Open MicFriday

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Schedule

Most Fridays are open discussion — just show up. Featured guests and deep-dives are posted here as they’re confirmed.

• September 25, 2026 Intro - AI, the log is the Agent with Bob Celeste - Open Discussion, Center for Supply Chain Studies This session will introduce Ishaan Sehgal’s white paper and highlight key ideas about AI agents, accountability, and the importance of logs as evidence of AI activity. We’ll also discuss how the Center has begun incorporating some of these concepts into its own AI-enabled workflows and project practices.
• October 2, 2026 Building an NDC12 App with AI: From Idea to Working Tool in Hours with Herb Wong, CEO, NewInsight.ai Herb Wong, CEO of NewInsight.ai, will share his experience using AI to build a practical application to help companies prepare for the transition to the 12-digit National Drug Code (NDC12).Using the AI development platform Lovable.dev, Herb created approximately 70–80% of the initial application in just two hours, while participating in a conference call. The experience changed his perspective on how quickly AI can turn an idea, business requirements, and subject-matter expertise into a functioning application.During the session, Herb will demonstrate the NDC12 Readiness Plan application, discuss how he seeded the AI development process, and share what he learned about working with AI as a development partner. He will also discuss how AI was used to build the broader NDC12.com website.The discussion will provide a practical look at what AI-assisted application development can accomplish today, what expertise we still need to bring to the process, and what this may mean for how industry experts create tools, prototypes, and solutions in the future.
• October 9, 2026 Would You Extend Credit to an AI Agent? with Bob Celeste - Open Discussion, Center for Supply Chain Studies AI Agent Identity, Authority, Reputation and Financial TransactionsAI agents are beginning to do more than provide information. They can take actions, purchase services, initiate transactions, manage resources, and operate with access to funds provided by a person or organization.In some ways, this is already happening. An AI agent may consume services that automatically result in charges to an account or credit card. An agent can be given access to a payment method and instructed to purchase something. And in many online transactions, the seller may have little reason—or ability—to determine whether the party navigating the transaction is a human or an AI acting on someone's behalf.That raises an interesting question: At what point does the identity of the agent matter?Identity leads quickly to authority. An agent might be authorized to spend $500, purchase from certain suppliers, negotiate within defined limits, or execute an investment strategy. But purchasing with someone else's money is different from creating a financial obligation.So what happens when an AI agent wants to borrow money?Imagine an investment agent that has operated for several years. It has its own verifiable transaction history, investment performance, risk behavior, and record of complying with established limits. It doesn't simply execute a fixed algorithm; it can evaluate its results, modify its investment methods, test new approaches, and adapt over time while remaining within defined risk guardrails.If that agent develops a strong track record, could a lender eventually evaluate the agent's performance and behavior when deciding whether to extend credit?And if so, who—or what—is actually the borrower?This opens up a much broader discussion about how we may establish trust in autonomous systems.Some questions we'll explore:When should an AI agent be required to identify itself as an agent?Is knowing the agent's identity enough, or do we really need to know who authorized it and what it is authorized to do?What's the difference between an agent having authority to spend money and authority to borrow money?Could an AI agent develop something analogous to a financial reputation or credit history?Could lenders someday underwrite an agent based partly on its demonstrated performance, risk management, and transaction history?If an investment agent can change its own methods, how do we know whether its historical performance still predicts its future behavior?Should an agent's authority include hard limits—such as spending, leverage, counterparties, or types of transactions—that the agent itself cannot change?When should a human approve an action, and when is a periodic consultation between the human and agent more useful than approving every transaction?If an autonomous agent makes a bad financial decision, where does accountability ultimately reside?The bigger question may not be whether AI agents will participate in financial transactions. They already participate in economic activity today.The more interesting question is:How will we decide which agents we trust, what we allow them to do, and eventually, whether we're willing to lend them money?
• October 23, 2026 Agentic Commerce and the Future of Supply Chain with Stephan Baur, Principal IT Architect, Enterprise Architecture, Kaiser Permanente, Information Technology    AI is moving beyond chatbots and dashboards into systems that can act, negotiate, purchase, coordinate, and respond on behalf of people and organizations. This emerging world of agentic commerce raises important questions for supply chain leaders: What happens when AI agents participate in buying, selling, planning, and exception management? In this session, we’ll explore how agentic AI and emerging commerce protocols could affect supply chain operations, trading partner relationships, data exchange, trust, and governance. The discussion will be designed for both business and technical audiences, focusing on practical implications rather than hype.

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Previous discussions

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Recordings are published to the C4SCS YouTube channel after each call. Recent sessions, newest first:

• September 18, 2026 From Farm to Fork: Why Food Traceability Is Harder Than It Sounds with Ben Miller, Ph. D., MPH, COO & EVP of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, The Acheson Group LLC   When food moves from farms to processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, and consumers, the path is rarely simple. Ingredients are mixed, transformed, repacked, relabeled, and routed through many trading partners before reaching the plate. FSMA 204 is changing how the food industry thinks about traceability, not just as a compliance requirement, but as a public health, data-sharing, and supply-chain coordination challenge.In this session, we’ll discuss what the rule is intended to accomplish, why food traceability is harder than it sounds, how the FDA is framing the path forward, and what industry pilots are revealing about interoperability, supply-chain partner readiness, and the role of using probability to understand likely product paths when perfect data is unavailable. This discussion is designed for food industry professionals, technology providers, supply chain leaders, public health stakeholders, and anyone interested in how better data can improve food safety and outbreak response. Watch the recording →
• August 28, 2026 From Paper Receiving to AI Augmentation: 45 Years Inside Hospital Supply Chain with Todd Brandt, Mayo Clinic, Senior Director, Supply Chain Operations Todd has spent 45 years working in the hospital supply chain, and we’ll be exploring how the field has evolved from paper-based receiving and manual coordination to today’s world of data, automation, AI, and digital twins.This discussion will go well beyond purchasing. The hospital supply chain functions as an operational nervous system connecting clinical care, facilities, finance, technology, risk, and patient flow. We’ll talk about what has changed, what has stayed surprisingly consistent, what executives and technologists often misunderstand, and where AI and automation can genuinely help.This will be a great conversation for healthcare leaders, supply chain professionals, technology providers, and anyone interested in how complex hospital operations really work. Watch the recording →
• August 21, 2026 Marketing technology in an AI world with Leah Beitler, Listrak / VP of Partnerships and Ecosystem We will explore how Listrak is using AI in marketing technology, offering a different perspective for our audience. We’ll hear how AI is shaping customer engagement, personalization, and the movement of signals, content, offers, and feedback through the marketing ecosystem.For supply chain professionals, this creates an interesting parallel: marketing can also be viewed as a kind of supply chain, where AI helps connect demand signals, decisions, and actions more effectively. Watch the recording →
• August 14, 2026 AI and Business Intelligence: Opportunities and Risks with Dr. Swamy Narayanaswamy, Triggerware.ai AI is creating new opportunities for business intelligence, from improving analytics workflows to combining external data with internal data streams for richer, real-time analysis.  This discussion will focus on practical cost, security, governance, and trust considerations, while also exploring how AI can help organizations turn disparate data sources into business insights. Watch the recording →
• July 31, 2026 AI in supply chain — practical use & pitfalls with Open Discussion This week, we'll take a deeper dive into practical ways AI is being used, where it can create real value, and where organizations should be cautious. We’ll also discuss common pitfalls, including poor data quality, unclear business objectives, overreliance on automation, trust and transparency issues, and the challenge of moving from pilots to production. Watch the recording →
• July 24, 2026 AI in Practice: From Personal Productivity to Product Innovation with Open Discussion Open Mic Friday is back, and we hope you'll join the discussion.Many executives are being pressured to “have an AI project,” but AI is already showing up in many ways: helping individuals work faster, helping organizations improve productivity, supporting product development, and becoming part of product features. Let’s talk about where AI is actually being used, what seems useful, what may be overhyped, and how organizations can think about AI in practical terms.