Virtually Speaking Podcast

That’s a wrap on VMware Explore 2026!

After a week of announcements, technical sessions, customer conversations, partner meetings, and more than 30 Virtually Speaking interviews, Pete, John, Jad, and guest host David Linthicum sit down one last time to share their biggest takeaways from the event.

AI was everywhere, but the conversation has clearly moved beyond the hype. Customers are actively exploring how to bring AI into their own environments while controlling cost, protecting their data, and putting the right security and governance around it. That makes Private AI, AI economics, and the infrastructure required to support these new workloads some of the biggest themes coming out of Explore.

The crew also discusses the growing importance of security, faster patching, confidential computing, AI at the edge, infrastructure efficiency, and why new software and hardware capabilities can help organizations get more from their private cloud investments.

Topics include:

• Why Private AI was one of the biggest themes of VMware Explore 2026
• The economics of enterprise AI and token consumption
• Moving AI inference closer to enterprise data
• Running AI without a GPU for certain use cases
• Security, confidential computing, and faster patching
• Agentic AI, Agent Minder, and AI governance
• Getting more value from VCF through hardware and software modernization
• What we heard from customers and partners throughout the week
• What’s next for Virtually Speaking
• A look ahead to VMware Explore 2027

With more than 30 interviews recorded during the week, the Explore coverage isn’t over yet. Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking as we dig deeper into the announcements, technologies, and conversations coming out of VMware Explore 2026.

#VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #PrivateAI #AgenticAI #AI #CyberSecurity #VirtuallySpeaking

Live from VMware Explore 2026, the Virtually Speaking crew wraps up Day 2 with David Linthicum and Rick Walsworth to talk about what they’re hearing from customers, partners, and the technical community on the show floor.

A big theme this year is the changing definition of the edge. It’s no longer just remote offices and branch locations. AI inference, autonomous systems, factories, vehicles, and other distributed environments are creating new requirements to put compute and AI closer to where data is generated and decisions need to happen.

The conversation explores how VCF extends the private cloud to the edge, including new capabilities such as zero-touch provisioning and centralized management that can help organizations operate potentially thousands of remote locations without sending IT teams into the field.

The group also digs into the broader AI conversation happening at Explore: VMware AI Factory, Private AI, vibe coding, agentic AI, and why security and governance become even more important as AI moves deeper into the enterprise.

Topics include:

• Extending VCF from the data center to the edge
• How AI is changing edge computing
• Running AI closer to the data
• Zero-touch provisioning and remote management
• Security and governance across distributed environments
• VMware AI Factory and Private AI
• Vibe coding inside the enterprise
• Guardrails for agentic AI
• Tanzu and VCF
• What customers and partners are saying at VMware Explore 2026

Plus, David, Rick, Jad, and Pete share their biggest takeaways from the first two days of VMware Explore and why the conversations around private cloud and AI feel very different this year.

Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking for more interviews and coverage from VMware Explore 2026.

#VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #EdgeComputing #PrivateAI #AI #AgenticAI #VirtuallySpeaking

Live from VMware Explore 2026, the Virtually Speaking crew wraps up Day 1 with Mark Latham from Broadcom Product Marketing to break down the biggest announcements, conversations, and themes coming out of the event.

Pete, John, Jad, and Mark discuss the convergence of private cloud and AI with VMware Private AI Cloud, why organizations are looking for a faster path from infrastructure to production AI with VMware AI Factory, and the growing importance of security, governance, and cost control as enterprises move from generative AI toward agentic AI.

They also share what they’re hearing directly from customers at Explore, including the push to VCF 9.1, the need to scale infrastructure more cost effectively, and how infrastructure teams are evolving into platform teams responsible for supporting a much broader range of workloads.

Topics include:
• VMware Private AI Cloud
• VMware AI Factory and the path from “metal to models”
• AI infrastructure and Day 2 operations
• Model as a Service
• AI governance and token economics
• Security for AI and traditional workloads
• Agentic AI and Agent Minder
• Moving to VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1
• The evolution from infrastructure admin to platform engineer
• What customers and partners are saying at VMware Explore 2026

Stay tuned to Virtually Speaking for more conversations, interviews, and announcements live from VMware Explore 2026.

#VMwareExplore #VMwareCloudFoundation #VCF #PrivateAI #AI #AgenticAI #VirtuallySpeaking

AI is moving fast, but getting from infrastructure to a working model in production can still be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming.

Live from VMware Explore 2026, Pete Flecha and David Linthicum sit down with Chris Wolf, Global Head of AI and Advanced Services at Broadcom, to break down the latest VMware Cloud Foundation AI announcements and what they mean for enterprises building an AI strategy.

Chris explains VMware AI Factory, designed to automate the journey from infrastructure deployment to running models and simplify ongoing Day 2 operations. The conversation also dives into the latest Private AI Services capabilities, including AI Gateway, model routing, agent governance, token controls, tracing, and the ability to use both on-premises and cloud-based models.

They also tackle one of the biggest questions facing enterprises today: the economics of AI. When does running AI on premises make more sense than consuming tokens from public AI services? And as AI sovereignty becomes increasingly important around the world, why does control of both the data plane and control plane matter?

Finally, Chris offers practical advice for organizations that want to stop talking about AI and start proving its value: pick a use case, start small, measure the economics, and build from there.

AI is changing the way organizations think about private cloud, from infrastructure and security to developer experience, operating models and cost.

In this episode of the Virtually Speaking Podcast, Pete Flecha and Jad El-Zein are joined by Vivek Vijay and John Hall from Kyndryl to discuss what it takes to prepare private cloud environments for the AI era.

The conversation explores the growing demand for private and sovereign AI, the impact of AI-driven security threats, and why organizations need to rethink architecture rather than simply add more tools. We also look at how VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1 can provide a consistent platform for VMs, Kubernetes and modern applications while helping organizations balance security, resilience and developer productivity.

Vivek and John share what Kyndryl is seeing with customers today, including workload repatriation, platform engineering, VCF 9.1 migrations, infrastructure optimization and the increasing role of AI agents in both development and operations.

We also preview Kyndryl’s VMware Explore session, “Is Your Private Cloud Ready for the AI Era?”, and the workshops designed to help customers assess their VCF readiness, platform engineering maturity and ability to respond to emerging AI security threats.