# From Demo to Defensibility: How to Build an AI Business that Lasts | Aurimas Griciūnas Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/chain-of-thought-ai-agents/from-demo-to-defensibility-how-to-build-an-ai-business-that-lasts-aurimas-grici-nas Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/chain-of-thought-ai-agents/from-demo-to-defensibility-how-to-build-an-ai-business-that-lasts-aurimas-grici-nas.md Podcast: [Chain of Thought | AI Agents, Infrastructure & Engineering](https://stenobird.com/podcast/chain-of-thought-ai-agents) Published: 2025-08-27T14:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/fdb45b54 Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/fdb45b54/82ca92c9.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/chain-of-thought-ai-agents/episodes/from-demo-to-defensibility-how-to-build-an-ai-business-that-lasts-aurimas-grici-nas Duration seconds: 3107 ## Resource The technological moat is eroding in the AI era, what new factors separate a successful startup from the rest?Aurimas Griciūnas, CEO of SwirlAI, joins the show to break down the realities of building in this new landscape. Startup success now hinges on speed, strong financial backing, or immediate distribution. Aurimas warns against the critical mistake of prioritizing shiny tools over fundamental engineering and the market gaps this creates.Discover the new moats for AI companies, built on a culture of relentless execution, tight feedback loops, and the surprising skills that define today's most valuable engineers.The episode also looks to the future, with bold predictions about a slowdown in LLM leaps and the coming impact of coding agents and self-improving systems.Follow the hostsFollow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Atin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Conor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Vikram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Yash⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Today's Guest(s)Connect with Aurimas on⁠ ⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠Aurimas' Course: ⁠End-to-End AI Engineering BootcampCheck out Galileo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Try Galileo⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Agent Leaderboard ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/chain-of-thought-ai-agents/episodes/from-demo-to-defensibility-how-to-build-an-ai-business-that-lasts-aurimas-grici-nas/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/chain-of-thought-ai-agents/from-demo-to-defensibility-how-to-build-an-ai-business-that-lasts-aurimas-grici-nas.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.