Explore every episode of the podcast strAIght talk: AI tips for Amazonians

In this episode, a VP who leads HR for Amazon's global operations shares his personal AI journey: from basic prompts to a daily framework that changed how he runs meetings, helped him lose 20 pounds, and even helped someone in his community build a business plan. His one rule: stay the human in charge. 

Guest: J. Ofori Agboka, VP People Experience & Technology (PXT)  - Global Operations, Amazon 

In this episode, Morgan shares how her talent development team used AI not just to code a new product, but to fundamentally rethink what onboarding should look like. What started as a debate with AI led to a six-week rebuild that shifted the focus from task completion to customer delivery. 

Guest: Morgan Grimes, Sr Manager, Product Management, Amazon eXperience & Upskilling 

One team in Global Tax Data used AI to reimagine how they work together — from automating month-end data validation that used to take days, to building an agent that translates code into plain English for compliance reviews. On this episode, members from Amazon’s Global Tax Data team share how "AI Solution Jams" (teach, demo, create) helped them scale AI experimentation across six countries and land three ideas in a finance-wide hackathon. Their biggest tip: it's about the habit, not the heroics. Start with the most repetitive thing in front of you and build from there. 

Guests: Chris Jocson, Parmi Makh, and Raksha B from Global Tax Data team. 

​Carving out hours for exam prep feels impossible when you're juggling deliverables, launches, and meetings. On this episode, Sery Cybulski shares how she used AI to pass multiple AWS certifications with just 30 minutes a day. Her approach: tell AI exactly what you don't know, let it build a tailored study plan, and when you get questions wrong, feed them back so it adapts to your gaps. No cramming required. 

​Guest: Sery Cybulski, Senior Program Manager, AWS Support Engineering 

One team at AWS used AI at every step to build Kate Spade’s AI "gift concierge" — a shopping assistant that asks customers what they need and narrows options through conversation. On this episode, David Dorf shares how they went from concept to live product in 12 weeks. His biggest tip: you don't need a perfect idea. Keep a backlog, present a rough one to AI, and let it research and refine until you pick up momentum. 

Guest: David Dorf, Global Head of Retail Industry Solutions, AWS 

"I built an agent... now what?" Orlando O'Neill built five custom AI agents for his marketing work. On this episode, he shares how he makes them reliable: asking agents to diagnose their own mistakes, fixing issues permanently with steering files, and running weekly reviews to improve them over time. His biggest tip: when your agent gets something wrong, don't scrap it. Ask it why, and fix it together. 

 Guest: Orlando O'Neill, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Alexa Marketing 

Jackie Pizaña wanted AI to do more than summarize documents. Using an internal guided workflow called Cortex Kickstart, she built four AI agents that track commitments, flag escalations, prep coaching materials, and orient her week. Her biggest tip: lean into one tool, learn it well, and let your confidence build from there.

Guest: Jackie Pizana, Senior Manager, Operations Field Talent Acquisition

Eight weeks, no roadmap, and a 50/50 shot. Vedran Brozovic shares how he used AI to find the right data, generate technical requirements, and build an hourly forecasting system in weeks—not months. His biggest tip: ask AI questions like you'd ask a colleague, not a search engine. 

Guest: Vedran Brozovic, Product Manager, Automated Profitability Management

Spending your mornings triaging emails and rewriting the same docs? Eric Johnson shares how he uses Quick to turn everyday pain points into automated workflows. Just describe your problem, and Quick’s desktop app builds the solution for you.

Guest: Eric Johnson, Principal Developer Advocate, AWS

You've got the idea. A tracker, a dashboard, a tool that would save your team hours. You just can't code it. Or can you? Two Amazonians share how to go from ideas to working prototypes using agentic coding tools. The secret? You don't need to know code; you need to know how to communicate.

Guests: Alex Neier, Software Builder Experience (ASBX) & Curtis Morton, AWS Training and Certification

Host Alex Kalish gets a little help from a very special co-host, Alexa, who steps in to ask the questions while Alex tackles your toughest listener submissions head-on. The throughline? Context is king, and Alex's five-step framework will change the way you think about AI.

Guest: Alexa, Amazon’s cloud-based voice service available on hundreds of millions of devices from Amazon and third-party device manufacturers.

Stop treating AI like a tool. Start treating it like a partner. Regional Director in Amazon Logistics shares how he transformed his relationship with AI from task assistant to strategic partner and the simple habit that made all the difference. His breakthrough: stop asking AI to complete tasks and start having conversations with it like you would with a colleague.

Guest: Joe Hoeksema, Regional Director, Amazon Logistics

Want to think more strategically and accelerate your career growth? Program Manager with Amazon's GoAI team, shares how he uses AI as a personal career coach to prepare for high-stakes meetings, build advocates, and shift from tactical execution to strategic thinking. His approach: create a context document with your role, goals, and priorities, then use AI to help you see what you're missing.

Guest: Chris Meriwether, Program Manager

Senior Manager AI/ML Specialist from AWS closes all his apps and does everything through AI for one day. The result? Events planned in minutes instead of hours, and a completely new way of working. Ahmed Raafat shares his "napkin test" and the daily prompt that keeps him focused on what matters. Listen to discover how the GenAI Day technique can work for you.

Guest: Ahmed Raafat, Senior Manager, AWS

Principal Software Engineer shares how he went from AI skeptic to AI evangelist — and the exact technique that changed his mind. Learn about the prompt-driven development technique that made AI an indispensable partner for building faster.

Guest: James Hood, Principal Software Engineer

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization's security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

It took 20 iterations. Now, the prompt framework a program manager from Amazon's Global Corporate Communications team built consistently delivers high-quality research analysis — faster and more precisely than before. Listen to find out how she got there — and how you can apply the same approach to your own research process.

Guest: Caitlin Gallagher, Program Manager

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

Three hundred questions. Generated by AI, not a human. An AI program lead from Amazon's Global Supply Chain Operations discovered that the secret to better AI results isn't writing better prompts — it's asking AI to write them for you. Listen to find out how.

Guest: Lavanya Srivastava, AI Program Lead

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

Many people use AI like a search engine. But AI agents can do things — find information, manage requests, and take action on your behalf. In this episode we break down what makes agents different and how to put them to work, to see what's possible.

Guest: Rashi Dixit, Principal Project Manager

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

Three pages of text when you needed three bullet points. Sound familiar? An Ops Tech Solutions leader cracked the code on getting AI to give you exactly what you asked for — no more, no less. Listen to find out how guardrails and constraints can fix that.

Guest: Connor McIntyre, Ops Tech Solutions Leader

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

Forty hours saved. Insights he never would have found on his own. An Amazon Robotics facilitator discovered that asking AI the right questions — and letting it ask some back — changed everything. Listen to find out how the 3-question technique can work for you.

Guest: Josh McCay, Amazon Robotics Onboarding Academy Facilitator

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.

A few minutes of setup, dramatically better AI results. An AI Integration Lead built a simple context document that transformed how AI understands his role — and you can do the same. Listen to learn how to create yours.

Guest: David Metzger, AI Integration Lead

Note: Some tools, resources, and internal references discussed in this podcast may only be accessible to Amazon employees.

Disclaimer: The views, techniques, and tool preferences shared in this podcast represent the personal experiences and opinions of the host and guests. Always follow your organization’s security and compliance guidelines when implementing AI solutions.