Nilay Patel answers Decoder’s questions about AI, CarPlay, and more

Welcome to the end of the year Decryption private! Senior producers Kate Cox and Nick Stadt are here. We’ve had a big year, including nearly 100 episodes, a new YouTube channel, an ad-free podcast feed, and a slate of amazing guest hosts while Nilay was on paternity leave. It was too much.

We also received a lot of great questions and comments this year from you, our audience. It’s now become an annual tradition for us to turn the tables on Nilay in the final episode of the year, so we’ve compiled all the feedback we’ve received on topics like CarPlay, Monday episode guest suggestions, and of course, AI. We’ve also received a lot of great questions over the past few weeks about how to do this Decryption It comes together, what topics we should focus on in the future, and how we think about the format and structure of the show itself.

So welcome today he thought to DecryptionFor BBQ for him To all these questions and more and also to get his thoughts on the past 12 months: what he likes, what he wants to improve, and how he makes decisions for Decryption In the new year.

When we did this last yearOur two most common questions were pretty straightforward. First: why not? Decryption On YouTube? Fortunately, we fixed that. We launched the Decryption YouTube channel in October, and we’re now publishing full video episodes every week, starting with our classic Monday interview format. We’ve also been asked a lot about our ad-free podcast option in the past year, and we’re happy to say that since October, too, edge Subscribers Now access Ad-free audio feeds.

We’ve received some feedback about making our Thursday demos full video as well. Trust us – we’re working on it. It’s more complex and resource-intensive, so it will take some time to iron out the kinks. Plus, we’re very excited to experiment with more format, video, and even live production in 2026. (Join us live at CES on January 7, at the Brooklyn Bowl!)

If you want to check out some of the past Decryption Episodes and news that we talked about in this episode, visit the links below. Happy New Year, and thanks for listening! We’ll be back with all new episodes in mid-January.

_{Questions or comments about this episode? Follow us at decoder@theverge.com. We really read every email!}