On the 60th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (CEO and co-founder, Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) speak to Ronald White, the former CIO of Avanade. Ronald brings deep experience leading global enterprise IT at Avanade and shares actionable lessons from orchestrating large‑scale AI adoption across business functions.

Quick hits from Ronald:

On moving beyond surface-level AI: "What are we going to get past these little parlor tricks and actually do something that impacts the enterprise?"

On proving value through AI adoption: "A lawyer using general AI technology will 100 percent of the time beat a lawyer who is not. Period. End of statement."

On early enterprise wins with AI: "You’re changing the game right away... and so if you don’t stay on top of it and iterate and iterate and iterate, you lose."

Recent Book Recommendation: Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

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Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Discover more great lessons from tech leaders and experts in emerging AI technologies at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer

On the 59th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (CEO and co-founder, Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) welcome Sanjay Macwan, Chief Information Officer at Sprinklr. Sanjay explains how Sprinklr is using AI to enhance customer experience at scale by reducing friction, making engagement intuitive, and ensuring every user feels heard. He also shares practical examples of how internal operations are being optimized through AI.

Quick hits from Sanjay:

On transforming billing with AI: "That workflow from sending a bill to collecting the cash can be incredibly complex. I did solve that in my prior work using AI."

On Sprinklr's AI architecture: "Now we have a platform with three rich components: custom models, GenAI, and allowing our customers to integrate their own models."

On AI making customer experience feel more human: "Even if they couldn't solve the things because there are some physical barriers, I got heard. They heard me. They genuinely reacted to me."

Recent Book Recommendation: All in on AI by Thomas Davenport and Nitin Mittal

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer.

On the 58th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Jaime Montemayor, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at General Mills. They’re reimagining what a food company can be by leveraging AI to reduce waste, tailor marketing, optimize supply chains, and accelerate product innovation. Jaime shares how strategic clarity, cloud-first infrastructure, and clean data enabled these AI transformations, and why being a hands-on, tech-forward CIO is essential to leading through change.

Quick hits from Jaime:

On operational AI scale: "As of today, we have thousands of those machine learning models running day in and day out in the company. And with those models, our teams have the benefit of being able to do predictive analytics to run their business on a day-to-day basis.”

On generative AI adoption: “Up to 30 percent of our workforce is using this new technology consistently. We have some functions like HR... the use rate goes all the way to 65, 75 percent... doing performance assessments or helping people develop specific development plans.”

On ROI and accountability: “In most cases, the value proposition is about driving efficiency, improving time to market, reducing cost, growing the top line. And what I’ve done is that I partner with my CFO... they keep the score for every investment that we make in our organization.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Rewired by Eric Lamarre, Kate Smaje, and Rodney Zemmel

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer.

On the 57th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) talks with Mark Sherwood, EVP & CIO at Wolters Kluwer. Mark shares how his team is applying AI across internal operations and product development. From automating SOP creation to surfacing risk in contracts and predicting IT incidents, each project starts with a specific business challenge and ends with a measurable impact. Wolters Kluwer now sees over half of its revenue from AI-enabled products, a result of decades of domain expertise paired with rapid experimentation.

Quick hits from Mark:

On AI-generated SOPs: “It used to take two or three weeks to finalize and get it done. Now, it's essentially 15 minutes, worst case, probably two minutes, best case.”

On contract lifecycle automation: “It’s not just a, you know, search and replace or search and find or go find all these things, but helping understand, you know, what is the best way to rephrase this.”

On disaster recovery readiness: “We're basically checking all these systems 24-7 to understand, do we have something brewing out there? I mean, hopefully we don't have a disaster, but we want to be prepared just in case we do.”

Recent Book Recommendation: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer

On the 56th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) welcomes Sally Miller, Global Chief Information Officer at DHL Supply Chain. Sally reveals how AI and robotics are reshaping the warehouse floor, the back office, and customer expectations at a company operating 2,500 sites across more than 50 countries. From early bets on generative tools to inclusive bots supporting multi-language teams, she shares the strategy, systems, and human factors required to scale AI across the globe.

Quick hits from Sally:

On strategic clarity for AI: “We look for where people spend time doing non-value-added tasks and ask if AI can do that for them.”

On AI’s impact at DHL: “Where we would be calling over the course of a week to confirm delivery appointments, we now kick off agents and those appointments are confirmed within a couple of hours. We’ve saved that [manual work], we’ve automated it, and we have the data faster. So the downstream processes are more efficient.”

On business framing for AI usage: “I view AI as to the white-collar workforce what robotics was to the blue-collar workforce. It is going to change the way people work, much like the introduction of the personal computer.”

Recent Book Recommendation: The Gray Man by Mark Greaney

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Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top security executives share how moves to the cloud have created an evolved threat landscape that requires new tools to protect against cybercrime. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer

On the 55th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) welcome Richard Donaldson, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Duke Energy. Richard explains how one of the largest regulated utilities in North America is embracing AI to reshape its digital infrastructure and accelerate enterprise-wide transformation. He shares concrete use cases, like Duke Energy Explorer for regulatory responses and generative AI authoring relicensing documentation, and conceptualizes a future where AI-powered drones and intimate co-pilots redefine operational productivity.

Quick hits from Richard:

On strategic clarity for AI: “Everybody’s waiting for me to say we did this AI thing straight out of a science fiction book, but the most valuable stuff doesn’t always come with the spice.”

On AI’s impact at Duke: “We built a conversational AI that harvests data across hundreds of sources for regulatory Q&A. It’s not banan, but it moves the needle every single time.”

On business framing for AI usage: “We spent 2024 doing the unsexy work: protecting data, governing AI platforms. That was the homework. Now we're turning the page and going fast.”

Book Recommendation: Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer.

On the 54th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Max Chan, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Avnet. Avnet is a $20 billion global technology distribution company that plays a critical role in the electronics supply chain, supporting the design, production, and delivery of devices worldwide. In this episode, Max shares how Avnet is utilizing generative AI to transform the way work is done across product design, quoting, customer service, and IT. He outlines their strategic maturity model for AI adoption and why CIOs must lead with experimentation.

Quick hits from Max:

On evolving IT’s role: "[We] moved away from the monolithic type of solutions into a more cloud-first, digital-centric composable architecture. That change truly helped with driving any and every innovation that we are talking about today.”

On framing enterprise AI: "We bucket [AI use] into three types. First, we talk about out-of-the-box generative AI tools… The second bucket is what we like to call embedded AI… Last is truly custom AI solutions."

On generative design: "The engineers, instead of coming with three designs [and having] the customer look at it, come back with some recommendations or questions, [and then] they go back to the drawing board; now they can immediately get in front of a customer [and] say, 'hey, look, these are the things that we can do if this is what you want [and] these are the parameters that you're changing.'"

Recent Book Recommendation: Competing in the Age of AI by Karim Lakhani. "A great cheat sheet for CIOs and CDOs on how to get started and what to avoid."

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer.

On the 53rd episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal AI) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Sineesh Keshav, Chief Technology Officer at Prologis. With over 1.3 billion square feet under management and over 8 billion in revenue, Prologis is the world's largest logistics real estate company. In this conversation, Sineesh shares his perspective on how Prologis drove 95% company-wide adoption of generative AI through personal productivity use cases. He also discusses the future of SaaS as enterprises begin to take greater ownership of their data and AI models, and how AI is enabling a shift from static infrastructure to dynamic, self-optimizing supply chains.

Quick hits from Sineesh:

On understanding build vs. buy with AI: "If everyone has access to the latest, greatest models, which should be our assumption, then the only thing that differentiates your company is your data, and how you use it. And anything that touches proprietary data should be built internally.”

On the importance of enterprise AI strategy: "This isn't something you can afford to sit out. There's a minimum investment every company needs to make—don't skimp on licenses; don't wait to see how it shakes out. Make it accessible, find champions, and start now.”

On how AI empowers employees: "At the most basic level, it's a productivity driver. Some people use it to proofread emails, others use it to summarize a 40-page memo, or draft that memo entirely. Every employee can use it in completely different ways—and that's exactly the point.”

Recent Book Recommendation: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Enterprise AI Innovators is a show where top technology executives share how AI is transforming the enterprise. Each episode covers the real-world applications of AI, from improving products and optimizing operations to redefining the customer experience.

Find more great insights from technology leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise AI Innovators is produced by Josh Meer.