On the 45th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Jonny LeRoy, CTO of Grainger. Grainger is a Fortune 500 industrial supply company, ensuring seamless operations for a broad range of customers, from hospitals to manufacturing plants and everything in between. With over $16 billion of annual revenue and 26,000 employees, the company provides over 30 million products to support its four and a half million customers. In this conversation, Jonny shares his thoughts on how AI transforms operations at Grainger, quick wins for AI applications in the enterprise, and realistic expectations around today’s AI capabilities.

Quick hits from Jonny:

On AI’s transformative potential: “We’ve got 2 million SKUs in our Grainger brand and 30 million products across the whole portfolio. AI helps us match the right product to the right customer, and that's where it starts to get really powerful.”

On the importance of continuous improvement: “It’s all about solving small problems, one by one. That’s how you unlock AI’s potential—not by waiting for the perfect solution, but by making progress now.”

On AI’s ability to improve the customer experience: “A lot of the customer software we're building is to empower, whether it's our merchandising agents or customer intelligence people, to do their work that drives the business, but produces better data. That data then feeds into potential machine learning AI systems. We can put that into motion, get that in front of customers, and improve that data feedback. We understand the direction we're going, and that's not changing. Understand products, understand customers, bring them together super easily.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 44th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Mike Hamilton, CIO of Cloudflare. Cloudflare is a cloud connectivity company that helps businesses deliver content and applications worldwide while keeping them secure. More than 20% of all internet traffic flows through Cloudflare’s networks, making them an indispensable part of modern internet infrastructure. In this conversation, Mike shares insights into how AI helps filter the noise in cybersecurity, the seamless integration of AI in business operations, and the power of AI to automate the mundane.

Quick hits from Mike:

On AI's role in the future of business: “Artificial intelligence as a technology goes back decades, back into the fifties, starting with academic papers. But the scale of how it gets delivered has been one of the challenges. We're at this interesting turning point now where we've developed something that can actually support this incredible technology to take off.”

On the future integration of AI in business operations: “The area that I want to see worked out the most is around the integration space and how we get business systems to talk to each other, [for example, how AI] technology can read API specifications and start to understand how to create automations based on those specs.. That’s something the AI industry has to nail."

On the impact of AI on human life: “I think humans will live longer as a result of technology, and I don't think we're necessarily going to draw the connection. Just in the same way that technology, like computers, has improved our quality of life, there are going to be many little ways that AI will extend human life. We probably won’t think about it as AI’s doing, but it will be, and it might not even get the credit it deserves.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Leadership is Language by L. David Marquet

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 43rd episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Jack Tam, SVP & CTO of Intuit Mailchimp. Intuit Mailchimp is a comprehensive email marketing and automation platform leveraging advanced AI-driven tools to create personalized, data-driven marketing campaigns. In this conversation, Jack shares insights into the evolution of email marketing in the AI era, the transformative impact of AI on customer engagement, and a glimpse into the future of AI-enabled business growth.

Quick hits from Jack:

On the ability of AI to help small businesses with marketing needs: “Imagine that you can run A/B testing on these marketing experiments. Today you have to watch it, you have to monitor it. We want to be able to let this automate itself, ultimately the owner is still in control, but removing as much of the friction in the experimentation to find the optimal ways to market.”

On how AI might continue to improve the user interface: “If you look at Mailchimp today, it's very much a sort of menu navigation. Click this and click that. I can imagine that it can be a much simpler interface. For example, it could literally just be a Google search bar. And you type in this is what I want to do and all the automation happens behind it."

On AI roles that will become necessary for enterprise businesses: “Over the last year we spent a lot of time talking about LLMs. Now you're seeing much more specialized LLMs based on industry and data. And so I also think there could be roles around how you get the right data into the right LLMs that are necessary for the types of industry that you're working in.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 42nd episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Amit Shah, EVP & CIO of Excelitas Technologies. Excelitas is a global technology company specializing in generating and sensing light in photonics. In this conversation, Amit shares insights into how Excelitas utilizes AI to enhance its photonic technologies, the impact of generative AI on productivity and cybersecurity, and the future of enterprise AI.

Quick hits from Amit:

On AI opportunities in cybersecurity: “I want my cybersecurity vendors to use AI because the bad guys are going to and already are using AI to be more effective in their outcomes. I want them [Cybersecurity Vendors] to make sure they are using AI to reduce the complexity in the fragmented nature of how cybersecurity is done today.”

On the importance of data strategy when leveraging AI: “There's a golden principle in the IT world - Garbage in, garbage out. No matter how good the technology is, if you're feeding garbage to that technology, it's going to spit out garbage. Hallucination is the word people use. What it means to an individual in an enterprise, boils down to the input is not good enough, hence, you're going to have output, which is not good enough."

On the potential of generative AI in the enterprise: “You will be using AI without you knowing you are actually using AI within a corporation. It will be embedded into your data structure where it might be cleaning the data. It will help you execute your business processes faster. Being able to distribute your documents and other data to your employees, your customers, your vendors, and your partners, in a much more secure and efficient manner.

Recent Book Recommendation: Good to Great by Jim Collins

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 41st episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Kirk Ball, former EVP & CIO of Giant Eagle. Giant Eagle is one of the largest regional supermarket chains in the United States, with over 37,000 employees and more than $11 billion in annual revenue. In this conversation, Kirk shares how AI is transforming the retail industry, the impressive scale of Giant Eagle’s operations, and AI’s potential to shape the future of the enterprise.

Quick hits from Kirk:

On how ML is being used by Giant Eagle today: “Machine learning is used in setting the assortment, setting the optimized price, driving traffic from your customers and learning which products are price sensitive, which products aren't. When a season comes or goes or a particular weather day occurs, that changes. [With ML], you know what people want to buy and you have to be prepared for that change and your supply chain has to adjust.”

On how enterprise use cases are evolving for AI: “They've got generative AI assisting with complex support calls and complex customer interactions to give additional guidance and suggestions, to help them make sure that that customer leaves satisfied. The ability to look through legal documents when you do a software or hardware contract, you probably look for 90 percent of the same thing in every contract. Generative AI can do that for us, we can reduce the cost and the cycle time down dramatically.”

On maintaining an innovative culture: “Chance favors the prepared mind. It always does. And it always will. You should constantly be preparing your mind, your team, and your organization.”

Recent Book Recommendation: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order by Ray Dalio

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 40th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Vishal Gupta, Global CTO & CIO of Lexmark. With over 9,000 employees in 170 countries, Lexmark is a global technology company specializing in printing solutions and cloud-enabled IoT imaging technology. In this conversation, Vishal shares insights into how Lexmark uses AI for predictive maintenance and an optimized customer experience, the revolutionary potential of enterprise AI adoption, and how IT leaders navigate the opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies.

Quick hits from Vishal:

On current use cases for AI vision: “We're working with one of the biggest oil change companies on the planet. With our Edge AI technology, we can detect if a car that has come in for an oil change has been greeted by the oil change team within the first three minutes. With this technology, we're already seeing that they're able to save one or two customer drive-offs a day, which pays for the entire month of the technology itself.”

On how Lexmark is capitalizing on emerging technology trends: “We've transitioned a lot based upon the technologies that we have developed into being an IoT and AI company. We launched an offering called Optra two and a half years back. We're doing a lot of work with AI, our printers have IoT sensors, and they last fifty percent longer than the rest of the industry because we're able to stream the data and we're able to use the AI to extend their life.”

On areas of AI that people may be underestimating: “People underestimate the accuracy aspect of AI. They think more about ‘how do I get a project done,’ and not about ‘how do I actually measure accuracy on an ongoing basis to know whether or not I can really trust it.’ Having a set of metrics will let you be objective about it where you're neither leaving a comparative advantage on the table, nor are you completely putting yourself at risk."

Recent Book Recommendation: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 39th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, host Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) talks with Reena Tiwari, Chief Information Officer of LexisNexis. With over 10,000 employees in over 160 countries, LexisNexis is the global leader in tooling and resources for legal research, boasting the world’s largest database for legal and public records information. In this conversation, Reena shares her thoughts on AI integration at LexisNexis, AI applications transforming the legal space, and navigating future trends of AI skills development.

Quick hits from Reena:

On the importance of AI democratization: “It shouldn't be this one person sitting in the ivory tower on top because they are in the AI space, and they get a different privilege. No, everybody should be using those kinds of tools and technologies to improve their day to day lives.”

On introducing generative AI to enterprise teams: “The way I try to coach my team is to really educate ourselves first. What is generative AI? How is it different from the other types of AIs that we have used in the past? Once we understand, then really question our processes.”

On how Lexis+ AI is different from other models: “They [other AI models] don't have real data behind them. Because it's gleaned from websites and they can't name the source of the information. That's where we bring value. We use the latest and greatest technology, which we have been evolving for the last decade, and use that data we have. We implement all of that data to create [Lexis+ AI]. The solution that we provide to our customers is real and it helps them in improving their productivity and efficiency, so they can get their answers faster."

Recent Book Recommendation: Our Iceberg Is Melting by John Kotter & Holger Rathgeber

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.

On the 38th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Mojgan Lefebvre, EVP and Chief Technology & Operations Officer of Travelers. Travelers is a Fortune 500 insurance company offering a range of insurance products to customers across the globe. With over $41 billion in revenue and over 32,000 employees, Travelers is the second-largest writer of U.S. commercial property casualty insurance and the sixth-largest writer of U.S. personal insurance through independent agents. In this conversation, Mojgan joins the show to share her perspective on integrating emerging technology into enterprise operations, prioritizing the customer experience through data-driven insights, and the importance of culture for successful AI adoption.

Quick hits from Mojgan:

On what makes the insurance industry different from other businesses: “We don't manufacture anything and have no physical goods. Everything we do is based on data and information. And so insurance companies have had data in those systems for years, and how you leverage technology to get insights from that data is really core to how we do business.”

On the advantage of leveraging datasets with enterprise AI: “We think that [AI] can be huge for us, as a company that has so much data, so much of which is curated, whether it's our claim documents that we use to train our claim professionals or our underwriting standard operating procedures. The ability to bring all of that together and to leverage a technology that can go through that so quickly and put it at the fingertips of your employees [is powerful].”

On understanding business processes to create impact with AI: “It's very important how you ask questions and how you prompt your AI. It's going to become even more important for your IT organization to truly understand your business and your business processes and have the ability to think of where these technologies will actually make a difference. You can't really do that without understanding the business process and where you can inject the technology."

Recent Book Recommendation: Radical Candor by Kim Scott

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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 Software Innovators is a show where top tech executives share how they innovate at scale. Each episode covers unique insights and stories that will help you succeed as a technology leader. Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at https://www.enterprisesoftware.blog/

Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Luke Reiser and Josh Meer.