Build It Here: Toledo Builders on AI, Security, and Making Things

Toledo has always been a place where if you don’t have it, you build it. Tom Bush sits down with Craig Varner, Senior Director of Strategic Technology at Matrix Technologies, and serial entrepreneur Andrew Newby, co-founder of AVATAR and Toledo Spirits and executive director of Cultivate Toledo. From early web software to distilling, coffee, and urban farming, they talk about where AI is actually helping local businesses, why the AI wave feels like the early internet, and how to handle shadow AI and security risks without becoming the department of no.