If you’re here on the Cloudflare blog, chances are you already understand AI pretty well. But step outside our circle, and you’ll find a surprising number of people who still don’t know what it really is — or why it matters.
We wanted to come up with a way to make AI intuitive, something you can actually see and touch to get what’s going on. Hands on, not just hand-wavy.
The idea we landed on is simple: nothing comes into the world fully formed. Like us, and like the Internet, AI didn’t show up fully formed. So we asked ourselves: what if we told the story of AI as it learns and grows?
Episode by episode, we’d give it new capabilities, explain how those capabilities work, and explore how they change the way AI interacts with the world. Giving it a voice. Letting it see. Helping it learn. And maybe even letting it imagine the future.
So we made AI Avenue, a show where I (Craig) explore the fun, human, and sometimes surprising sides of AI… with a little help from my co-host Yorick, a robot hand with a knack for comic timing and the occasional eye-roll. Together, we travel, talk to incredible people, and get hands-on with AI to show it’s not just something to read about. It’s something you can touch, try, and enjoy.
The idea behind AI Avenue
We wanted to make something that would strip away the jargon and make AI approachable, friendly, and most importantly, fun.
In AI Avenue, we address people’s fears, show them the art of the possible, and highlight the positive human stories where AI is augmenting — not replacing — what people can do. And yes, we even let people touch AI themselves. Also yes, the previous paragraphs “intentionally included” a few em-dashes.
The result? A fast-paced, playful series that mixes demos, interviews, and real-world examples, all showing AI as something you can explore, question, and use in ways that matter to you.
You can sign up now to be notified when each episode drops and learn more about the journey at aiavenue.show.
We had an absolute blast partnering with some of the most exciting players in the space:
Anthropic — on building safe, aligned AI models.
Engineered Arts — creators of the humanoid robot Ameca, who makes several appearances throughout the series.
ElevenLabs — powering lifelike voice synthesis.
HeyGen — creating realistic AI-generated video avatars and translations.
Roboflow — enabling computer vision projects with powerful image datasets and tools.
Be My Eyes — using AI and volunteers to make the world more accessible for people who are blind or have low vision.
Writer — bringing enterprise-grade generative AI into real-world workflows.
Episodes: One Ability at a Time
Across six episodes, we follow Yorick’s upgrades and occasional misadventures as he learns to talk, see, think, and even imagine the future.
Episode 1: Voice — We start in London where Yorick gets his voice and immediately starts chiming in on everything.
Episode 2: Vision — In San Francisco, Yorick tries computer vision for the first time. We watch someone go shopping for the first time.
Episode 3: Thinking — Hosting a live trivia stream online, Yorick begins confidently spouting answers that aren’t quite true. We head to New York City to meet someone whose life was saved by ChatGPT.
Episode 4: Learning — Yorick discovers generative AI and decides he can make the show himself, spawning multiple Craig clones and raising questions about ethics and creativity.
Episode 5: Doing — It turns out everyone we talk to just wants a robot to do their dishes. We dig into what “doing” means in AI and robotics and whether Yorick is on board.
Episode 6: Smell — In our finale, we explore the agentic AI future, quantum computing, and big sci-fi dreams, then hang out with a 9-year-old vibe coder because, well, the children are the future.
Every episode is paired with developer tutorials so you can experiment with the same AI tools that we feature. No matter your skill level, you can tinker, build, and see for yourself what AI can do. We strongly believe the most important thing you can do right now is to touch AI, play with it. Now is the time.
Yorick and I will be releasing each episode of AI Avenue as it’s ready, and we’d love to have you along for the ride.
Sign up to be notified when new episodes launch and explore more about the show at aiavenue.show.