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