The AI in Business Podcast
The AI in Business Podcast is for non-technical business leaders who need to find AI opportunities, align AI capabilities with strategy, and deliver ROI. Each week, Emerj research staff and journalists interview top AI executives from Fortune 2000 firms and unicorn startups, uncovering trends, use-cases, and best practices for practical AI adoption.
Episodes
Transforming Cardiovascular Care — How AI-Driven Insights Unlock Value for Hospitals and Clinics - with Jim Hartman of Cleerly
Hospitals and clinics continue to face a central challenge: extensive cardiac testing still fails to deliver clear, consistent diagnostic answers, slowing decision‑making and creating downstream operational and financial strain. In this episode, Jim Hartman, Chief Commercial Officer at Cleerly, examines with host Marilie Fouché how AI‑driven coronary CTA analysis strengthens diagnostic certainty,
Closing the Gap Between Commercial Plans and What Happens on the Shelf - with Stephanie Lilley of Reckitt
For consumer goods companies, the gap between the commercial plan agreed at head office and what gets executed on the shelf is one of the costliest disconnects in the business — investment goes out against activity that never happens, and revenue never arrives against activity that does. In this episode, Stephanie Lilley, VP of Transformation for Europe at Reckitt, examines why rigid rep call cy
Why Traditional Training Can't Keep Technical Teams Current - with Nicola Lyons of Andela
Traditional, event-based training can't keep pace with technical skills that now shift every six to twelve months. In this episode, Nicola Lyons, Senior Director of Talent Operations at Andela, breaks down why assessment-based, personalized learning is replacing one-time training programs. The conversation covers how leaders can build continuous learning loops that keep technical teams current
Responsible Generative AI in Healthcare and What Leaders Need to Know for 2026 - with Rhett Alden of Elsevier Health
Generative AI is entering clinical workflows just as healthcare institutions grapple with black-box outputs, unclear regulation, and the need for provable accuracy. In this episode, Rhett Alden, CTO at Elsevier, joins Emerj's Yolandi de Weerdt to articulate how claim-level validation and transparent sourcing are becoming prerequisites for clinical trust in AI. The conversation covers emerging AI
Building AI Into Systems That Can't Afford to Be Late - with Drew Barbier of MIPS
For AI systems built into vehicles, robots, and industrial equipment, being smart isn't enough — the difference between success and failure often comes down to whether real-time performance was designed in from the start or added on afterward. In this episode, Drew Barbier, Vice President, IP Business Unit at MIPS, breaks down why starting with the software workload, rather than the hardware, prod
AI-Powered Revenue Operations: The Future of Sales for SMBs - with Vanessa Tabbert of Salesforce
Enterprise sales teams routinely let the majority of inbound leads go untouched simply because there isn't enough team bandwidth to work them all. In this episode, Vanessa Tabbert, VP of Agentic Transformation and Sales Development at Salesforce, breaks down how her own team deployed an AI SDR agent to recover leads that would otherwise go cold, without replacing the humans who convert the best on
Where Agentic AI Pays Off in the B2B Back Office - with Chris Bradley of Veritiv
Large B2B operations keep running order entry, invoicing, and other repetitive back-office workflows by hand, years after most companies started investing heavily in AI. In this episode, Chris Bradley, Chief Marketing Officer and Head of AI Transformation at Veritiv, breaks down why legacy systems have kept agentic AI out of these workflows, and what changed once Veritiv began automating a process
The Real‑World Conditions That Shape Industrial AI - with Scot Burdette of ABB
Industrial environments run on a different set of constraints than the typical enterprise office — physical risk, standalone factory sites, and workflows where a fragmented handoff can cost time, quality, or worse. In this episode, Scot Burdette, Global CIO of Measurement & Analytics at ABB, examines why industrial AI has to be built around knowledge capture, human-in-the-loop oversight, and fro
Closing the Skills Intelligence Gap in the AI Era - with Cory Hymel of Andela
Job titles routinely undercount what employees can actually do, especially in fast-moving technical roles. In this episode, Cory Hymel, Head of Research at Andela, explores why mapping skills instead of roles gives leaders a far more accurate picture of workforce capability and AI readiness. The conversation covers how continuous skills assessment, rather than one-time training, keeps pace wit
Scaling Agentic Automation With Open Architecture - with Arun Chandra of NICE
A quarter of enterprise teams have gotten a single AI channel into full production — the rest are stuck somewhere behind it. In this episode, Arun Chandra, Chief Operating Officer at NiCE, explores why that gap persists and what closes it. The conversation covers getting data, knowledge, and organizational context ready for scale, building the financial case for AI investment with the CFO, and h
AI for Patient Critical Uptime in a Shrinking Technician Workforce - with Michael Goldman
The service environment is straining under rising equipment complexity and a rapidly shrinking technician workforce, making patient‑critical uptime harder to guarantee. In this episode, Michael Goldman, Senior Director of Business Operations and Transformation at Patterson Dental, examines how AI can preserve service continuity by capturing institutional knowledge, supporting technician workflow
Intelligent Operations at Enterprise Scale - with Dave Glick of Walmart
Enterprise engineering teams often spend more time triaging recurring incidents than building the features customers are asking for. In this episode, Dave Glick, Senior Vice President of Growth Technology at Walmart, explores how his teams are using AI agents to catch and fix small, recurring issues before they turn into support tickets. The conversation covers the internal tools Walmart built to
How Leaders Build for the Next Era of Compute - with Sam Grove of MIPS
Consolidating hardware into fewer, more capable chips looks like an unambiguous win — until the complexity those separate components used to handle resurfaces in the software binding everything back together. In this episode, Sam Grove, Head of Software and Tools Business at MIPS, examines why hardware and software teams can't keep building in sequence, and why MIPS bet its roadmap on the open R
How Regulated Enterprises Turn Governance Into AI Scale - with Julian Tang of BlackRock
Enterprise leaders face a growing gap between AI ambition and the fragmented data, legacy systems, and cultural friction that prevent pilots from becoming scalable value. In this episode, Julian Tang, Chief Operations Officer for the Innovation Office at BlackRock, examines how unified data foundations, modernized infrastructure, and transparent governance enable organizations to move from react
Determining Virtual Cell Impact for Drug Discovery - with Kristóf Szalay and Gerold Csendes of Turbine
Virtual cell models promise faster, cheaper early-stage drug discovery. However, the industry still lacks a shared way to judge which of these models can actually be trusted on a given problem. In this episode, Kristóf Szalay, CTO and Co-Founder of Turbine, and Gerold Csendes, Scientist at Turbine, set out what virtual cell models can and can't do today, in conversation with host Marilie Fouché.
![[AI Futures] Paolo Ardoino of Tether on Merger or Obsolescence - The Future for Humanity (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 3)](https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/2/1/f/f/21ffa1ff7cb1d53416c3140a3186d450/Paolo_Ardoino_AIB_Podcast-20260820-82j9ma6n0d.png)
[AI Futures] Paolo Ardoino of Tether on Merger or Obsolescence - The Future for Humanity (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 3)
The rise of non‑invasive BCIs and the privacy, security, and human‑relevance questions they introduce is becoming a central concern as this technology moves toward practical use. In this episode, Paolo Ardoino, CEO at Tether, examines how lightweight on‑device models, silent‑speech inputs, and anonymized brain‑wave data can turn low‑bandwidth neural signals into real‑world actions, in conversati
The Predictive Model Reshaping Retail Operations at Scale - with Chris Slovak of Unframe
Most retail AI pilots stall waiting on a years-long project to centralize and clean data before any agent can go live. In this episode, Chris Slovak, Global Field CTO at Unframe, makes the case for a different path: letting agents pull context directly from ERPs, CRMs, and point-of-sale systems as needed, in conversation with host Marilie Fouché. He walks through concrete results from that appro
Managing Change Across Modern Financial Operations - with Ajay Swamy of JPMorganChase and Founder of FundLens.ai
Banks can process millions of transactions an hour, yet even routine steps in financial operations still require constant human judgment to hold together. In this episode, Ajay Swamy, Senior Executive Product Director for GenAI Products and Governance at JPMorganChase, and Founder of FundLens.ai, explores why data fragmentation and manual judgment make BFSI workflows hard to run consistently, an
The Future of Customer Success and Turnkey AI Agents for SMBs - Matt Kravitz of Salesforce
Service leaders are increasingly asked to deploy AI agents without a clear sense of what these systems can safely handle today, or where to start. In this episode, Matt Kravitz, Head of Customer Transformation for Service Cloud at Salesforce, breaks down a three-level maturity model for AI service agents — answering questions, accessing account data, and taking action — and how to sequence adoptio
What Mature Security Programs Need Before Deploying AI - with Mark Alvarado of Academy Sports + Outdoors
The security landscape is shifting as AI accelerates existing vulnerabilities faster than most retail enterprises can adapt. In this episode, Mark Alvarado, CISO at Academy Sports + Outdoors, examines how AI amplifies gaps in identity management, data governance, and human behavior, joining Emerj's Yolandi de Weerdt to clarify where leaders must focus before deploying AI‑enabled tools. He highli
Closing the Medical Device Knowledge Gap with AI Driven Field Service - with Ryan Makely of Bruker
A growing gap between device complexity and organizational knowledge is turning service reliability into an enterprise‑level risk for regulated industries. In this episode, Ryan Makely, Senior Director of CALID Service at Bruker Scientific, breaks down how fragmented documentation, rapid loss of expert judgment, and inconsistent field diagnoses undermine both operational performance and any futu
How Industrial Leaders Are Redefining AI for the Factory Floor - with Antoine Bisson of Poka
Industrial AI is forcing leaders to confront a fundamental gap between digital systems built for offices and the high‑risk, real‑time demands of the factory floor. In this episode, Antoine Bisson, CEO & Co‑founder at Poka, joins host Marilie Fouché and dissects why industrial environments require contextual data, strict governance, and human‑validated autonomy to safely scale AI‑driven operation
Machine‑Speed Security Risk in the Age of AI - with Niro Rajadurai of XBOW
AI is generating code and surfacing vulnerabilities faster than security teams can review them, compressing the time between a vulnerability discovery and its exploitation. In this episode, Niro Rajadurai, Chief Revenue Officer at XBOW, examines how autonomous offensive security can match that pace, in conversation with host Marilie Fouché. He discusses why distinguishing exploitable vulnerabili
Accelerating Evidence to Action in Pharma with Practical AI Adoption - with Nabil Khan of Pfizer
Pharma organizations are generating more clinical and scientific evidence than ever, yet the path from that evidence to a confident strategic call hasn't kept up. In this episode, Nabil Khan, Medical Director for Internal Medicine Antivirals at Pfizer, digs into where AI genuinely helps medical affairs and clinical teams move faster from raw data to decisions, in conversation with host Yolandi d
AI for Industrial Service Leaders Improving Diagnostics and Field Efficiency - with Scot Burdette of ABB
Industrial service teams are facing two compounding pressures at once: decades of hands-on expertise walking out the door through retirement, and the equipment itself growing more complex to diagnose and maintain. In this episode, Scot Burdette, Global Division CIO at ABB, unpacks how remote diagnostics and AI-driven insights are reshaping who does the work of keeping industrial equipment runnin
Risk and Cost Governance for AI Agents in Regulated Institutions - with Shahir Daya of Zafin
As AI agents move from pilots into live financial workflows, most institutions still can't answer a basic question: who authorized this action, and what evidence backs it up? In this episode, Shahir Daya, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Zafin, examines why uniform governance policies fail at scale and what a tiered, control-tower approach to agent oversight looks like in practice. The conv
Turning Manual Manufacturing Variability into Data‑Driven Control – with Sebastian Dykas of Smith+Nephew
A persistent gap remains between what modern manufacturing technology makes possible and how day‑to‑day work is still executed, with paper workflows, limited machine visibility, and siloed data preventing real operational control. In this episode, Sebastian Dykas, Director of Manufacturing, Engineering, and Maintenance at Smith+Nephew, examines with host Marilie Fouché how tighter data capture a
Building the Infrastructure Behind AI-Enabled Field Service - with Deniz Mullis of Cytiva
Experienced field engineers are retiring or moving on faster than ever, and the troubleshooting knowledge they carry rarely makes it into a manual before they go. In this episode, Deniz Mullis, Senior Director of Global Technical Operations at Cytiva, examines why closing that knowledge gap takes daily feedback loops, cleaner documentation, and technician trust. Deniz joins Emerj's Yolandi de We
How to Reset Your IT Operations and Build for Intelligent Response - with Luke Rotta of Charles Schwab
The pace of modern IT operations is collapsing under the volume of alerts and the slow speed at which teams can contextualize data during active incidents. In this episode, Luke Rotta, Director of Site Reliability Engineering at Charles Schwab, examines how fragmented tooling, slow triage, and human‑driven workflows create persistent drag on response speed in conversation with host Yolandi de We
Driving Operational Impact in BFSI with Agentic AI - with Yoav Naveh of Reindeer AI
Financial institutions are pushing agentic AI past pilot mode and into document-heavy, regulated workflows like AML alerts and account closures, but many leaders still lack a clear model for where automation should run freely and where human judgment has to stay in the loop. In this episode, Yoav Naveh, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Reindeer AI, examines how banks are structuring agent oversight so aut
Agentic CRM for SMB Automation - with Sharif Karmally of Salesforce
CRM is shifting from a static repository to the core system that supplies the real‑time customer context required for dependable AI‑driven work. In this episode, Sharif Karmally, VP of SMB Product Marketing at Salesforce, explores with host Daniel Faggella how unified CRM data supports automated lead handling, accurate record updates, and predictive sales and service actions. Leaders will hear p
AI Deployment at Retail Speed - with Larissa Schneider of Unframe
Most enterprise AI pilots don't stall because the underlying models fail — they stall once real production stakes, fragmented systems, and unclear ownership enter the picture. In this episode, Larissa Schneider, Co-Founder & COO at Unframe, unpacks why AI initiatives lose momentum on the way to production and how modular, reusable architecture changes that trajectory. The conversation covers where
Models, Infrastructure, and Enterprise Readiness for Agentic AI - with Alex Tyrrell of Wolters Kluwer
Infrastructure readiness has become the real bottleneck for agentic AI in healthcare, as enterprises confront the shift from systems that generate content to systems that execute tasks across complex, regulated workflows. In this episode, Alex Tyrrell, SVP and CTO of Health at Wolters Kluwer, examines how agentic AI changes operational demands for healthcare organizations in conversation with ho
The Mobile Security Imperative for Regulated Industries - with Tom Tovar of Appdome
Mobile app attackers already operate at machine speed, but most enterprise cyber functions still rely on manual, human-paced patch cycles to keep up. In this episode, Tom Tovar, Co-Creator at Appdome, examines how agentic AI is replacing manual vulnerability assessment and forcing cyber teams to become producers of protection rather than evaluators of risk. The conversation covers the shift from a
Preparing Enterprise Data for Safe AI Deployment - with Todd Vancil of Securiti AI
A surge in AI adoption is forcing enterprises to expose sensitive data to new systems and access paths, creating security risks that traditional perimeter models can't contain. In this episode, Todd Vancil, Vice President of Veeam's Securiti AI Sales Engineering Team, examines how securing the data itself — through classification, labeling, and governed access — becomes the prerequisite for safe
AI Assistants and Preparedness Among Enterprises - with Chris Caldwell of Concentrix
Enterprises rushing agentic AI into production are running it through approval gates, batch windows, and audit systems built for human speed — and the gap is where most operational risk lives. In this episode, Chris Caldwell, President and CEO at Concentrix Corporation, examines how machine-scale transactions break processes designed for human pace and why bounded digital delegates outperform unre
How Enterprise Leaders Are Building Their Agentic AI Strategy - with Matt Renner of Google Cloud
Legacy enterprises are facing a decisive shift from stalled pilots and fragmented data toward agentic systems that reshape customer experience, operations, and net‑new revenue. Matt Renner, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Google Cloud, examines how leaders can move beyond early AI failures to build modern data foundations, orchestrate heterogeneous agents, and accelerate transformation in
How AI Is Transforming Governance and Workflow Automation in the Enterprise - with Tsavo Knott of Pieces
The rapid expansion of AI‑driven knowledge work is exposing a growing tension: teams are moving faster across more surface areas, but their context is fragmented across tools, personal systems, and ad‑hoc workflows. In this episode, Tsavo Knott, CEO and co‑founder at Pieces, examines how the shift toward AI‑native individual contributors requires a unified substrate for capturing and retrieving
Making Visual AI Standard Practice in Complex Manufacturing - with Brian Ton of Florida Crystals Corporation
Visual AI gets stuck not because the technology fails, but because enterprises cannot move it from controlled environments into the variability of daily operations. In this episode, Brian Ton, Senior Laboratory Manager at Florida Crystals Corporation, examines why building operational trust in visual AI requires more than a successful pilot — and what actually determines whether a deployment becom
AI, Evolution, and the Future of Human-Centered Farming and Manufacturing - with Kun He of Bayer
A growing reliance on data‑driven systems is creating tension for enterprise leaders between operational efficiency and the human judgment required for high‑risk, high‑reward decisions. In this episode, Kun He, Lead Scientific Advisor at Bayer, examines how AI improves agricultural decision‑making while still leaving critical gaps that only human intuition and risk tolerance can fill, in conversat
Reengineering Work with Intelligent Agents - with Debanjan Saha of DataRobot
A growing share of enterprise work now depends on systems that can support both human and AI agents, exposing bottlenecks in coordination, governance, and cross‑functional process design. In this episode, Debanjan Saha, Chief Executive Officer at DataRobot, examines how enterprises can rebuild their operational architecture to support digital employees at scale in conversation with host Daniel Fa
Inside the Shift to Agentic IT Ops - with Assaf Resnick of BigPanda
Enterprise IT teams are drowning in alert volume as cloud, microservices, and CI/CD pipelines outpace what human operators can process. In this episode, Assaf Resnick, CEO and Founder at BigPanda, examines how agentic AI can shift IT operations from reactive troubleshooting to a prevention-first model built on an enterprise IT knowledge graph. The conversation covers how to build and own that know
Managing AI Agents at Scale Across BFSI Operations - with Yoav Naveh of Reindeer AI
As financial institutions move beyond AI experimentation, the primary bottleneck is no longer capability; it is governance. In this episode, Yoav Naveh, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Reindeer AI, examines how enterprises can operationalize agentic AI inside regulated financial workflows, including the two-loop oversight model that keeps agents compliant, self-correcting, and continuously improving. The
Why Data‑Driven Efforts Stall in Fragmented Environments - with Jason Loomis of Freshworks
Enterprise AI adoption is moving faster than security and governance frameworks can follow, forcing organizations to make difficult trade-offs between competitive urgency and operational risk. In this episode, Jason Loomis, CISO at Freshworks, examines why most enterprises have not yet resolved the tension between AI deployment speed and security maturity, and outlines a sequenced approach; begin
From Connected Agents to Collective Intelligence with Guillaume De Saint Marc of Outshift by Cisco
As enterprises move from single to multi-agent AI deployments, a coordination infrastructure problem is emerging that connectivity protocols alone cannot solve. In this episode, Guillaume de Saint Marc, VP of Engineering at Outshift, examines why agents that can communicate still fail to collaborate — and outlines the semantic alignment, shared memory, and authorization architecture required to ad
Building Compute Foundations for the Physical Economy - with Drew Henry of ARM
A widening gap between mature digital compute and the newly awakening physical world is forcing enterprises to rethink how they embed AI into logistics, manufacturing, and other high‑stakes environments where errors carry real operational risk. In this episode, Drew Henry, Executive Vice President for Physical AI at Arm, joins host Daniel Faggella and examines how leaders are navigating the shift
AI Copyright Risk in Financial Services and the Limits of Legacy Licensing - with Roanie Levy of CCC
A surge in AI adoption is creating a rights gap inside financial institutions, where everyday workflows now generate copyrighted reproductions at a scale existing governance models were never built to manage. In this episode, Roanie Levy, Licensing and Legal Advisor at CCC, joins host Yolandi de Weerdt and examines how AI‑driven content use is outpacing traditional licensing frameworks and why lea
How Financial Services Leaders Operationalize Safe AI - with Dr. Oscar A. Rodriguez of Citi
The rapid expansion of AI in financial services is creating a widening gap between enterprise ambition and the operational readiness required to deploy systems that are secure, compliant, and trusted. In this episode, Dr. Oscar A. Rodriguez, Vice President of Data Analytics at Citi, joins Daniel Faggella, Emerj CEO and Head of Research, to describe how leaders build the operating model for safe AI
Closing the Decision Gap in Volatile Supply Chains - with Prasad Mahajan of Optilogic and Dr. Gopalendu Pal of Target
Supply chains are moving from predictable planning cycles to a reality where volatility demands continuous redesign and faster decision‑making. In this episode, Dr. Gopalendu Pal, Director of Operations at Target, and Prasad Mahajan, Senior Director of Customer Engagement at Optilogic, examine how leaders can adapt by tightening the gap between sensing disruption and adjusting operations, as Emerj
Why AI in Document-Heavy Workflows Fails Without the Right Foundation - with Sumedh Chaudhary of IBM
Enterprise AI initiatives consistently break down in document-heavy environments, not because the underlying models are inadequate, but because fragmented data silos, page-break context loss, and uncoordinated extraction tools erode the semantic layer AI needs to reason accurately. In this episode, Sumedh Chaudhary, CTO US Industry Market at IBM, breaks down why a multi-agent architecture is the o
AI-Empowered Customer Service, From Hype to Scalable Operations - with Shri Nandan of Comcast
Significant enterprise investment in AI-driven customer service is producing inconsistent outcomes — and the gap between deployment ambition and measurable business value remains striking. In this episode, Shri Nandan, VP of AI Products and Experiences at Comcast, examines why organizational culture and readiness are the primary determinant of whether AI in CX delivers results that move the needle
Unified Predictive Decision Making for Retail Growth - with Felix Hoffmann of 7Learnings
Retailers managing pricing, marketing, and inventory through separate teams with separate data are losing margin not to market volatility, but to decisions that were never designed to work together. In this episode, Felix Hoffmann, CEO at 7Learnings, examines how predictive, unified commercial decision-making replaces reactive, rules-based approaches — and why most retailers underestimate how much
How Commerce Leaders Avoid Renewal Traps and Vendor Drag - with David Cost of Rainbow Apparel
Enterprise software costs are rising while vendor performance often isn't, and AI has fundamentally changed what enterprises can credibly threaten to build in-house. In this episode, David Cost, Chief Digital Officer at Rainbow Apparel, explores how enterprise leaders can restructure vendor contracts to maintain exit leverage, eliminate auto-renewal traps, and use AI-enabled build alternatives as
Moving from Delayed Data to Event-Level Visibility - with Alex Curran of Aptitude Software
Finance teams are being asked to influence outcomes in real time while operating on architectures built for delayed, aggregated, and heavily reconciled data. In this episode, Alex Curran, CEO at Aptitude Software, examines how finance functions can move toward real‑time, event‑level visibility and discusses this shift with host Dan Faggella. She highlights the practical changes required for CFOs —
Scaling Agentic AI in CX Without Losing the Customer - with Shri Nandan of Comcast
As enterprises move agentic AI from controlled pilots into production customer-facing workflows, the gaps in data continuity, governance, and human-agent coordination become the deciding factors in whether AI scales or stalls. In this episode, Shri Nandan, VP of AI Experiences at Comcast, examines why customer experience has become the real stress-test for enterprise AI — and what it takes to scal
How Vertical AI Achieves Defensible Accuracy - with Steve Hasker of Thomson Reuters
The rising use of general‑purpose models in regulated environments is creating a widening gap between what AI can generate and what fiduciary professionals can safely rely on. In this episode, Steve Hasker, CEO at Thomson Reuters, examines how AI must be trained, validated, and governed to deliver the level of accuracy required in legal, tax, and audit workflows in conversation with host Dan Fagge
Fixing the Decision Speed Gap in Modern Supply Chains - with Joris Wijpkema of Optilogic
Supply chain organizations still struggle to respond to major disruptions because their core planning systems can't evaluate structural options or network‑level changes at the speed required. In this episode, Joris Wijpkema, Executive Vice President for Solutions and Strategy at Optilogic, joins host Marilie Fouché and examines how a dedicated, high‑compute modeling layer enables teams to run thou
How Enterprise Leaders Should Measure the ROI of AI - with Darko Todorovic of HTEC
Enterprise AI investments frequently succeed at the pilot stage and collapse at scale, not because the technology fails, but because the organizational conditions for adoption were never established. In this episode, Darko Todorovic, CTO at HTEC Group, examines why most AI ROI gaps originate in poor problem definition and inadequate change management, and outlines how senior leaders can build the
Modernizing Targeting to Close the Field Execution Gap - with Damion Nero of Daiichi Sankyo
Pharma commercial teams are generating more data than ever, but field intelligence is still arriving too late to change rep behavior before the engagement window closes. In this episode, Damion Nero, Global Head of Statistics at Daiichi Sankyo, joins Emerj editor Yolandi de Weerdt to examine why fragmented data pipelines, not a shortage of data, are the structural root of the gap between commercia
How Unified Context Turns AI Into Real Enterprise Performance - with Ravi Marwaha of Arango
Enterprise AI agents fail consistently in production, not because of model limitations, but because they lack a live, temporally aware context layer grounded in the actual current state of the business. In this episode, Ravi Marwaha, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Technology Product Officer at Arango, explores how treating context as infrastructure—rather than a data pipeline problem—enables agen
AI Models as a Commodity and Why Data Foundations Decide Who Wins - with Guillermo B. Vazquez of SAP
Enterprise leaders face a growing gap between rapid AI advancement and the fragmented data and processes that limit their ability to operationalize it. In this episode, Guillermo Vazquez, Chief Architect in the Business Transformation Services for SAP America, examines with host Nick Gersch how harmonized data, standardized processes, and clear identification of differentiating workflows form the
From Overwhelm to Working AI in Pharma and Life Sciences - with Art Shectman of Elephant Ventures
Regulatory volatility, scientific‑grade context requirements, and entrenched legacy processes are creating a level of operational complexity in pharma that makes even high‑value AI initiatives difficult to move from concept to production. In this episode, Art Shectman, CEO at Elephant Ventures, examines with host Marilie Fouché how leaders can cut through that complexity by isolating a single, cle
How AI Is Reshaping the Way Enterprises Build Software - With Tim Sears of HTEC
Individual AI productivity gains are already here, but they are uneven, and they are not the main event. In this episode, Tim Sears, Chief AI Officer at HTEC, argues that the real transformation in software development will arrive when AI becomes a catalyst for teamwork rather than an enhancer of individual performance. The conversation examines why software development is the clearest available m
How Industrial Service Leaders Are Closing the Knowledge Gap Before It's Too Late with Mike Hughes of Peak International Group
The skilled labor crisis in industrial equipment service is not a future problem; it is eroding operational performance now, as retiring engineers take decades of institutional knowledge with them and incoming technicians cannot fill the gap at speed. In this episode, Mike Hughes, Group Service Director at Peak International Group, outlines how service organizations can close the expertise gap thr
Human-Centered AI Development Strategies for CPG Leaders - with Shaje Ganny of Procter & Gamble
A widening gap has emerged between the speed of AI innovation and the ability of large enterprises to deploy it responsibly, leading many organizations to repeat avoidable mistakes in scaling. In this episode, Shaje Ganny, Author, Guest Lecturer, TEDx Speaker, and Digital Transformation Director at Procter & Gamble, joins Matthew DeMello to examine how leaders can ground AI adoption in clear busin
The Pricing Shift Reshaping Enterprise AI Spend - with Adam Mansfield of UpperEdge
The rapid shift from seat‑based licensing to hybrid and consumption‑based AI pricing has made technology spend significantly harder for enterprises to predict and control. In this episode, Adam Mansfield, Practice Leader at UpperEdge, examines how these new pricing models create financial exposure for buyers and why clear forecasting, transparency, and leverage are increasingly difficult to secure
Why the Way AI Feels Is as Important as How It Works - with Carsten Wierwille of HTEC
Enterprise AI initiatives treat design as a finishing step. Carsten Wierwille, Chief Product & Design Officer at HTEC, argues that this is a strategic mistake, and one that explains why so many AI investments produce tools that work technically but fail to change how people actually work. In this episode, Wierwille examines why enterprises keep building AI because they can rather than because they
How Vision AI Scales Across a Manufacturing Network - with Jeff Witt
Computer vision implementations in manufacturing never advance beyond the pilot phase — not because the technology fails, but because deployment is treated as a software problem rather than an operational one. In this episode, Jeff Witt, Digital Transformation Leader at a Fortune 500 global leader in building materials and fiberglass composites, examines the architectural, organizational, and chan
AI Improving Dose Decisions and Patient Outcomes in Oncology- with Shefali Kakar of Novartis
The growing use of AI‑driven modeling in clinical development is exposing how limited traditional, single‑study dose selection and patient assessment methods have been for complex oncology programs. In this episode, Shefali Kakar, Global Head of PK Sciences and Oncology at Novartis, examines how deeper data integration across phases enables more precise dose decisions, clearer safety interpretatio
Breaking Free from AI Overwhelm in Banking and Financial Services - with Art Shectman of Elephant Ventures
The pressure on financial services AI leaders to show board-level results has intensified — yet the pace of vendor pitches, shifting tooling stacks, and stalled pilots has made action feel riskier than waiting. In this episode, Art Shectman, CEO and Founder at Elephant Ventures, breaks down why the instinct to evaluate everything before building anything is the primary obstacle to production, and
Fixing the Pilot‑to‑Production Gap in Enterprise AI - with Ronny Fehling of HTEC
The reason enterprise AI programmes stall is not the technology — it is the sequence in which decisions are made before and after the pilot succeeds. In this episode, Ronny Fehling, Chief AI Transformation Officer at HTEC, examines why AI initiatives lose momentum at the production threshold and what organisational conditions determine whether they make it through. The discussion covers production
Why Deepfake Fraud Beats Your Workflows, Not Your Technology - with Jon-Rav Shende of Thales Group
Deepfake voice fraud is not bypassing enterprise security technology, it is beating the workflows agents rely on to make trust decisions in real time. In this episode, Jon-Rav Shende, Global CTO for Data and AI at Thales Group, outlines where enterprise voice channels are most exposed, why identity, urgency, and business action converging in a single call represents the highest risk point, and wha
Scaling Scientific R&D with AI Supercomputing Infrastructure — with Thomas Fuchs of Eli Lilly
A growing share of pharmaceutical innovation is now constrained not by scientific imagination, but by the infrastructure required to support AI at scale. In this episode of the AI in Business podcast, Thomas Fuchs, Chief AI Officer at Eli Lilly & Company, joins Matthew DeMello to explore how Lilly's new AI supercomputing platform is reshaping scientific discovery and enterprise operations. The con
The Hidden Risk in Every Enterprise AI Vendor Contract - with John Belden of UpperEdge
Boards are pushing CIOs to commit to AI strategies built on contracts written for an entirely different era of enterprise software. In this episode, John Belden, Chief of Research and Strategy at UpperEdge, breaks down the six dimensions of uncertainty CIOs now face when weighing major AI and ERP commitments, and explains why the next five years are about flexibility, not productivity. The conver
The Architecture Shift Behind Reliable Enterprise AI - with Ravi Marwaha of Arango
Context defines accurate, reliable AI decision‑making, forcing enterprises to confront the fragmentation that prevents systems from accessing the information those decisions depend on. In this episode, Ravi Marwaha, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Technology Product Officer at Arango, examines how AI breaks down when it is asked to reason across disconnected architectures that cannot supply a unif
Why Manufacturing's Most Valuable Data Isn't in Any System — with Anand Gnanamoorthy of Ingersoll Rand
A significant share of manufacturing knowledge still lives in the heads of retiring workers, and the window to capture it is closing as operations push toward AI-enabled ways of working. In this episode, Anand Gnanamoorthy, Director of Corporate Strategy and AI at Ingersoll Rand, examines how manufacturers can digitize tribal knowledge, structured operational data, and decades of unstructured arch
Why Predictive AI in Service Only Works on the Right Foundation - with Niken Patel of Neuron7.ai
Enterprise service leaders are realizing that deploying AI for simple productivity gains fails to resolve the underlying issues that cause repeat truck rolls and high costs. In this episode, Niken Patel, CEO and Co-Founder at Neuron7.ai, unpacks why moving beyond basic automation requires a deterministic intelligence layer to make fragmented data ready for complex resolution decision-making. The d
Building Predictive Safety Systems in Energy Operations - with Patricio Rivera of Oxy
Energy organizations have made progress in safety, but most still rely on backward‑looking investigations rather than systems that anticipate when risk is rising. In this episode, Patricio Rivera, Former Vice President of HSE International at Oxy, joins host Matthew DeMello and examines how learning from good days and leveraging existing observation data can strengthen an organization's ability to
What Enterprise AI Looks Like When It's Real - with Lawrence Whittle of HTEC Group
AI enthusiasm has outpaced enterprise readiness, leaving many organizations stuck with pilots that work in the lab but fail to deliver meaningful value in production. In this episode, Lawrence Whittle, Chief Strategy Officer at HTEC Group, joins Emerj's Marilie Fouché to examine how the gap between individual users, isolated use cases, and true end‑to‑end sequences prevents companies from moving b
From Experimentation to Clinical-grade AI in Healthcare - with Alex Tyrrell of Wolters Kluwer
Agentic AI is running into a hard limit: most enterprise systems, security layers, and operational backends aren't yet built to support automated execution at scale. Alex Tyrrel, SVP and CTO of Health at Wolters Kluwer, joins Emerj's Matthe DeMello to unpack how agentic systems adapt models to domain‑specific tasks and act directly inside regulated environments. He outlines the practical requirem
