Making Industrial AI Deliver Real Operational Value With IFS
Release Date: 09/01/2026
Rebuilding Trust in Pet Insurance With AI and Lassie
Tech Talks Daily
Why do pet owners so often learn the limits of their insurance when an animal is already ill and the veterinary bill is growing? That trust problem sits at the center of my conversation with Hedda Båverud Olsson, co-founder and CEO of Lassie, a pet insurer that combines coverage with preventative health guidance, rewards, activity tracking, and AI-assisted claims. Hedda’s reason for starting Lassie is personal. Her mother is a veterinarian, and Hedda grew up around healthy pets without fully appreciating how much fear and financial pressure many owners experience. After working at McKinsey...
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Proving AI Value in Architecture and Construction With Nemetschek
Tech Talks Daily
How much of construction’s cost, delay, and waste begins with information that fails to survive the journey from design to delivery? That question runs through my conversation with Julian Geiger, Chief AI Officer at Nemetschek Group, as we look at the practical role of AI across architecture, engineering, construction, and operations. Julian describes what he calls the industry’s 90, 40, 20 problem. According to the figures he shares, 90 percent of projects are over budget or over time, the built world accounts for roughly 40 percent of global carbon emissions, and around 20 percent of...
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Why Enterprise AI Agents Fail Beyond the Model With Databricks
Tech Talks Daily
Why do businesses replace the AI model when the failure may have started somewhere else entirely? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Richard Shaw, Technology General Manager for Databricks in the UK and Ireland. Richard leads the field engineering organization that works closely with customers on data and AI problems, giving him a practical view of what happens when promising agentic AI projects meet production workloads. Richard argues that the model often receives the blame because it is the most visible part of the system. The actual fault may come from stale data, missing...
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Turning AI Investment Into Measurable Business Value With HP
Tech Talks Daily
How can businesses turn growing investment in AI infrastructure, cloud capacity and devices into outcomes that employees, customers and finance teams can actually measure? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Neil Sawyer, who manages HP’s business across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Neil works with companies across one of HP’s largest global regions as they move from AI experimentation into wider deployment, making him well placed to discuss what happens when early enthusiasm encounters cost, security, governance and the realities of the workforce. We begin with the gap...
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Turning Two Hours of Document Work Into Eight Minutes With Templafy
Tech Talks Daily
What could your team achieve if a document that previously took two hours could be created in eight minutes? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Oskar Konstantyner, Chief Product Officer at Templafy, about the rapid adoption of AI agents across enterprise document workflows and what those productivity gains mean for knowledge workers. According to Templafy’s proprietary usage data, AI agent adoption among its enterprise users grew from virtually zero in October 2025 to 53% by June 2026. Its analysis found that documents created without agents had a median completion time of two...
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When AI Gets Your Brand Wrong With Bluefish AI
Tech Talks Daily
What happens when an AI system gives a customer the wrong price, misrepresents a product, or recommends a competitor using outdated information? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Alex Sherman, co-founder and CEO of Bluefish AI, about the growing influence of AI-generated answers on brand reputation, product discovery, and purchasing decisions. Search once gave companies a reasonably visible path between a customer’s question and the websites informing the answer. AI changes that relationship. Systems such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Rufus, and other assistants combine information...
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What Does AI Say About Your Brand With DOM
Tech Talks Daily
What happens when an AI assistant becomes the first place a potential customer learns about your company, but the answer it provides is inaccurate, outdated, or influenced by a competitor? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Justin Seibert, founder and president of DOM, also known as Direct Online Marketing, about generative engine optimization, AI search visibility, and the brand narratives being assembled by ChatGPT, Claude, Google AI, and other answer engines. Justin has worked in digital marketing since 2001 and founded DOM in 2006. He has watched search marketing develop...
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Modernizing the Power Grid for AI and Rising Demand With SAP
Tech Talks Daily
Can electricity grids built for an earlier era support AI data centers, expanding manufacturing, electric vehicles, severe weather, and rising customer expectations at the same time? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Mark Hollis, utility executive advisor at SAP, about the pressures reshaping the utility industry and the practical choices available to leaders today. Mark spent over 15 years at Duke Energy before moving to SAP, where his work gives him visibility into utility organizations across North America. Mark describes a combination of load growth, disruption, long...
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Turning AI Agents Into Revenue Workflows With Outreach
Tech Talks Daily
What happens when an AI system moves beyond recommending the next sales action and begins running a connected revenue workflow? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Abhijit Mitra, CEO of Outreach, about the operational work required to turn agentic AI into measurable revenue outcomes. Abhijit argues that adding another AI tool can create extra complexity when customer data remains fragmented and applications cannot share context. The starting point is the business process: what problem is being solved, which data supports it, what agents may do, and where human judgment remains...
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Building a Faster Specialty Insurance Market With Accelerant
Tech Talks Daily
What would happen if specialty insurance underwriters and risk capital providers could work from the same timely, detailed information? In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Jeff Radke, CEO and cofounder of Accelerant, about the infrastructure behind specialty insurance and why his team chose to rebuild it around a data-driven risk exchange. Jeff has spent decades in reinsurance broking, reinsurance underwriting, and specialty insurance across New York, Bermuda, and London. That experience gave him a direct view of a process he describes as expensive, slow, and supported by weak...
info_outlineWhat happens when an AI system moves beyond generating answers and begins influencing machinery, maintenance schedules, technician dispatch, and safety?
In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I speak with Bob De Caux, Chief AI Officer at IFS, about moving industrial AI from promising pilots into dependable production deployments.
Bob explains why access to advanced models is no longer the main obstacle. Successful enterprise AI depends on understanding the processes, operational logic, metadata, and boundaries surrounding each decision. An AI system ordering a replacement bearing for a wind turbine must meet a very different standard from one generating a nursery rhyme.
We hear how IFS customer Kodiak Gas is using a digital worker to support material replenishment. According to Bob, the company projects approximately $3 million in annual return and 90,000 hours returned to technicians for higher-value work.
Our conversation also covers AI sovereignty. Bob argues that sovereignty means retaining control over data, decisions, providers, and the ability to keep operating under changing circumstances. He compares the technology layer to a duck paddling furiously beneath calm water. Models may change rapidly, while the operational application above them must remain stable, tested, and auditable.
We discuss staged autonomy as a way to earn worker confidence, beginning with manual questions, progressing to recommendations, and granting greater authority only after consistent performance. Bob also explains why agents need identities, permissions, defined roles, separation of duties, sponsors, and complete audit trails.
Accountability remains with the organization deploying the system. In an industrial environment, an agent can produce a harmful action rather than an inaccurate answer. Even after 999 successful decisions, the thousandth can carry catastrophic consequences.
Is your organization measuring AI through pilot counts, or through uptime, cost, technician capacity, turnaround time, and safety? Listen to the conversation and share your thoughts with me.