how she keeps the board abreast of a rapidly evolving competitive landscape. Their advice for teams starting out with AI: "hold hands...and be willing to jump." Connect and Learn More ☑️ Megan Belcher ☑️ Eric Tabor | LinkedIn ☑️ Kohler ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

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  Episode #15

  The AI Drop #14: Privilege, Meet Prompt: A Practical Guide to AI in the Legal World with Rob McCallum

  Jul 21, 202625 min

  When privileged prompts pass through an AI tool, whether they stay privileged is a key question coming before courts globally today — and those courts are digging into the facts and terms to decide. Rob McCallum , a Freshfields tech litigator, tells host Anna Gressel that privilege questions come up in his practice pretty much every day, and that the conversation has shifted from whether to use AI at all to how to use it responsibly when privileged communications are in the mix. He and Anna also cover AI note-takers as discoverable records, cross-border differences in privilege law, and where governance over privileged communications and documents actually starts. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Rob McCallum | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

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