Larissa Padden 00:06
Hello and welcome to Cogcast, Cognito’s podcast, where we talk to journalists and media pros on everything that’s happening in the world of media and PR. I’m Larissa Padden, your host and a former journalist turned PR professional.

For today’s episode, we’re joined by Esther Shittu, a writer for TechTarget who has spent the past few years immersing herself in all things AI. Esther walks us through the crowded world of AI reporting, her upcoming podcast, and she finally explains agentic AI to me, an AI novice. Please enjoy.

Hi Esther, thanks for joining us today.

Esther Shittu 00:41
Thank you for having me.

Larissa Padden 00:43
Of course, yeah. I think it’s going to be a really fun conversation, but I did just want to start off with you telling us a little bit about your background as a reporter, what you’re focused on right now, and kind of how you found your current beat.

Esther Shittu 00:56
Yeah. So career-wise, I started out in the TV world as a producer/associate producer. I went to journalism school, that was where I got my graduate degree in what’s now known as Craig Newmark’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York. So that was fun.
And so I applied for he Heurist program and I got in to be a TV reporter.

Larissa Padden 01:23
Oh, wow.

Esther Shittu 01:23
Because I was like, “I want to be a producer, that’s all I want to do.” That’s what I basically told everyone at school that I wanted to do, and so I did that for three months, and then they assigned me to come to New Hampshire to work for the only TV station in New Hampshire.

And so that I did that, did associate producer for two years, and then I had my first daughter. And first of all, I’ve been willing, wanting to get out of New Hampshire.

Larissa Padden 01:52
Yeah, sure. No offense to New Hampshire, but I’ve been in there in the winter before, and it is freezing.

Esther Shittu 01:57
It’s freezing, and I’m the only one, and I’m like from New York. So it’s just me, and so I was like, “I need to get out of here.” And so I tried to get out, unfortunately couldn’t, but I decided that I just didn’t want to do TV anymore.

And so I was researching and applied thinking, okay, I’ll just do marketing or something like that. And so I saw this AI news writer position, and I was like, “What is an AI writer? I don’t know, but I will figure it out.”

And the news director at the time emailed me and said, “I like your journalism background.” And so I spoke to my editor, whose name is Shaun Sutner. He interviewed me, and we clicked, and here I am as a news writer years later. So that’s my background.

Larissa Padden 02:47
Well, that’s great. And welcome, I assume, back to New York?

Esther Shittu 02:51
Not yet. Just because I don’t know.

Larissa Padden 02:53
Soon to be. Welcome back.

It’s funny, because you mentioned just a little while ago, what is this AI thing? And then the past couple of years just have exploded the sector. So I wanted to ask how that changed things for you, and kind of changed what you had to learn for this beat.

Esther Shittu 03:11
Yeah, I didn’t know it was like learning a new language. And so what I really had to learn was what exactly AI is. I think it has changed since the time I began. AI used to be like machine learning. And then there was a difference between what is artificial intelligence and machine learning. And now it has kind of evolved, especially since ChatGPT became very popular into generative AI autonomous agents. There was also a little bit of RPA in the beginning of that as well of me trying to learn what is robotics process automation.

So there were so many things within the AI that it was like we’re still stepping into. I mean, I kid you not, my first feature story or Q&A was a talking to someone about AI winter. And what is the AI winter? And literally a year later, it’s like there is no such thing as an AI winter right now.

Larissa Padden 04:02
Yeah, for sure. From a media perspective, it’s such a crowded space as well. And I’m sure you get so many PR pitches and professionals coming at you with stories. Can you tell us a little bit about what you’re currently interested in this sphere and kind of what stories you want to be reporting on right now?

Esther Shittu 04:20
Right now, I think agentic AI is really the interest for me and also how people actually using it. Because there are so many stories of models or we have this technology or we’re using AI and things like that. But how have you been using it in the past six months, right? What is the story about that? What technology has worked for you? Have you gotten your ROI from it?

Because I think that’s the story that has not been told, right? We’ve heard the story that people have been using it. We have AI, we’re experimenting it. But what has been your experience? I think we’re now in the sense of it has been out. It’s two years, it’s early, but people know what it is. And so how have you been using it? And is the hype all it’s supposed to be? I think that’s what I’m really interested in.

Larissa Padden 05:11
Yeah, I mean, that seems like such a common thing we hear from journalists regardless of kind of what their beat is, but definitely in the tech space, which is we’re past the point of this bigger picture, this is what AI can do. And you want to talk to companies about what are you doing? What are you implementing and using?

Esther Shittu 05:29
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Larissa Padden 05:31
Well, taking a step back, and I am asking this as selfishly for myself as I am for anyone that’s learning, that can be informed. Can you please explain what agentic AI is and how it’s different from other forms of AI?

Esther Shittu 05:45
Agentic AI, it’s basically AI that works autonomously. And I know as I said that, I’m like, “That doesn’t make sense.” I’m using the word in the definition. But basically, a lot of people will say we haven’t reached the point of autonomous, right? But it’s having the system be able to perform things without a lot of human holding.

Basically, I have children, so I’ll refer to my children as AI is no longer a baby. It’s now like a two-year-old that you can say, “Go get this for me,” and it’ll get it for me. So I would say it’s like two-year-old AI that’s not a full-fledged, maybe seven, eight-year-old where you’ve taught it to cook and it can cook you some breakfast.

Larissa Padden 06:33
Yeah. It’s autonomous, yeah.

Esther Shittu 06:34
It’s autonomous. It’s like the baby that you’re still teaching to get one thing and come back or multiple things and come back. So that’s my analogy of it, of being able to do tasks and we are on that stage of fully autonomous AI.

Larissa Padden 06:49
So have you come across companies that are using the term incorrectly or perhaps they’re using it needlessly more as marketing?

Esther Shittu 06:59
I think so. I mean, my mailbox gets flooded that sometimes I don’t look at it unless there’s a reason. But I think that a lot of companies still say, “Oh, we are doing agentic,” and there’s no autonomy to it, right? And I think that’s not any fault of their own or even marketing. I just think that it’s very new. A lot of things can be said to be autonomous when it’s not, right?

Like RPA. And I’ve asked analysts or even vendors, like, “So what’s the difference between RPA (robotic process automation) and agentic?” And the answer I think I’ve gotten, which is RPA is, you have set it to do things, but there is no effort on the part of the system, right? There’s no thinking, so to speak, on the part of the system, which I think is why you have Microsoft released their two agents, right? And that is doing research for you or performing analysis for you.

That’s kind of like agentic in the sense it’s like you’re able to ask the AI to go do something, but it’s being built off of the thinking model, right? So with RPA, there’s no model that is going off of it, it’s just you’re moving bots around. Does that make sense?

Larissa Padden 08:15
No, yeah, it does. And this actually has me curious, with such an evolving space and people like myself who don’t fully understand a lot of it, there must be so many misconceptions about AI in general in the media. So is there anything that people are getting wrong about the topic or just misunderstanding that’s kind of like a pet peeve to you?

So for example, when I was a reporter, I had a stint where I covered subprime auto loans and subprime ABS, and I would see all these headlines about like, “Oh, subprime auto is going to crash the economy like mortgages did.” And it was like a pet peeve of mine. So is there anything like that that you’re seeing that’s kind of like you’d like to correct or you’re seeing people repeatedly get wrong?

Esther Shittu 08:59
I think the education is just like, I was at a point where I wasn’t educated about AI. And I think the main thing is people are not. They see generative AI as just AI and AI is more than just generative AI, right? AI is just more than just agentic AI. It’s a big part of why it’s become so popular and people are interested in it, but I almost want to say that I’m interested to see—it’s definitely a bouncing point, off point, interested to see what’s more behind it, right?

Because there’s this misconception that AI kind of—maybe it’s not a misconception, but it feels like AI started before ChatGPT. That’s not true. It’s always been around. The misconception that all of these technology has been working in the background.

And it’s almost like the idea of there’s no such thing as overnight success. It’s kind of the same thing. There’s no such thing as like the overnight AI that we’re just seeing these technologies have been working for years. There’s been many experts that have been working on it for years and we’re just now seeing the fruit of that labor. And it seems like we’re moving so fast, but truly it’s been decades and decades of work behind the scenes.

Larissa Padden 10:09
I’m interested. Because it sounds like your journey into being a reporter and journalism and away from producing has kind of been synonymous with AI. So it might be kind of all you’ve known, but how is the competitive landscape from a media perspective in terms of covering this? Is it tough to defend your beat? Is there opportunity to kind of carve out some space that’s defendable for you? How do you go about that?

Esther Shittu 10:36
I think that everything is now AI in terms of AI is bleeding into every aspect of every industry. So whereas before it was just, “Oh, you’re the AI reporter.” There is now that question of like, well, taking Microsoft again, Microsoft is introducing something with Copilot, which is usually like their work office. And so it’s usually not in my beat, but it’s they’re using agents, which is also part of AI.

So there is that gray area that I am seeing. However, right now, at least, I’m focused purely on the technology aspect of it, as well as just what is the software being released? Not the application. I would love to work on the application of how people are using it, but not specifically the everyday application of this is the work application of it.

Larissa Padden 11:33
Yeah. And it sounds like, I mean, it makes sense, but this is an area where there’s a lot of avenues that you can grow as it develops as well.

Esther Shittu 11:40
Yeah.

Larissa Padden 11:41
Is this a space you want to continue to cover? If you could cover anything, you would stay in AI?

Esther Shittu 11:47
I would stay in AI for now. I don’t know what the future holds. If I can continue to cover AI for maybe the next five to 10 years, because I definitely think that this is an area that will continue to grow. It will continue to change. And it’s definitely a hot beat. And so I would like to stay on the hot beat because the hot beat means job security.

Larissa Padden 12:11
Yeah, sure. And it’s interesting, yeah.

Esther Shittu 12:13
It’s interesting. But yeah, I would definitely like to stay on it. I think that other things I can cover on my own time.

Larissa Padden 12:20
Yeah. Now I’ve said it’s a crowded space probably a thousand times since we’ve started this conversation, but it is more crowded than other areas that people report on. So I am curious how many pitches, if you could put a number, do you get on a weekly basis? And I know you said you already ignore your inbox sometimes, but I wanted to see if you could kind of quantify that for us so we know what we’re up against on this side.

Esther Shittu 12:44
I definitely do get a lot of pitches. I would say maybe 50 to 100. And it’s pitches of people wanting to comment on stories already out there. And the space moves so fast that sometimes it doesn’t come down. I do ignore, but I see it and I’m like, “Oh, I already started writing. I already have people I’m talking to.” And then sometimes it’s more of like, “Oh, you wrote about this. There are more in-depthness to it, but it’s also like, what is the relevance of it to the current news cycle?”

Larissa Padden 13:18
And you may have covered this kind of in your previous answers, but what gets your attention and gets you to respond in a pitch?

Esther Shittu 13:24
LinkedIn. Usually it’s like, “Oh, we have a user,” I’ll respond to that. Or I guess usually it’s like this. If someone says, “Oh, there’s a user that you can speak to,” I’ll respond to that. Usually if there is a news going on and I’m looking for an expert, I might look through the pitch and say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” And then I’ll respond to that.

I follow the news cycle. Sometimes I don’t. I don’t really always like to follow the news cycle. Sometimes I do go more on the enterprise-y in terms of feature angle. But most times I’m kind of like, “It feels like I’m a cogwheel.”

Larissa Padden 14:06
What about methods of reaching out? Do you respond if people reach out on social media you just want to see things in an inbox? Because people can get very particular about how they want to be reached.

Esther Shittu 14:18
I don’t mind being reached anyway, except when I’m being called because I don’t know who’s calling me. But LinkedIn has been very effective because like I said, there are so many things during the day that it’s just hard to catch it all.

And also because it is competitive, the competitiveness comes from the vendors themselves. So the more they put out, the more I’m more focused on what’s happening out for the vendors who are playing in it, the less I’m focused on my inbox. But because LinkedIn is something that’s not so flooded, I can look, “Oh, this person reached out to me,” and then go right to them. Not that I said that, because my inbox is so flooded, I’m kind of overwhelmed by it. So I don’t really check it as much as I should.

Larissa Padden 15:06
Yeah. Unfortunately, now you’ve just given your secret away.

Esther Shittu 15:09
I know.

Larissa Padden 15:09
People will reach out through LinkedIn. And I will say that pick up the phone and call is a debate we have all the time in the office because it changes from generations. It used to be the only method. And then when I was a reporter, I didn’t like it either because I don’t answer phone calls that I don’t recognize. But I hate to say, I think because nobody does it anymore, it does get good results sometimes. So I’m often on the losing end of that argument. But I feel you.

Esther Shittu 15:34
It is effective. It’s just because it’s so unexpected. So I would reach out to email first, right? Because I also understand that intrusiveness of it. I know that there are beats. I don’t think AI is one of those beats or business tech reporting is one of those beats where you have to pick up the phone and call people. But there are certain aspects of journalism where you should pick up the phone and call somebody. This is just not one of them.

Larissa Padden 16:00
All right. Well, you have been so kind enough to take time and come on our podcast, but you are also launching your own podcast. And it’s centered from what you told me around working mothers, which I think is always such a fascinating topic because every working mother has such a unique and interesting story to tell. So can you please tell us a little bit about your upcoming podcast?

Esther Shittu 16:20
Yeah. So before I do that, I am going to plug that we also have, if anybody does want to reach out to me, I do check my email. And if you put ‘Targeting AI Podcast Guest’, I would look at that and I will respond and send it out to my editor.

So we actually do have a Targeting AI Podcast that I do with my editor, Shaun Sutner, and we do it biweekly. And we’ve had people from Microsoft. We’ve had people from Writer. We’ve had people from Google on there. So if you flood my inbox with that, as long as it has Targeting AI Podcast, I will look at that and I will send it to my editor and he will approve and we will discuss and I’ll reach back out to you.

But on a side note, yes, personally, because I am a working mother, I’m launching my own podcast, independent of AI, independent of my job, that is focused on working mothers. So I’m speaking to different working mothers, whether they’re an entrepreneur and I define working mother broadly. And so it can be like, you’re working on your personal project while you stay home raising your kids, because I think all mothers are working mothers. And so it’s going to launch on June 2nd.

Larissa Padden 17:25
That’s great. And how can we find it?

Esther Shittu 17:27
It’s definitely going to be wherever all podcasts are reached. So it’s called Busy Moms Get It Done podcast.

Larissa Padden 17:35
Fantastic. And Esther, this has been so much fun.

Esther Shittu 17:38
Thank you.

Larissa Padden 17:38
And I definitely personally attest to how much fun someone else would have if they went on your podcast. So everyone should fill out that submission form and send it into your inbox and tune into your upcoming podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.

Esther Shittu 17:50
Thank you so much for having me.