Time: 11:00 AM
Room: ASC A
The Enterprise AI Journey: ROI, Adoption, and Smarter Build‑vs‑Buy
AI has moved past experimentation -- and leaders are now under pressure to prove value, reshape teams, and make smarter decisions about where to invest.
In this panel, three technology leaders from healthcare, agriculture, and software share real-world perspectives on navigating the enterprise AI journey. This discussion explores the shift from AI hype to ROI-driven decision-making, including how falling costs, vendor premiums, and in-house capabilities are changing the build vs. buy equation.
Our panelists will also examine how organizations are selecting and prioritizing AI use cases, standing up AI Centers of Excellence, and bringing business and IT together, while tackling one of the hardest parts of the journey: driving meaningful adoption and behavior change.
The conversation closes with a look at how AI is transforming engineering practices -- from code assistance to emerging agentic workflows -- and how leaders are rethinking roles, skills, and operating models along the way.
This session offers a candid, leadership-focused discussion for anyone responsible for guiding organizations and teams through the realities of AI adoption -- without overselling, hype, or easy answers.
Amy Browne
VP, Software Engineering
Prime Therapeutics
Amy Browne serves as the Vice President of IT Innovation at Prime Therapeutics, based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. In this role, she leads initiatives to drive technological advancements and innovative solutions within the company.
As Vice President at Cardiovascular Systems, Amy established strategic direction, oversight, and growth of IT capabilities, delivering increasing value to the business. Amy was selected by the CEO to lead the company's digital transformation initiative, resulting in a transformation in customer engagement and providing new digital products to CSI's customers.
Zach Hughes
Vice President of IT Infrastructure & Operations
CHS
Zach Hughes is Vice President of IT Infrastructure & Operations at CHS, a leading energy, grains and foods company and the largest farmer-owned cooperative in the United States. In his role, Hughes leads the Infrastructure & Operations teams as well as our Data, Analytics, and AI teams.
Zach has 27 years of experience in enterprise technology in a variety of disciplines including DevOps, cloud computing, cyber security, and customer-facing digital product leadership. He is passionate about leading innovative technical teams that create a competitive advantage for business.
Prior to CHS, Zach held various IT leadership positions at Wells Fargo and GMAC Financial Services. Zach earned his MA in Organizational Leadership from Bethel University, St. Paul, Minn.
Steve Massey
Vice President, Product Engineering
SPS Commerce
Steve Massey leads Product Engineering at SPS Commerce, where he is responsible for modernizing cloud platforms and scaling the engineering organization that supports them. He leads a global team focused on building resilient, high-performance SaaS systems that power enterprise supply chain operations.
His work centers on bringing practical AI into core products and engineering workflows — embedding predictive analytics, automation, and GenAI capabilities into production systems that serve thousands of customers. Steve focuses on how engineering organizations adopt AI responsibly: deciding what to build, where to partner, and how to balance speed, cost, control, and governance.
He is particularly interested in how AI shifts the role of engineering leadership — from delivering features to architecting durable intelligence into the enterprise.