digital transformation and AI integration.
About this Event
Impact AI is coming to Chicago.
After six sold-out editions across Canada, Impact AI arrives in the U.S. for the first time, bringing together senior leaders from manufacturing, industrial products, aerospace, and distribution for candid conversations about what it really takes to create value with AI.
This isn't a day of presentations about what AI could do.
You'll hear directly from executives and AI leaders who are making the decisions: where to invest, which opportunities to pursue, how to move from experimentation to implementation, how to drive adoption across the organization, and what they have learned along the way.
No canned presentations. Real experiences, real challenges, and candid conversations about putting AI to work inside complex organizations.
WHAT YOU'LL WALK AWAY WITH
Across a series of fireside chats and executive conversations, leaders will share perspectives on:
- Where AI is creating meaningful business and operational value
- How they identify and prioritize the right AI opportunities
- What it takes to move from experimentation to implementation
- How they approach adoption and scaling across the organization
- The challenges they encountered along the way
- What worked, what didn't, and what they would approach differently today
You'll leave with practical perspectives from leaders doing the work—not another theoretical conversation about the potential of AI.
WHO'S ON STAGE
The first confirmed speakers:
- Jeff Slater — VP Operations, Eaton
- Pat Quint — CIO, Parts Town
- Andrew Mullen — AI Site Leader, Cleveland-Cliffs
- Ujwal Chejerla — Global Director, AI/ML, Digital, PPG
- Vino Kingston — AI Transformational Leader, Lockheed Martin
- Shawn Eads — CIO, PennEngineering
More speakers will be announced in the coming weeks.
Presale is open and seats are limited.
Where your AI vision turns into action. You've got the strategy. We've got the AI.
Impact AI is an event powered by Vooban and Implementation Engineers.
Agenda
Late to Start, Fast to Scale: PennEngineering’s AI Journey
Info: 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.
How Cleveland-Cliffs Picks AI Projects That Actually Pay
Info: Most industrial AI programs die the same death: a scatter of disconnected pilots, duplicated spend, and no line of sight to the P&L. Cleveland-Cliffs chose a different path: multi-site value stream assessments before writing a single line of code, an upstream-first strategy where each project funds the next, and the discipline to build foundations before attacking decades-old physics black boxes. Andrew shares how they select, sequence, and govern AI projects across facilities, and what he'd do differently.
AI Journey: ow Leaders Decide What to Do First and What to Skip
Info: 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 and which can wait? And how do they avoid the trap of spending every dollar on cost to serve, when the real advantage comes from what customers actually buy on next — speed, variety, and service? Panelists share the frameworks they use to find where AI makes the most difference, how they sequence projects so early wins fund the next ones, and where they see manufacturers differentiating beyond the core product. Practical guidance for leaders at any point on the road.
From part identification to the warehouse floor
Info: PartsTown 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.
Event venue & nearby stays
Morgan MFG, 401 North Morgan Street, Chicago, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.