Collide AI 2025 Wrapped Part 1 turns into a real talk on why forward deployed engineers win where AI pilots stall, with Michael Cortez, John, and Nick Smart swapping war stories from completions, geophysics, and the startup trenches while they map out how Collide Enterprise moves past basic chat tools into search plus workflows that actually hold up in the real world.

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Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.
Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.
Apply today at collide.io

00:00 Setup and intros
00:45 Michael’s path and joining Collide
01:59 Nick’s background and role shift
03:08 Collide Enterprise vs community
04:16 Search, RAG, and workflow evolution
06:31 Why out of the box AI falls short
08:41 Time savings and real work focus
11:39 Single source of truth vision
13:16 Small teams scaling bigger assets
17:18 AI adoption vs past tech hype
19:26 Digital transformation missing link
20:20 Why FDEs make pilots work
23:36 Biggest learnings this year
31:52 What’s next in 2026
38:57 Bold predictions for 3 to 5 years
47:37 Fine tuned models teaser and wrap

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Collide basically did its own Spotify Wrapped and the punchline is simple: the community doubled, the conversations got more technical, and the team got way clearer on what Collide is now and where it’s headed. Crystal, Todd, Jacob, and Sydney walk through 2025 stats, why events evolved, how Energy 101 came back, what university partnerships unlocked, why Collider AI took a pause, and the platform upgrades and community goals lined up for 2026.

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Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.
Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.
Apply today at collide.io

00:00 Collide Wrapped setup
00:24 Why an energy specific platform works
01:29 LinkedIn fatigue and the Collide vision
02:55 Community calls and Power Hours
03:33 Member growth stats
04:26 2025 output highlights
05:04 Events evolved and ETN sunset
09:38 What members missed most
10:28 Energy 101 comeback
13:24 University partnerships
18:56 Student field trip recap
21:49 Talent pipeline and students
25:24 Collider AI update
29:31 Gamification and Dog House
33:02 Platform UX roadmap
33:48 2026 goals and favorite moments
42:02 Wrap and thanks

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Catching yourself rereading last year’s VC emails while you’re back in Silicon Valley is a pretty good way to realize how wild the last 12 months have been. Colin, Chuck, Canisius, and Todd break down how Collide AI is turning fast POCs into real production workflows, why change management is the actual moat, and how a stacked forward deployed team plus community driven distribution is setting up 2026 to be the year everything scales.

Click here to watch a video of this episode.

Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.
Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.
Apply today at collide.io

00:00 Product market fit jokes and kickoff
00:28 VC email flashback and velocity
01:29 Forward deployed model and AI first mindset
02:18 Sam Texas and AI coding shift
04:04 What AI first actually means
06:18 Not just podcast bros anymore
07:00 AI breaks silos across the business
08:21 Doglegs example and incentives
09:57 Change management is the advantage
10:18 Client story and regulatory filings win
12:42 Selling outcomes not hype
13:36 Building the FTE team and faster delivery
16:24 AI strategy as workflow ROI first
18:26 Grok as a thought partner and GPU cluster
20:15 Shale revolution mindset parallel
22:29 Recruiting, software DNA, and stacked team
26:16 Content and community as a recruiting engine
29:11 Distribution flywheel in the real world
30:22 Team distribution vs product debate
32:32 2026 is the scaling year
34:02 Community platform finally clicking
36:09 Building the community platform the hard way
39:20 Scaling clients, POCs, and production
41:09 Why mom and pops matter
41:55 Energy demand tailwinds and macro impact
44:44 One word answer for next year: scale
45:20 POC to production cycle time focus
47:12 Scaling tech, sales, and financing
49:45 Moving at AI speed story
50:14 Raising capital and building serious software
52:56 Collide as the operator layer vision
54:02 Gratitude and community over everything

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