**AI moved fast in 2025. The bigger story? The people building with it.**
In this Year in Review, Chris & Mark recap the biggest themes from the last 13 episodes—what founders got right, where “AI strategy” goes wrong, and why *experts* (not just “humans”) need to be in the loop as tools get more powerful.

We unpack the show’s pivot from a weekly AI news format into deeper interviews (shout out to Ned Warfield for helping trigger that shift), then revisit standout conversations across product, UX, creative industries, mental health, and the Aussie startup ecosystem.

### What you’ll hear in this episode

* **Human-first AI in product & CX:** why “throwing AI into a business” as a checkbox fails, and why workflows + people matter (feat. Charmaine / Frey).
* **AI for lead gen & founder lessons:** Serena’s approach with **Fuzzy**—using AI to extract the right signals and improve how people source and engage leads on LinkedIn/social channels.
* **AI in the creative industry:** how **aiCandy** uses AI to produce commercial-grade output *with pros shaping the work*, plus the reminder that audience taste still sets the rules (even when AI makes “anything” possible).
* **AI for good + psychological safety:** the “burnout is real” thread—tools like Mood AI focusing on prediction, support, and creating safer workplaces (not just shipping tech for tech’s sake).
* **Street-level signal from events:** the South by Southwest episode—real-world “doom vs hope” sentiment, builder energy, and practical security notes (like being cautious with AI browsers + prompt injection).
* **What’s next:** the shift from “human-in-the-loop” to **expert-in-the-loop**, and plans for 2026: more expert-level convos, more live formats, corporate-focused episodes, and roundtable debates on how AI is impacting different generations.

### What we’re taking into 2026

If you’ve been watching AI from the sidelines, this episode is the push to start building—safely, with better data habits, and by learning with the community around you (there are more free communities and helpful founders out there than most people realise).

**Drop a comment:** What was your biggest “AI moment” of 2025—and what do you want us to pull apart in 2026?

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Can AI actually make us more emotionally intelligent instead of more robotic?
In this episode of the Digital Nexus Podcast, we sit down with Dr Nathan Jones – musician, MTV/Nickelodeon voiceover artist turned psychologist, researcher and co-founder of Mood.ai, an emotional intelligence and psychological safety platform for workplaces.

Nathan unpacks his journey from a shy minister’s kid in Adelaide, finding his voice through music and church piano, to winning development deals, doing TV promos, and then burning out on the creative grind.
That path led him into psychology, where his PhD delivered the first empirical evidence that lyrics change how we feel above and beyond the music itself – proof that words and stories literally re-tune emotion.

From there, Nathan built Mood Institute and Mood.ai, translating years of research on colour, emotion and music into tools that help employees answer a deceptively simple question: “How do you feel?” – and help leaders see patterns in psychological safety, risk and culture in real time.

We get into the current AI “branding crisis”, media fear-cycles, and why self-awareness is the real tipping point: if we don’t do our inner work, we’ll point powerful AI tools at the wrong things. Nathan shares how AI can act as a “mirror” for our emotional operating system – reminding us when we’re off track, surfacing patterns in our mood, and nudging us back toward better choices at home and at work.

If you’re a founder, product/people leader, or AI builder trying to use AI for good – to support humans rather than squeeze them – this one hits hard.

Links:
Mood.ai https://www.mood.ai/
Dr Nathan Jones Li https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnathanjones/

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How Nathan’s music and voiceover career shaped his thinking on emotion, storytelling and behaviour change

What his research reveals about how lyrics, colour and sound interact to shift emotional state

Why psychological safety is becoming a compliance issue and a culture issue – and how Mood.ai tries to bridge both with AI-driven check-ins and dashboards

How AI can spot emotional patterns (meetings, weather, relationships, sleep) that we miss, and feed that back as practical coaching

His advice for founders: building products your younger self needed, listening harder to customers, and using emotional intelligence as a real startup advantage

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus

Can you shoot a Cannes-level ad with no cameras, a fraction of the budget and a 99% lower carbon footprint? That’s exactly what Kent Boswell and Marcus Tesoriero are doing with aiCandy, one of the first AI film production studios built for brands and agencies.

In this episode of Digital Nexus, we unpack how they’re turning “impossible” ideas from old agency bottom drawers into fully realised films – including a United Nations climate piece set to Mad World by Gary Jules, crafted from real sea-level data across cities like Tokyo, Mumbai, New York and Amsterdam.

Kent and Marcus share the origin story of aiCandy (hatched over beers in Cannes as AI talks took over the festival), the moment Google’s Vo3 lip-sync breakthrough made it “officially ready”, and why they’ve gone all-in on AI film as Australia’s first dedicated AI production studio for the commercial and marketing space.

In this episode you’ll learn:

How aiCandy was born
From Cannes Lions chats about “Will Smith eating spaghetti” to spotting the moment AI film crossed from joke to production-ready – and why they decided it was “jump on the train or get left behind.”

What an AI film production actually looks like
Same brief, strategy and creative process as a top-tier production company – scripts, treatments, casting, locations, storyboards, sound mix and grade – just no physical cameras.

Turning shrinking budgets into “impossible” ideas
Why high quality expectations keep rising while TVC budgets drop from $200k+ down, and how AI lets them turn a “someone jogging in Sydney” script into a Super Bowl-level spot across the Himalayas with a full cast, zero rollover fees and no weather delays.

The UN ‘Mad World’ climate film – from bottom drawer to global story
How a shelved idea became a career highlight: using real climate data to show future sea-level rise in multiple cities, layering it with Mad World, and getting Gary Jules to gift them the track 36 hours after they reached out.

AI film vs traditional production: the carbon myth
The numbers behind the “AI is bad for the planet” headline: a traditional 30-second TVC can create ~40 tonnes of CO₂ (about 16 hot-air balloons), while an AI-produced spot of the same length comes in around 50 kilograms – roughly 2% of one balloon.

Why craft still matters more than prompts
How decades in film, VFX and award-winning creative direction let them spot the tiny details (like a frame-off lip-sync or a six-fingered hand) that separate “AI meme” from world-class work, and why the tool is nothing without expert taste.

What changes for juniors, crew and the next wave of talent
How roles are shifting rather than disappearing, and why juniors still need reps – just with new tools, new workflows and fewer red-eye shoots.

Where AI film is headed next
Why even the people building this stuff hesitate to predict five years out, and how aiCandy is planning to keep raising its own bar after a debut UN project and six more films already in production across comedy, drama and sci-fi.

Support the show

Other Links
🎙️our podcast links here: https://digitalnexuspodcast.com/
👤Chris on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcsinclair/
👤Mark on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonfort/
👤 Mark on Twitter - https://twitter.com/captdefi

SHOWNOTE LINKS
🔗 SIKE - https://sike.ai/
🌐Digital Village - https://digitalvillage.network/
🌐NotCentralised - https://www.notcentralised.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DigitalNexusPodcast
X (twitter): @DigitalNexus