#531 Cooperative AI: Mark Vange on Building Human-Centered Automation

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we sit down with Mark Vange, founder of Autom8ly and former CTO at Electronic Arts, to explore what he calls “cooperative AI.”

Mark shares how decades of experience in gaming, enterprise software, and automation shaped his belief that the true power of AI lies not in replacing humans but in partnering with them.

From building video games at 13 to running global tech teams at EA and now leading AI-driven automation across industries, Mark explains how trust, context, and human design principles drive adoption and ROI.

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👤 About Mark Vange

Mark Vange is a technologist, entrepreneur, and founder of Autom8ly, a platform that helps businesses implement AI automation through partnerships with vertical experts.

He previously served as Chief Technology Officer at Electronic Arts, guiding the company’s transition from boxed titles to online, mobile, and social games.

Today, Mark focuses on bridging AI’s technical potential with real-world business outcomes — building what he calls “a post-code world” where trust and attention are the new currencies.

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💡 Key Takeaways

• Cooperative AI > Autonomous AI: The future of automation lies in AI that works with people, not instead of them.

• The Post-Code World: Code is no longer the moat — trust, domain knowledge, and market access are.

• Adoption Through ROI: Start with tasks nobody likes doing; deliver measurable value fast.

• Agility Re-Defined: Speed today isn’t about writing code — it’s about adapting architectures, partners, and trust frameworks.

• Compliance as an Enabler: Secure, compliant, and explainable AI wins enterprise adoption.

• Education Before Implementation: Clarity on the “why” behind automation is more valuable than hype or dashboards.

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🎧 What Listeners Will Learn

• How Autom8ly’s partnership-driven model helps vertical experts scale with AI.

• The nine-step framework for identifying automation opportunities that deliver ROI.

• Why “vibe coding” is a trap — and what real engineering looks like in a cooperative AI world.

• How encrypted retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enables privacy-first healthcare use cases.

• Why trust and attention now matter more than algorithms or lines of code.

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🕒 Episode Highlights

00:02 — Mark’s journey from video-game prodigy to EA CTO

00:08 — How Autom8ly partners with industry experts to scale AI solutions

00:15 — Defining “Cooperative AI” and why it outperforms autonomous systems

00:19 — Human trust and the psychology of AI adoption

00:25 — Compliance and agility: balancing speed with enterprise trust

00:33 — Building configurable, LLM-agnostic AI systems

00:37 — The rise of the post-code world and the new moats of trust and access

00:42 — Encrypted RAG in healthcare: AI with privacy by design

00:46 — Advice for founders: start with real problems, not tech trends

00:50 — AI buzzwords to ignore and why clarity beats vibes

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🧭 Resources Mentioned

• Autom8ly.com — Mark’s company website 

• Mark Vange on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markvange

• Autom8ly on Medium: https://medium.com/autom8ly