About this programme
If an app is free, are you the product? "There is no such thing as free," says an osteopath: when you're not paying, your data pay instead.
Alessio Zanghirati Urbanaz opens with the trade-off. Rocco Capano, who builds AI, puts the old saying plainly: when someone gives you something for free, you are the product. Host Fakhar Anwar Safeer describes the attention economy, where notifications are designed to hook us, and his own habits: he turns notifications off by default and puts his phone face down when he is with his family, so he is distracted on his own terms.
The facts: • About 72% of Alphabet's revenue in the last quarter of 2025 came from advertising ($82.3bn of $113.8bn; Alphabet Q4 2025 results). • Google says it does not sell your personal information (Google Privacy Policy).
Watch the full conversation: tap the video link above the title. "Is AI Using You?" on Talk Away, this moment at 1:33:26: https://youtu.be/RvtpIDzOp68?t=5606
Sources and further reading
Sources mentioned in the programme will be listed after they have been checked and attributed.
Transcript
A transcript will be published only when an accurate version is available.
