In the one-pager, Cruz noted that “most US rules and regulations do not squarely apply to emerging technologies like Al.” So “rather than force Al developers to design inferior products just to comply with outdated Federal rules, our regulations should become more flexible,” Cruz argued.

Therrier noted that once regulations are passed, they’re rarely updated and backed Cruz’s logic that AI firms may need support to override old rules that could restrict AI innovation. Consider the “many new applications in healthcare, transportation, and financial services,” Therrier said, which “could offer the public important new life-enriching service” unless “archaic rules” are relied on to “block those benefits by standing in the way of marketplace experimentation.”

“When red tape grows without constraint and becomes untethered from modern marketplace realities, it can undermine innovation and investment, undermine entrepreneurship and competition, raise costs to consumers, limit worker opportunities, and undermine long-term economic growth,” Therrier wrote.

But Therrier acknowledged that Cruz seems particularly focused on propping up a national framework to “address the rapid proliferation of AI legislative proposals happening across the nation,” noting that over 1,000 AI-related bills were introduced in the first half of this year.

Netchoice similarly celebrated the bill’s “innovation-first approach,” claiming “the SANDBOX Act strikes an important balance” between “giving AI developers room to experiment” and “preserving necessary safeguards.”

To critics, the bill’s potential to constrict new safeguards remains a primary concern. Steinhauser, of the Alliance for Secure AI, suggested that critics may get answers to their biggest questions about how well the law would work to protect public safety “in the coming days.”

His group noted that just during this summer alone, “multiple companies have come under bipartisan fire for refusing to take Americans’ safety seriously and institute proper guardrails on their AI systems, leading to avoidable tragedies.” They cited Meta allowing chatbots to be creepy to kids and OpenAI rushing to make changes after a child died after using ChatGPT to research a suicide.

Robots & Pencils, an AI-first, global digital innovation firm specializing in cloud-native web, mobile, and app modernization, today announced the executive appointment of Jeff Kirk as Executive Vice President of Applied AI. A seasoned technology leader with a career spanning global agencies, startups, and Fortune 100 enterprises, Kirk steps into this newly created role to accelerate the firm’s AI-first vision and unlock transformative outcomes for clients. As EVP of Applied AI, Kirk will lead the firm’s strategy and delivery of AI-powered and enterprise AI solutions across industries.

Explore how Robots & Pencils blends science and design to build market leaders.

Kirk’s track record speaks for itself, with AI breakthroughs that fueled customer engagement and business growth. He founded and scaled Moonshot, an intelligent digital products company later acquired by Pactera, where he spearheaded next-generation experiences in voice, augmented reality, and enterprise digitalization. At Amazon, he served as International Product & Technology Lead for Alexa, driving AI-powered personal assistant expansion to millions of households and users worldwide. Most recently, at bswift, Kirk led AI & Data as VP, delivering conversational AI breakthroughs with the award-winning Emma assistant and GenAI-powered EnrollPro decision support system.

Across each of these roles runs a common thread. Kirk builds and scales innovations that transform how industries work, creating technologies that move from experimental to essential at breathtaking speed.

“Jeff has been at the frontier of every major shift in digital innovation,” said Len Pagon, CEO of Robots & Pencils. “From shaping the future of eCommerce and mobile platforms at Brulant and Rosetta, to pioneering global voice AI at Amazon, to launching AI-driven customer experiences at bswift, Jeff has consistently delivered what’s next. He doesn’t just talk about AI. He builds products that millions use every day. With Jeff at the helm of Applied AI, Robots & Pencils is sharpening its challenger edge, helping clients leap ahead while legacy consultancies struggle to catch up. I’m energized by what this means for our clients and inspired by what it means for our people.”

Across two decades, Kirk has built a reputation for translating complex business requirements into enterprise-grade AI and technology solutions that scale, stick, and generate measurable results. His entrepreneurial mindset and hands-on leadership style uniquely position him to help clients experiment, activate, and operate AI across their businesses.

“Organizations and their employees are under pressure to innovate on behalf of customers while simultaneously learning to collaborate with a new type of co-worker: artificial intelligence,” said Kirk. “The steps we take together to learn to work differently will lead to the most outsized innovation in our industries. I’m thrilled to join Robots & Pencils to push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI, to deliver outcomes that matter for our clients and their customers, and to create opportunities for our teams to do the most meaningful work of their careers.”

Kirk began his career at Brulant and Rosetta, where he worked alongside Pagon and other Robots & Pencils’ executive team members, leading engineering and solutions architecture across content, commerce, mobile, and social platforms. His return to the fold marks both a reunion and a reinvention, positioning Robots & Pencils as a leader in applied AI at scale.

About Robots & Pencils

Robots & Pencils is a global digital innovation firm helping organizations modernize applications and unlock the full potential of AI, cloud-native technologies. With delivery centers in Canada, the U.S., Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and deep partnerships with AWS, Salesforce, Databricks, and others, the company offers a unique combination of UX excellence and elite engineering talent. Since 2009, Robots & Pencils has delivered forward-thinking solutions across Financial Services, Health Tech, Education, Consumer, Energy, and Technology sectors, earning a reputation as a nimble, high-value alternative to traditional global systems integrators. Visit us at robotsandpencils.com.

People mostly yawned through Apple’s new product lineup unveiled this week. It’s hard to get jazzed about the two millimeters of pocket space reclaimed by the thinner model.

But live-translating AirPods are one of the more exciting and tangible uses of AI I’ve seen so far. They foreshadow AI that doesn’t just make things cheaper, but makes entirely new things possible.

The new AirPods are a concrete example of something I’ve had trouble envisioning, 18 months into this hype cycle. It’s easy enough to see the cost savings from AI as technology replaces humans. But by PWC’s estimate, two-thirds of AI’s contributions to global economic growth will come not from gains in productivity but from gains in consumption. In this vision, AI will spark the creation of more goods that people want to buy, and make them available to more people.

Railroads didn’t just reduce the cost of shipping goods; they opened the West. Fiber-optic cable didn’t simply make communication easier, but birthed the internet. Transformative technologies create bigger pies, not just cheaper ones.

Language barriers act as invisible tariffs on the global economy. They add friction to financial markets, artificially constrain talent pools, and leave money stranded on the wrong side of comprehension. Flip that switch, and suddenly every market becomes accessible, and good ideas trapped behind a language wall get unleashed. Goldman Sachs can deploy its sharpest minds in Brazil without Portuguese fluency. My failed hunt for custom blazers in Hong Kong last year can become a completed transaction. (Also: tips for next time, please.) Netflix’s “localization” model becomes possible for new industries.

There’s something dystopian about a world where everyone is sporting AirPods all the time, but I suspect the future is heavy on wearables anyway. The question is whether that hardware expands or merely entertains. Technology that opens up new avenues meets the hype in a way that AI replacing baby investment bankers or advertising studios just doesn’t.