The AI in Business Podcast

Episodios

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  Closing the Gap Between Commercial Plans and What Happens on the Shelf - with Stephanie Lilley of Reckitt 15.09.2026 24m

  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 cycles and fragmented store-level data keep that gap open, and where AI is starting to close it — from image recognition that verifies in-store compliance to dynamic routing that sends field teams to the stores with the highest return — with host Daniel Faggella, Emerj CEO and Head of Research. ​ She outlines the practical shifts underway: from fixed call files toward a mix of core relationship stores and flexible, ROI-driven visits, from full-time field coverage toward crowdsourced compliance checks, and from geography as the deciding factor toward the quality and recency of store-level data. ​ Learn how these conversations drive pipeline for AI brands — download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  Why Traditional Training Can't Keep Technical Teams Current - with Nicola Lyons of Andela 14.09.2026 19m

  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 without turning into another mandatory course. ​ This episode is sponsored by Andela. ​ Reach VP+ leaders at America's largest enterprises through Emerj's podcasts. Emerj reaches 1 million listeners annually. Learn how AI brands use Emerj to generate leads: emerj.com/AD1
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  Responsible Generative AI in Healthcare and What Leaders Need to Know for 2026 - with Rhett Alden of Elsevier Health 08.09.2026 21m

  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 governance boards modeled on clinical trial review structures, the limits of current US regulation, and why final clinical responsibility remains with the physician. Learn the strategies Emerj uses to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers: emerj.com/AD1    
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  Building AI Into Systems That Can't Afford to Be Late - with Drew Barbier of MIPS 04.09.2026 20m

  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, produces measurably better outcomes in real-time compute design. The conversation covers a real-world example of a three-to-five-times performance gain from workload-first design, what changes on a team's side when real-time becomes a starting requirement instead of an afterthought, and how leaders can tell within six months whether their approach is working. This episode is sponsored by MIPS. Learn how to structure landing pages for higher conversion, and how to use self-qualification systems to prioritize high-intent leads. Download our free PDF report, "B2B AI Lead Generation Guide," at emerj.com/aig1  
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  AI-Powered Revenue Operations: The Future of Sales for SMBs - with Vanessa Tabbert of Salesforce 02.09.2026 30m

  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 ones. The conversation covers how to identify a low-risk first use case, why an AI agent should be coached and measured like a team member rather than launched and left alone, and how the same approach scales down to a small SMB sales team. This episode is sponsored by Salesforce. ​ To learn the exact strategies we use to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers, visit: emerj.com/AD1
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  Where Agentic AI Pays Off in the B2B Back Office - with Chris Bradley of Veritiv 01.09.2026 20m

  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 handling 1.7 million orders a year. The conversation covers the audit-trail controls needed to trust an agent with an end-to-end task, how a supervising AI agent checks another agent's work, and how to pick a first automation target based on headcount concentration rather than project size. ​ If you offer AI products or services into the enterprise, you need to find enterprise leaders with relevance and readiness. Emerj attracts VP+ enterprise audiences who are already convinced that they need to move beyond traditional IT. To learn the exact strategies we use to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers, visit: emerj.com/AD1
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  The Real‑World Conditions That Shape Industrial AI - with Scot Burdette of ABB 31.08.2026 25m

  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 frontline usability, and shares how ABB's own tools are helping a retiring generation's expertise transfer to the workers replacing them, with Emerj host Marilie Fouché. ​ He outlines the practical shift underway, from siloed, tribal knowledge toward a shared operational data layer, and from pilots that prove a concept to the design and implementation work that changes how a factory runs. ​ This episode is sponsored by Poka.   To learn the exact strategies we use to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers, visit: emerj.com/AD1
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  Closing the Skills Intelligence Gap in the AI Era - with Cory Hymel of Andela 27.08.2026 26m

  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 with a technical skill half-life that's now down to two or three years.   This episode is sponsored by Andela.   Learn how select AI vendors reach Fortune 500 decision-makers through Emerj's research and media platforms. Download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  Scaling Agentic Automation With Open Architecture - with Arun Chandra of NICE 26.08.2026 23m

  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 how open protocols like MCP are reshaping enterprise architecture decisions.   This episode is sponsored by NiCE Cognigy.   Learn how leading organizations approach AI investment more like a venture portfolio, and why interdisciplinary collaboration is critical to defining the right data for AI success. Download our free PDF report, "Beginning with AI," at emerj.com/aik1
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  AI for Patient Critical Uptime in a Shrinking Technician Workforce - with Michael Goldman 25.08.2026 22m

  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 workflows, and enabling earlier, more accurate equipment diagnostics — in conversation with host Yolandi de Weerdt.   Learn how leading brands and AI startups connect with enterprise AI buyer audiences at scale, download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1    
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  Intelligent Operations at Enterprise Scale - with Dave Glick of Walmart 24.08.2026 22m

  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 scale this work, the governance model that keeps experimentation safe, and why closing the distance between engineers and the people using their tools speeds up every iteration. ​ This episode is sponsored by BigPanda.   If you offer AI products or services into the enterprise, you need to find enterprise leaders with relevance, and readiness.   Emerj attracts VP+ enterprise audiences who are already convinced that they need to move beyond traditional IT.   To learn the exact strategies we use to help leading AI brands and startups connect with their ideal enterprise AI buyers, visit: emerj.com/AD1
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  How Leaders Build for the Next Era of Compute - with Sam Grove of MIPS 20.08.2026 25m

  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 RISC-V standard instead of defending a proprietary instruction set, with host Yolandi de Weerdt.   The conversation also covers how tools like MIPS Atlas Explorer help engineering teams see where hardware acceleration pays off before silicon gets committed, and why the real risk in overhauling a build process is rarely the technology — it's bringing already-productive teams along with the change.   This episode is sponsored by MIPS.   Learn how these conversations drive pipeline for other AI brands — download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  How Regulated Enterprises Turn Governance Into AI Scale - with Julian Tang of BlackRock 18.08.2026 18m

  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 reactive experimentation to intentional, enterprise‑wide AI deployment, in conversation with host Matthew DeMello.   He highlights the practical shifts required to reduce friction, build trust in AI systems, and create repeatable playbooks that let teams scale responsibly and with confidence.   Learn how to identify real AI trends by tracking where venture funding is flowing, and by listening to how leading CEOs describe risk and competitive strategy. Download our free PDF report, "3 Ways to Discover AI Trends in Any Sector" at emerj.com/ait1  
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  Determining Virtual Cell Impact for Drug Discovery - with Kristóf Szalay and Gerold Csendes of Turbine 17.08.2026 41m

  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. They cover why benchmarking remains fragmented across the field, how pharma teams build confidence in a model before trusting it with real R&D decisions, and how compressing the feedback loop between experiments can cut months out of the discovery process.   This episode is sponsored by Turbine.   Emerj works with a select group of AI vendors to reach Fortune 500 decision makers through research, media, and direct access. If you want to be considered, download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  [AI Futures] Paolo Ardoino of Tether on Merger or Obsolescence - The Future for Humanity (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 3) 15.08.2026 40m

  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 conversation with host Daniel Faggella, Emerj CEO and Head of Research.   The discussion focuses on emerging consumer use cases, long‑term cognitive augmentation, and the safeguards needed to keep these systems private and safe.   Emerj works with a select group of AI vendors to reach Fortune 500 decision makers through research, media, and direct access. If you want to be considered, download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  The Predictive Model Reshaping Retail Operations at Scale - with Chris Slovak of Unframe 13.08.2026 37m

  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 approach, including an inventory intelligence deployment that saved tens of thousands of dollars in time and data costs, and a deployment cycle that shrank from nine months to two weeks.   This episode is sponsored by Unframe.   Emerj works with a select group of AI vendors to reach Fortune 500 decision makers through research, media, and direct access. If you want to be considered, download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  Managing Change Across Modern Financial Operations - with Ajay Swamy of JPMorganChase and Founder of FundLens.ai 13.08.2026 21m

  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, and what it takes to make AI‑driven decisions explainable enough to trust at scale.   The conversation covers evaluating AI for regulated environments, building oversight into agentic systems, and treating trust as something institutions have to engineer deliberately rather than assume.   This episode is sponsored by Reindeer.   To go deeper on this topic and learn how financial institutions are digitizing paper-based records to unlock usable data for AI, and using alternative data like public web and social signals to enhance risk assessment, download our free PDF report, "AI in Financial Services Executive Cheat Sheet" at emerj.com/fcs1
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  The Future of Customer Success and Turnkey AI Agents for SMBs - Matt Kravitz of Salesforce 12.08.2026 24m

  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 adoption. The conversation also covers a channel-strategy framework for deciding which support requests to deflect, route to digital-assisted support, or escalate to a live conversation, and how a business's overall service model should guide which use case to prioritize first.   This episode is sponsored by Salesforce.   In this episode, we cover how enterprise service leaders can sequence AI agent adoption — starting with agents that answer common questions, then adding account-data access, and finally the ability to take action on a customer's behalf. To go deeper on this topic, download our free PDF report, 'Beginning with AI,' at emerj.com/aik1
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  What Mature Security Programs Need Before Deploying AI - with Mark Alvarado of Academy Sports + Outdoors 11.08.2026 28m

  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 highlights the operational foundations that determine whether AI strengthens detection and response or simply magnifies unresolved weaknesses.   Learn how leading brands and AI startups connect with enterprise AI buyer audiences at scale, download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1
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  Closing the Medical Device Knowledge Gap with AI Driven Field Service - with Ryan Makely of Bruker 07.08.2026 31m

  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 future AI‑enabled support capability — in conversation with Emerj's Marilie Fouché.   Leaders will hear practical themes around building structured knowledge foundations, reducing repeat‑visit failure cycles, and preparing service teams for scalable AI adoption.   This episode is sponsored by Aquant.   Learn more about how Emerj drives  pipeline for other AI brands - download our media kit at emerj.com/AD1