Impact AI Chicago 2026
Honest conversations with leaders from manufacturing, industrial products, aerospace and distribution on what it really takes to create value with AI: what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently.
The Day at a Glance
Join us as we kick off the very first Chicago edition of Impact AI. We welcome remarkable guests and cover a range of timely topics that will inspire and spark innovation. We take a few minutes to walk you through the program before handing the floor to our first speakers.
On Stage
The hardest part of an AI journey isn't the technology: it's the triage. With more ideas than resources, how do leading manufacturers decide which AI initiatives deserve investment, which can wait, and which will never pay off?
Panelists share the frameworks they actually use to prioritize, how they sequence projects so early wins fund the next ones, and the missteps that taught them where not to spend. Practical guidance for leaders at any point on the road.
On Stage
Ujwal ChejerlaGlobal Director, AI/ML, Digital
Jeff SlaterVP Operations
Session details to be announced soon.
On Stage
Miguel OrdonezSenior Vice President, Supply Chain
Every retirement takes decades of know-how out the door, and with it the context AI agents need to be useful. Vino Kingston, who leads ontology and knowledge work at Lockheed Martin, sits down for a candid conversation on why knowledge capture has become a business-continuity issue, not an IT project.
What gets lost when experts leave, why most capture efforts collect documents instead of understanding, and what leaders should put in place now, before the knowledge they rely on is gone.
On Stage
PennEngineering wasn't first out of the gate on AI, and that might have been its advantage. CIO Shawn Eads walks through the company's accelerated journey: choosing democratized adoption over a centralized model, rethinking the role of ERP and CRM interfaces, and building a custom software capability a mid-sized manufacturer "wasn't supposed to have."
An honest conversation about what worked, what didn't, and how to move fast without breaking trust.
On Stage
Shawn EadsCIO
Parts Town runs on millions of SKUs, same-day delivery promises and aggressive growth targets, and AI now touches almost every part of that supply chain. CIO Pat Quint walks through how the company brought AI into dynamic pricing, inventory forecasting and fulfillment routing, then out to customers and technicians with PartsIQ and FixIQ.
A candid conversation on where to start when the whole supply chain is on the table, how to prioritize, and why governance and a solid data foundation matter as much as the models.
On Stage
As the day comes to a close, we look back on the key takeaways and the most inspiring insights shared on stage. Leave with the ideas and the energy you need to drive innovation and change in your own field.