How Rappler's Founding CTO Actually Uses AI in Business

Plenty of people will tell you how to use AI in your business. Few of them have actually run three very different ones through it. Rob Locke was the founding CTO of Rappler in its early, high-pressure newsroom days, and has spent the two decades since building and leading tech across a media company, an AI venture studio, and an e-commerce and logistics business. In this episode of Ask Apex, Mon sits down with Rob for a direct conversation about how AI actually shows up in his day-to-day decisions: what tools he reaches for, what he's automated versus what he still won't hand off, and what he'd tell a founder to stop doing manually today.

This episode is for founders, operators, and anyone running or building a business who wants a real answer, not a hot take, on where AI actually earns its place in day-to-day decisions.

This is a recorded interview with lifetime access, so you can rewatch it anytime, whether that's right before you're facing a similar call in your own business or just to catch something you missed the first time.

What you'll walk away with:

• The specific AI tools Rob actually uses across Rappler, Kismet Labs, and QuadX, and what each one is doing for him day to day
• How he decides what to hand to AI and what to keep doing himself, including what would break first in his business if AI disappeared tomorrow
• What he's changed his mind about in the past year, so you can skip past the same wrong assumption
• One concrete first move for closing the AI gap this week, not just a five-year prediction

About the Guest: Rob Locke is a technology leader and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience building digital products and businesses. He was the founding CTO of Rappler and is the founder of Kismet Labs, where he works on new AI-focused ventures. He's also CTO of QuadX, leading technology and innovation across e-commerce and logistics. Rob is based in Manila and enjoys turning ideas into practical products that solve real-world problems.